MONTREAL – In 2006, Rosalind Goodman was a co-chair of the extravaganza celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hope & Cope, the cancer-support program based at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH).
Rosalind and Morris Goodman were honoured at the Hope & Cope Fashion Fantasy XVIII. [Howard Kay photo]
A year later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and suddenly she found herself the recipient of Hope & Cope’s services, learning first-hand what a godsend it can at a frightening and bewildering time.
“One phone call can change your life forever,” she said. “Being told you have cancer is the ultimate test of endurance.”
She first turned to the program’s librarian to help find reputable sources to learn all she could about her illness. Later, her treatment sessions at the JGH’s Segal Cancer Centre were made more tolerable by the presence of the friendly Hope & Cope volunteers, most of whom have been touched by cancer themselves.
“Coming out of the elevator after going up seven floors to the Segal Centre and seeing the warm, smiling faces of these blue-gowned volunteers made my treatments more bearable, humane and uplifting for me and my family,” said Goodman, who with her husband Morris, were the honorees of this year’s Hope & Cope gala, Fashion Fantasy XVIII, held at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.
Emotional support was as vital to her recovery as her medical treatment, she said. “Doctors treat disease while Hope & Cope treats the spirit.”
With family and plenty of friends and acquaintances after long service as a community volunteer and philanthropist, Goodman realizes she was luckier than many people in having an immediate circle of comfort. But Hope & Cope provided something that even the most well-meaning of loved ones can’t always provide.
Another cancer survivor who spoke was Kira Barrett. In November 2006, at 32 and newly married, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I was utterly shocked because I had been told the lump was nothing to worry about,” she related.
Told she would have to wait nine days before any medical intervention, she felt frantic. “I did not know how I was going to get through that time…I felt lost and alone. My family was supportive, but I knew no one my age with cancer.”
A nurse suggested she contact Hope & Cope. She did, and quickly received a call from Debbie Bridgman, a Hope & Cope volunteer and a young breast cancer survivor.
“It was the connection that I needed,” Barrett said.
Having difficulty holding back her tears, Barrett thanked “each and every one” of the more than 400 patrons attending the event, which raised $918,000.
That sum is a remarkable achievement in challenging economic times, said Hope and Cope founder and chair Sheila Kussner, a cancer survivor herself.
She added humourously, “Life is a sexually transmitted disease which is inevitably fatal. Hope and Cope’s job is to see that those two events are as far apart as possible.”
The evening featured a show of Ogilvy’s fall fashions, choreographed by Hans Koechling, and a performance by coloratura soprano Nathalie Choquette who combines opera and parody.
Guests were led into dinner by Ogilvy’s famous bagpiper, dressed in full Highland regalia.
“Fashions change but a good cause never goes out of style,” said Kussner.
The special invitees included Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay and wife Suzanne Tailleur; Justin Trudeau; Joelle Adler; Sal and Diane Guerrara; HSBC’s Steven Goldberg and his wife Allyson, who sponsored the 400-page program book; dinner sponsor Herschel Victor and his wife Christine; JGH executive-director Dr. Hartley Stern; Dr. Richard Levin, dean of the McGill University faculty of medicine; and television personality Sonia Benezra.
Hope & Cope, which is entirely privately funded, provides a wide variety of services free of charge in the oncology and radiotherapy clinics and palliative care unit at the JGH, and through the Hope and Cope Wellness Centre, which opened last year.