Rawdon man on last chance to beat cancer

After months of a too brief a reprieve, any glimmer of hope is now fading fast for Mike Elliot and Heather Hartt. Doctors recently told the couple that Elliot will need to resume chemotherapy treatment at the Dixon Centre in Halifax by the end of this month, and the prognosis is not good.

For the next five months he will need to spend four days in hospital with two or three weeks of bed rest between stays. This will be the last treatment available, after that there is nothing more doctors can do, Hartt said.

“We were not prepared for this,” she said. “We were doing pretty good there for a while.” Elliot suffers from a rare form of cancer called lymphomatoid granulomatosis, which affects the blood vessels in the brain. He had previously suffered three strokes, which left him unable to walk for a time. But his last round of medication had lessoned the symptoms, until recently.

“His walk, memory, all cognitive function has worsened,” Hartt said. She now braces herself for what is ahead. “I’m in a panic right now; I thought we had more time,” she said. “He’s pretty much out of commission now, and he hasn’t even started chemo. They’ve prepared me that he is going to be very ill during treatment.”

Because Elliot’s communication skills have deteriorated, Hartt is wary of leaving her husband at hospital alone -- but to travel back and forth from Rawdon could prove costly.

The family moved to subsidized housing there from Falmouth once Elliot was no longer able to work. That isolation from family and friends, Hartt said, has compounded the situation. “It’s not as if they can just run out here whenever I need a hand.”

Hoping to find a home closer to family, Hartt is now in the process of filing applications with local housing authorities. “Ideally we’d love to be in Hantsport smack dab in between both our families,” she said.

The couple has two teenaged boys and a toddler named Gavin. Hartt said it has been a difficult time for them, as well. “This is really hard on the kids. We had promised them this summer would be different, that we’d have time to do some things together. But, now, that will never happen.”