Three dead, two hospitalized, following collision in Fredericton: police
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
When Carla Garrett’s son, Xavier, was diagnosed with a brain tumour as a baby, there were few resources to help her understand what it meant to navigate palliative care for a child.
Now, Garrett, along with other parents who have lost their children, care providers and medical experts, are launching a website designed to support parents going through the terrifying ordeal of caring for a child who may have limited time.
Garrett told CTV National News that when Xavier was diagnosed with an incurable tumour, it was difficult to understand what it all meant.
“It’s really hard to process that information,” Garrett said. “It just doesn’t sink in. And it really didn’t sink in for me until I had another mother explain all the supports we could get with paediatric palliative care, if we accepted the care.”
Xavier, who died a few years ago just shy of his eighth birthday, had a rare form of brain cancer which had survival rates just between five and 25 per cent.
His parents spent years travelling a painful and often lonely journey through the medical system in search of the best care for him — and they are far from alone. In Canada today, as many as eight thousand families are caring for a seriously ill or dying child.
The aim of this new website, is to provide those families with support that wasn’t accessible back when Xavier was first diagnosed.
Called ‘caringtogether.life’, the website is the first of its kind for child palliative care, based off the model of the adult version for Canadian Virtual Hospice, which provides information and support on palliative care and advanced illness for adults.
“I want these families to know that there are supports available, that there is education available, that the ‘what if’ questions that many of them are asking, typically late at night when there is nobody there to turn to, they can go online and get those answers and find out who are the people locally that they can connect to to have further conversations on this,” Dr. Adam Rapaport, a pediatric palliative care specialist with Sick Kids Hospital, told CTV News.
The website aims to serve as a hub to connect people with services and other families who may be going through many of the same challenges. It also has pages walking families through the impact on members of the family outside of the child who is suffering, as well as resources on how to plan for end of life care and the grieving process.
For the Garrett family, who had navigated much of Xavier’s illness alone, there’s hope this online resource will help open hearts and minds to the concept of palliative care for children.
In a post entitled ‘Xavier’s Story’ on the new website, Garrett details how seeing the word ‘palliative’ written down on a piece of paper about her then eight-month-old baby was confusing and disorienting, making her think that he was already at the end of his life.
But now, she wants to help others understand that it’s about ensuring your child has the best quality of life for however long he is with you.
“Palliative care doesn’t [just] mean end of life care, it is something you can have as part of your entire journey of the child’s life from the beginning to the end,” Garrett told CTV News.
And although it’s a journey that will always be a difficult one for families, now it comes with a little more help and support.
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
Amid scientists' warnings that nations need to transition away from fossil fuels to limit climate change, Canadians are still lukewarm on electric vehicles, according to a study conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News.
A Montreal man is warning Tesla drivers about using the Smart Summon feature after his vehicle hit another in a parking lot.
Madonna put on a free concert on Copacabana beach Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro's vast stretch of sand into an enormous dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans.
One person was killed and 23 others were injured when a bus crashed early Sunday on Interstate 95 in northern Maryland, police said.
The Maple Leafs battled back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2-1 victories - including one that required extra time - in their first-round playoff series to push the club's Original Six rival to the limit before suffering a devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.