Robert Landry was diagnosed with lung cancer in February. He has since undergone chemotherapy and six weeks of daily radiation treatments.
“I’m just doing the treatments and hoping they can get control of it and go from there,” he says.
When he was worried about driving himself home from his appointments while tired and stressed, the Canadian Cancer Society connected him to its Wheels of Hope program. A volunteer would pick him up every day, take him to treatment and drive him home.
“We ended up chit-chatting about anything and everything — the state of the streets, potholes,” Landry says.
It was one less thing to worry about, and provided some much-needed normalcy.
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“It was a safe place. I didn’t have to drive back, and I didn’t have to think about what I had just done in treatment.”
Wheels of Hope supports around 500 clients in Winnipeg each year. But demand for the service is rising, and the Canadian Cancer Society is looking for more volunteer drivers.
Pat Trozzo has been driving for the program for more than a year, and says it’s a huge help for folks who have no other transportation options.
“Either because of age or other things, they wouldn’t be able to drive themselves. And they really don’t have the ability to ask friends and family for that kind of commitment.”
Drivers can either use one of the organization’s vehicles for their trips or use their own and get reimbursed for mileage.
Trozzo says clients occasionally want to confide in him about their treatment, but more often just want a casual conversation to take their minds off things.
“Most times there’s enough things on their mind with the treatment or their cancer journey itself,” Trozzo says. “So now you’ve taken a piece out of it, because they get picked up at home, they get dropped off at the location, they really don’t have to worry about parking, finding a parking spot, paying for it.”
He says it’s gratifying to make life a little bit easier for people like Landry who are going through a difficult time.
“It was just pleasant, it was comforting. It was refreshing to do that,” Landry says.
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