| Sunset Above the
Clouds: Flying for Hope
by Karli Fisher
Gerd Wengler, who worked for ten years underground in the
mines of Saskatchewan, spends much of his time these days
flying high above the earth as a volunteer pilot for Hope
Air.
Gerd first heard about Hope Air while listening to a radio
interview wherein a pilot was discussing his flights for
the charity. Gerd knew immediately that he wanted to volunteer
since he is an experienced airline transport pilot with
his own Cessna 182 airplane.
No modifications or accommodations were necessary for him
to
use his plane to transport passengers. He can fly up to
three people and because the patients’ doctor needs
to clear them on being well enough to fly, Gerd requires
no first aid training, although he does have a first aid
kit onboard.
Gerd has been volunteering for Hope Air for seven years.
He also serves on the charity’s Board of Directors.
He works weekdays as President of Park Property Management
Inc., a company that rents apartments and industrial buildings,
and flies mainly on weekends. Hope Air's head office co-ordinates
the flights by sending Gerd the name of the patient following
which he calls them to make the detailed arrangements. His
flights usually involve traveling to Northern Ontario to
drop off or pick up passengers, and tend to take around
six hours.
Gerd has flown a variety of passengers over the years, from
young children to the elderly. Some like to talk during
the flight, some sleep, others remain silent. Some have
never flown in an airplane before. For these passengers,
the flight makes a big impression.
As is the case when dealing with passengers who have serious
illnesses,not all stories have happy endings. Gerd has flown
people who later passed away. One of his frequent passengers,
a little girl with bone cancer, died after battling the
illness for several years. Another, an elderly man from
London, Ontario, made the flight to an Ottawa hospital but
two months later a nurse at the hospital wrote to Hope Air
to inform them that the man had passed away. "He was
very ill and couldn't leave the hospital,” says Gerd.
“but he had told the nurse about his flight, and said
that ‘it was the most wonderful thing that had happened
in his life’".
"Gerd is a very active member of our Board,"”
says Doug Keller-Hobson, Executive Director for Hope Air.
“He brings his insight and experience as a pilot to
our meetings, which helps in understanding of how things
are being run.
Gerd is also one of the founders of Hope Air’s Volunteer
Pilot Program (VPP), initiated in 1999. The program helps
patients living in rural communities without access to a
nearby commercial airport get to the healthcare they deserve.
Gerd has encouraged his fellow fliers to fly for Hope Air.
And his
wife Dorothy also volunteers for Hope Air as the Assistant
VPP Coordinator: she matches the pilots with the patients.
“"He has a lot of heart and puts a lot of heart
into the program," says Ian Campbell, Manager, VPP.
Seeing Green Cheese
By Carolyn Ovell
Seonaid Stark is midway through an episode
of her favourite show Dora the Explorer when she
hears her big sister, two rooms away, ask their mother,
Allison Stark, for a sweet from the kitchen. As quickly
as she can grant her eldest’s request, Allison is
not surprised to find four-year-old Seonaid, whose Gaelic
name is pronounced “Shauna,” tugging at her
side asking for the same treat. Seonaid, like any younger
sibling “can’t see green cheese,” which
her Scottish mother tells me roughly translates into “she
wants what everyone else is having.”
Although this traditional Scottish
expression doesn’t literally translate into anything
having to do with sight or vision, the phrase has taken
on a new meaning to Seonaid, who was born with a rare eye
condition that has left her eyes almost completely shut
since birth.
Seonaid will go to great lengths
to convince you that she can see just as well as anyone
else, and her case is building. Upon every trip to the grocery
store she is sure to point out to her mother as they pass
the emerald packaging of Athenos’s Basil and Tomato
Feta, that she can in fact see green cheese. Seonaid’s
prognosis indicates severe visual impairment, but, like
the spelling of her Gaelic name, things aren’t always
what they seem.
Amid popular television programs
and an undeniable sweet tooth, things in Seonaid’s
life are far from predictable. Seonaid suffers from Congenital
Fibrosis of the Extra Ocular Muscles (CFEOM), a rare genetic
eye disease that causes the muscles in her eyes to be fibrous
instead of smooth, which means she cannot open them more
than a slit as they are locked into a down gaze position.
Due to these visual restraints,
and virtually no depth perception to speak of, Seonaid is
registered with the Canadian National Institute for the
Blind. But this does not stop little Seonaid from getting
around; the ambitious four-year-old tilts her head back
as far as she can and navigates through the small slits
in her eyelids. Ambitious, yes. A permanent solution, no.
Doctors tell Allison that this method of seeing will one
day give Seonaid critical neck and back difficulties, adding
to this mother’s incentive to proceed with corrective
surgery.
Despite the rarity of Seonaid’s
condition, Allison found a paediatric ophthalmology specialist
who agreed to perform innovative surgery on her daughter
this fall. But, the dream of alleviating even some of Seonaid’s
struggles was compromised once Allison, a single mom of
two, fully absorbed the financial realities of flying her
and her daughter from Deer Lake, Newfoundland to Halifax,
Nova Scotia—the only place in Canada where the surgery
is available.
On July 4, 2007, preliminary
testing for surgery became possible thanks to a little organization
with a big heart. Hope Air, whose slogan is “Getting
Canadians to getting better,” is a national charity
that realizes that the cost of travelling for medical care,
even within Canada, “presents a discouraging financial
challenge.” Their vision is that “one day no
Canadian will have to forego necessary medical diagnosis
or treatment because of an inability to pay for air travel,”
and in practise of that vision they subsidize the cost of
travel to healthcare resources across the country for thousands
of Canadians like Allison every year. Hope Air allows for
up to two return trips per client in one calendar year on
commercial airlines, and Allison hopes to make use of the
service again later this fall when Seonaid has to return
to Halifax for her actual surgery. The procedure is highly
experimental. No other Canadian child diagnosed with CFEOM
has undergone this operation. Seonaid will be the first.
Seonaid’s daytime babysitter, Gus, who calls Seonaid
“the granddaughter he never had,” testifies
to what has already become apparent to me: there is more
to this four-year-old than meets the eye. Gus says that
“trying to remember that she is aged four and not
six” is among her greatest struggles “because
she is at that level mentally, if not more.”
“With the limited
amount of vision that she has,” he continues, “she
seems to use all of her other senses to counteract her disability.
Her hearing is very acute and she can multi-task like nobody
I know. She watches TV, plays with her toys and can still
give a rebuttal to a conversation across the room if it
pertains to her.” He says that Seonaid’s vocabulary
is “well in excess of that of a teenager,” an
observation that coincides with Allison telling me that
Seonaid has been speaking well before the age of one.
Seonaid becomes increasingly
upset when Allison explains to her that she needs an operation
to help her see. From Seonaid’s point of view, she
can see. In true “green cheese” manner, Seonaid
wants to do everything her sister does, and has already
attempted skating and skiing, finally finding a niche in
competitive swimming, as the water provides her with much
needed balance in the absence of proper depth perception.
From her mother’s point
of view, however, Seonaid’s surgery is imperative
to give her the greatest chance of continuing to grow into
a confident and healthy young girl. As Allison explains,
“being four and being fourteen will be a much different
experience for Seonaid in terms of her accepting her appearance.
Right now, being four and having closed eyes is cute; that
won’t always be the case.” Not that there are
any guarantees. When I ask Allison about her expectations
for the surgery, she confesses that she has “none.”
Seonaid will undergo multiple surgeries over the course
of the next few years. Now, there is “only hope,”
says Allison.
People who assume that looking and seeing are one and the
same, will always be telling Seonaid that she can’t
see green cheese. As Seonaid’s story reveals, there’s
more to point of view than one first imagines. There is
how you see and there is how you see yourself.
Secondary Sources:
1. Hope Air pamphlet
2. Hope Air website @ www.hopeair.org
3. National Organization for
Rare Disorders: Congenital Fibrosis of the Extra Ocular
Muscles @www.qualityhealth.com/psp/hwContent.jspa?hwid=nord1111&secid=nord1111-general-discussion
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