Close X
Monday, November 11, 2024
ADVT 
National

Mask Painted In Wrestler's Colours Boosts Spirits Of Boy Going Through Radiation

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 09 May, 2015 11:14 PM
    HALIFAX — Brandon MacKenzie says he feels like a powerful tag-team wrestler when his radiation therapy mask is slipped over his head and tightly latched down to a treatment bed.
     
    The 10-year-old looks like one too.
     
    A therapist at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Halifax has painted the white cast-like mask with the fearsome black, green and white pattern of World Wrestling Entertainment professional wrestler Oscar Gutierrez, also known as Rey Mysterio Jr.
     
    The wrestling mask created by Jen DeGiobbi also has crosshairs in three spots, helping precisely target the waves of flowing radiation that will shrink the boy's brain tumour.
     
    The mask is one of several decorated for patients by therapists at the facility.
     
    The goal is to help patients calmly cope with the treatments, which require them to lie stone still.
     
    "It doesn't just represent a cast, it becomes quite personalized to them," says Deanne Robinson, as she prepares Brandon for his treatment.
     
    "By their choosing something close to their heart I think it makes the whole process a lot easier."
     
    The end goal is pragmatic, she adds.   
     
    "We don't want him to be able to look left, right, up, down, anything. It's an effective immobilization technique."
     
    The therapists have also decorated masks with the emblem of super heroes and flowers.
     
    And it seems the power of dress-up can transform the mood and confidence of both adults and children.
     
    "We had a fella here with a tumour who had Philadelphia Flyers put on his cast," she said.
     
    MacKenzie says since the idea for his mask came to him, he's been in frequent telephone contact with Mysterio, and has received an actual wrestling mask used by the wrestler in the ring.
     
    "He (Mysterio) said, 'We're going to do this like a tag team,' and he said, 'I have your back and we're going to do this together,'" he said.
     
    Radiation oncologist Rob Rutledge says he's grateful to the therapists for their concept and the time they've devoted to creating each mask.
     
    He says the treatment goal is to target tumours and avoid damaging healthy tissue, and any method that helps reduce a patient's discomfort over having their head latched down is helpful.
     
    "I recently had a girl who was seven years old go through this treatment and she was in tears the first day she had to do this but the fact she had such a beautiful mask to go back to made the treatment much easier," said the physician.
     
    After his treatment, MacKenzie has another wrestling sticker pasted on his chart— fourteen so far with four more to go until the clinic will ring a bell to announce he's completed the process.
     
    He's still looking forward to coming back from his home in Port Hood, N.S., for the next dose of radiation.
     
    "I feel like Ray Mysterio," he says.

    MORE National ARTICLES

    Former Newspaper Tycoon Won't Get A Supreme Court Hearing In Tax Appeal Case

    OTTAWA — Former newspaper baron Conrad Black has lost his last effort to shield million of dollars from the Canadian taxman.

    Former Newspaper Tycoon Won't Get A Supreme Court Hearing In Tax Appeal Case

    GM Canada To Cut Oshawa Assembly Workforce By 1,000 Jobs This Year

    GM Canada To Cut Oshawa Assembly Workforce By 1,000 Jobs This Year
    OSHAWA, Ont. — General Motors says it will cut about 1,000 positions from its Oshawa, Ont., manufacturing operations this year as the company plans to spend billions of dollars to boost its U.S. operations. 

    GM Canada To Cut Oshawa Assembly Workforce By 1,000 Jobs This Year

    Waterloo Region Officer Stabbed And Man Shot By Police In Cambridge

    Waterloo Region Officer Stabbed And Man Shot By Police In Cambridge
    CAMBRIDGE, Ont. — A Waterloo Region police officer is in hospital with stab wounds along with a man who was shot by police following a domestic violence incident in Cambridge, Ont.

    Waterloo Region Officer Stabbed And Man Shot By Police In Cambridge

    Proposed Class Action Targets Loblaws Over Bangladesh Factory Collapse

    Proposed Class Action Targets Loblaws Over Bangladesh Factory Collapse
    TORONTO — A Toronto law firm has launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against retail giant Loblaws and its Joe Fresh clothing line over the collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 people.

    Proposed Class Action Targets Loblaws Over Bangladesh Factory Collapse

    Ontario Law To Require Schools To Let Asthmatic Kids Keep Inhalers

    Ontario Law To Require Schools To Let Asthmatic Kids Keep Inhalers
    TORONTO — Asthma advocates believe Ontario is set to become the first province in which children can legally carry their inhalers with them at school.

    Ontario Law To Require Schools To Let Asthmatic Kids Keep Inhalers

    Ombudsman Pans City Hall Security Handling Of Rob Ford Circus; Finds Coverup

    TORONTO — City hall security staff covered up for an intoxicated Rob Ford or were otherwise derelict in their duty when it came to dealing with his shenanigans, according to a report released Thursday.

    Ombudsman Pans City Hall Security Handling Of Rob Ford Circus; Finds Coverup