Messages from our Honourary Co-chairs
Carol Anne Meehan & Graham Richardson
Honourary Co-Chairs
CN Cycle for CHEO
CArol Anne Meehan
For years I have participated in the CHEO Telethon on CTV, helping tell the stories of the everyday miracles performed there. My task also included introducing the medical professionals who consider what they do every day much more than a job. And along the way I met so many wonderful children and their grateful families. I knew that we here in the nation's capital are lucky to be home to a Children's Hospital.
Then I had children.
As the cliché goes - everything changes once you become a parent yourself.
When my son Evan was just over two - my husband and I had the scare of our lives. While on an outing with my sister and her children, Evan started to swell up and turn blue. He was having difficulty breathing. My sister raced him to a nearby fire station where firefighters administered an epi-pen. Paramedics transported him to CHEO. When I arrived - scared and panicked, a nurse greeted me in Emergency with an immediate update, and then escorted me to where he was being treated. My little boy was hooked up to monitors, oxygen masks....a frightening array of equipment. What I remember most about that day was how everyone there cared so much - for Evan and for my husband and me. They treated us as a family. Evan went home that night. We learned a lesson about a scary episode with anaphylaxis. But we also came away with a new appreciation of how, at CHEO, one child - your child, is more than just a little body in a bed.
Several years later during a routine checkup our daughter's pediatrician heard an unusual sound while listening to her heart. Elena was six months old and the picture of health.
So we were bewildered - and concerned. Within a week our baby girl was in CHEO's cardiac unit. A wonderful nurse was so gentle in administering the medication that would send our screaming child off to dream land. My husband and I were both encouraged to stay during the cardiac tests, and we were kept informed all along the way. Once again we had a good outcome.
Elena had a hole in her heart. She was monitored for two and a half years, and when she turned three a follow up test at CHEO showed her heart had repaired itself. Had it not, we would have been faced with heart surgery. Given our experience with CHEO we knew that if that had to happen, Elena would be in the best hands possible.
I happily continue to participate in the Telethons for CHEO. But today, as a parent who has been on the receiving end of wonderful care, it takes on new meaning.
I am so proud to be an honorary co-chair of the CN Cycle for CHEO and I strongly encourage you to become a participant, or support the event with a pledge to the McDonald’s Dream Team; Molly, Brandon and Lauren.
Carol Anne Meehan
CTV Ottawa
Graham Richardson
It’s really about that look in their eyes. A parent worried about what is next. A child who is bravely facing a very grown-up illness. And the professionals at CHEO who help them through it all.
As a parent, I’ve thankfully come to CHEO for minor things. A high fever and earache in the middle of the night. A pebble curiously jammed into a 7 year old’s ear, stubbornly not willing to budge.
There is that understanding glance from the professionals at CHEO – who put scared children and worried parents at ease.
My family’s experience is so minor compared with what Molly, Brandon and Lauren and their families have to face. My experiences are thankfully some of those countless little things that CHEO brings to this community. For others, it’s so much bigger.
I’m asking you to join us for the 2010 CN Cycle for CHEO – May 2nd at the Canadian War Museum and surrounding NCC Grounds. If you can’t join us for the ride, please donate online.
Graham Richardson
CTV Ottawa
