About six months before Markus was diagnosed, I had an uncle who was 69 and was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He did not have his first appointment with an oncologist until after he passed away.
Our doctors, through the child system, were always ahead of us. My uncle's wife had to run around all over the place trying to find treatment for him, trying to find the right medication, trying to address every symptom that came up.
In our case, through BC Children's Hospital and the Canuck Place Children's Hospice, they were always ahead of us, so much so that, as my wife said, that Friday morning, they knew this was the time. They knew that Markus wanted to stay home, but they said that if we had a window to get to Canuck Place Children's Hospice, this was now.
That made us able, as a family, to spend every living moment we had yet with Markus living well, enjoying each moment we had with him, sharing laughs, sharing memories, with him telling us over and over that he loved us. When he was in the hospice and said—as Jennifer indicated in her testimony—this is how I hoped it would be, that's how he hoped it would be, surrounded by his family, surrounded by health care professionals who didn't give up on him, who didn't say, “Your life is not worth living. You might want to request us to end it.” They considered his life worth living right up to the moment that he passed away at the hospice.