Canadian parents to 18-month-old girl both diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses

Less than a year ago, 39-year-old Jazz Turgeon and 35-year-old Patrick Haggart were the happiest they’d ever been.

After a challenging IVF journey, the married Montreal couple’s daughter Amelia was born and watching her grow was giving them endless joy.

“I was just so thrilled,” said Turgeon. “It just felt like everything we worked so hard for had finally become reality.”

“Life was good, and then suddenly it wasn’t,” said Haggart.

In January of 2024, the first bit of bad news came. Turgeon went to the doctor after experiencing some dizzy spells and she soon found out she has a brain tumour that’s been growing in her head since childhood.

It’s not cancerous, but doctors say that can change any time.

“It’s almost like I didn’t believe it, which I think is part of the process,” she told Global News. “I was very in shock.”

Just over a month later, on Valentine’s Day, Haggart doubled over with agonizing abdominal pain. He was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with appendicitis. During surgery, doctors found something else.

“They told me, ‘You have cancer and you have to do chemotherapy to save your life,'” he recounted.

As Haggart was undergoing treatment for Stage 3 cancer, in June Turgeon’s brain tumour caused her to have a seizure so violent that she broke her back.

“The contractions of the seizure actually busted my L2 vertebrae, which is a vertebrae in your lower back,” she explained.

After weeks of rehab she’s now able to walk without a walker or cane. Turgeon is now awaiting major brain surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible, but it’s in the part of the brain that governs personality.

There’s no guarantee she’ll wake up the same person.

“That’s where ‘who I am’ lives. So to be told that when you have such a young