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Kicking Parkinson's butt with poise and humour

By Derek Dunn

Your Community Voice newspaper

Chantal Theriault has gone through her share of emotional moments since the Parkinson’s diagnosis. And there could be many similar moments in her future.

One recent heartfelt chat, for example, occurred when a researcher visited to express gratitude for being a study participant. Theriault is a frequent study patient and happens to work as an administrative assistant at The Ottawa Hospital, which also happens to be a major hub for Parkinson’s research.

“They were saying thank you to me and I was saying thank you to them,” she said, laughingly. “Thank you very much researchers: We love you and believe in you!”

Another moment arrived while chatting with a friend on the phone. It resonated deeply to hear these words: Being scared and doing it anyway is how you get somewhere in life.

Yet another moment landed when her best friend visited to play a game. Researchers had asked Theriault for an olfactory assessment. Translation? Guess the smells from the scratch-and-sniff stickers. (Not all participation in research studies involves blood samples.)

“Out of 10, we had seven different answers. Two of them I had nothing for, and then she said, ‘Who’s the winner?’” Theriault recalled, again chuckling. “Well, it’s not me!”

The anecdotes say much about her. Strong and poised, compassionate and sincere, funny, and filled with kick-butt courage. That is Chantal Theriault. And that is why the number of people across the city who gravitate toward her–wallets wide open–is growing more and more with each passing year. Her campaign Kick It For Parkinson’s is entering its third year and has raised more than $30,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

She calls the Canadian actor “the pillar” against the disease.

Year 1 had her organize a Walk and Wine event with friends and family. While it doubled her goal, there was a slight flaw in the plan.

“I think we had more wine than walking.”

Year 2 was an event at her dad’s Therien Ottawa South gym. The kickboxing, jujitsu, yoga, and more raised three times as much as anticipated.

That, too, had a problem. It is too small for what is to come.

She happened to be sharing the predicament with a woman who would soon confess a close connection to Parkinson’s. The woman offered her space free of charge. The 3rd annual Kick It For Parkinson's is Saturday, March 21 at Centre Communautaire Pere Arthur Guertin, 16 Rue Beriault, Gatineau.

“Opening and sharing my story is scary, but beautiful and humbling too,” she said, alluding to the speech she gave two short months ago in front of 200 guests at The Ottawa Hospital President’s Dinner.

“I am not at all a public speaker. I’d be happy to sit behind the curtain.”

So why do it?

***

Stittville is very different from life in Orleans. She will sit in front of the large window to gaze across a vast field below an infinite sky. She can hear wild turkeys; sometimes spot one here or there.

“I moved here in July and really enjoy it. It is a nice kind of culture,” Theriault said. “I really do appreciate Stittsville.”

Thirty-seven. That was her age when it was confirmed. It was the height of COVID-19 when absurdities would abound. A doctor dressed in a virtual hazmat suit tells her the tremors are being caused by a disease commonly thought to afflict old men.

It hit like thunder. What is Parkinson’s again? Maybe they have the wrong file.

Researchers believe a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental factors, such as exposure to certain pesticides, may contribute to the disease.

There is little point in lingering on the isolation that inevitably envelopes a person diagnosed with severe illness. You tell family and friends. They say a few words. Months pass, and they don’t mention it again. Before long, no one can acknowledge the cloud that permeates even a hug. Why won’t they say anything?

“They are just as scared as you are.”

Theriault, instead, dove into researching the disease. How quickly will it progress? How can the progress be slowed? What can I do?

“I was brought up to say–If I can, I will. Then I said, Let’s raise some funds.”

Commence the “flying by the seat of my pants” stage. A little hectic, yes, but she uses the term “beautiful” far more often these days.

Theriault is a firm believer in the Law of Attraction–you get back what you put into the world, positive and negative.

“I just try to keep my sense of humour and keep a positive outlook. I don’t know what will happen. I just do what I can do for now. And I’ve got a lot of things to do!”

She understands with crystal clarity why she does the fundraising and public speaking. Isolation is an illusion. When she was busy researching the disease, her sister was busy watching seminars and webinars on how to be a caretaker. The recollection makes Theriault well up. Her voice cracks.

“I want to make them proud!” she musters. “I am a product of beautiful people.”

She understands the reluctance many have to confirm a diagnosis. When she found out, emails were sent to cousins asking if any in the family had the partial-hereditary illness and to monitor for symptoms. She learned of an undiagnosed uncle. Then another called to say he may have it.

“It’s the fear of the unknown. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. “This is just the path I have chosen, and everyone is different.”

More than 100,000 people in Canada are living with Parkinson's, with some recent estimates suggesting the number is closer to 111,000, according to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. It estimates 8,000 people in Ottawa. The number of people with the condition is increasing, with about 38 new diagnoses every day.

While the average age of onset is around 60, 20 per cent of people are diagnosed before age 50. Five to 10 per cent are diagnosed before age 40.

Theriault’s oral medications have increased over the last five years. The tremors moved up her hand and into her arm, now her legs. Some nights are interrupted by Charlie horses, others by toe cramps.

Regardless, Theriault permits herself a small dream. She visualizes a researcher down the road, years or decades from now, accepting a huge award for curing Parkinson’s, and saying during their speech: I had a patient a long time ago…

Theriault kicked Parkinson’s butt.

“I want to know that I did my part. It can be cured!”

December 2025

journalism

Arnprior family gives thanks

By Derek Dunn

Arnprior Chronicle-Guide newspaper

His toes couldn’t even touch the ground when Pierce Koch learned to ride a bike. At three he was riding from Mom to Dad and back again. They’d give a little push and off he went. Then, later, he was off to Claybank Park — close to the family home — on other bikes or a golf cart or anything else with wheels. Hunting and fishing, swimming, snowmobiling: Pierce was the ultimate Valley lad. He always wanted to be outside.

So it was basically a typical day May 25 when he and a buddy took dirt bikes from his uncle’s in Arnprior, along the Algonquin Trail, to Betty’s Chips for a supper. They’ve been doing it for years, along with stopping at the pit near Malloch Road Cemetery to rip around.

“He hit a jump and must have misread the speed,” said Stephen, his father, during a family gathering two days before the 15-year-old’s funeral. “There was no collision. There was no alcohol. He died of a severe brain injury.”

Pierce wasn’t the most talkative kid, his mother Jacqueline said, but he had plenty of friends from St. John XXIII and St. Joseph’s schools, from soccer, baseball and Packers’ hockey. He and best friend Nolan Grant have been inseparable since junior kindergarten. Some 15 friends were at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) where he hung on for two days.

“He was a social kid. Everybody really liked him,” Jacqueline said. “He was more of a listener.”

Many say Pierce — a big strapping boy with “sausages for fingers” according to his granddad, Johnny — always stood up to bullies. He would never stand by to watch someone get picked on. And the girls were taking note, too.

“He had as many girl- and boy-friends,” said his uncle Travis.

The family, including older sister Kiera, want to express their gratitude to folks in Arnprior and surrounding areas. From a hockey coach crying on his grandparents’ doorstep, to food and food and more food — “I wish we had a wedding for all the sandwiches,” Travis said — to teachers to paramedics and OPP Const. Mark Cranford, they say thank you.

“We can’t thank everyone enough. And CHEO too. They were out of this world,” Stephen said. “I can’t express how much gratitude we have.”

A Go Fund Me campaign has raised about $45,000 from more than 460 donors. The goal was $25,000 to help defray costs.

There will be a funeral on June 4 at 7 p.m. Following the service, it is expected many will line the road out of town as a procession of vehicles takes Pierce’s ashes home to White Lake.

“Pierce lived more in 15 years than a lot do in a lifetime,” Poppa Johnny said.

June 2021

journalism

No place like home

By Derek Dunn

Canadian Living magazine

Beauty fades. I struggle with that aphorism, as I believe most Prince Edward Islanders do - at least we islanders living away. I wince a little every time someone says, “So you’re from P.E.I.? It’s beautiful there.”

Yes, it is, I think. And, in my mind, I see the red, red cliffs of my childhood bleeding into the Northumberland Strait. The island’s sandstone is melting into the sea, one metre per year. I see it every summer when I drive down from Ontario. Ten years ago federal scientists made charts showing the island severed into three. I picture the eventual archipelago as even more beautiful than the original. Must be a self-preservation thing.

Mount Carmel is where my grandfather, Pépé, converted a chicken coop into a cottage overlooking the water. Originally white with red trim, as if an evicted chicken won the contract to redesign it, the little cottage is now perked up with green paint. The weather-beaten front lawn, sometimes fertilized with lobster shells, has a history of giving up its real estate, sliding downward little by little, like a face that is aging.

My island is not the rolling green hills you see in advertisements but a Kandahar-ish place in the Acadian region. The point of land between Egmont Bay and Bedeque Bay, known as Evangeline, is my ancestral land, dating back more than 250 years. With windswept bog lands and deep skies, it is almost inhospitable. How did they manage way back when? Obstinancy, I suppose. Mount Carmel is where my ancestors vowed to hold ground after Le Grand Dérangement.

As a boy I spend summers there, away from the tethering structures of Charlottetown. At the end of a long drive “up west,” the car would turn down the red clay road now named for my grandmother and, from the backseat, I would read the names carved into driftwood: The Bernards, The Cormiers, and my mother’s family - The Gallants.

I remember running from the car into the open arms of Mémé, my grandmother. She was such a strong woman, a mother’s mother. Mémé and Pépé raised five daughters and a son. Our family, friends and neighbour had great feasts. After hours spent playing in the water and walking along the shore looking for crabs and starfish and coloured glass, my cousins and I would return - salty and sun-kissed - to picnic tables with French biscuits, rapure, salads and lobster. Gay, daylong parties gave way to clear, Coll nights, cards and tea, all under the firm yet kindly control of my grandmother. Now she is gone, buried beside the church on top of the hill in Mount Carmel.

Maybe I should go back for good - the dead shamefully outnumber the living in that beautiful place. Then I hear the terrible aphorism and am reminded that anything worth loving fades away.

August 2009

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