When her husband Michel Boivin was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live, Maria Rosa Perillo Leyes was devasted.

Alone and desperate

An immigrant to Quebec from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Maria was far from her family and navigating the unknown. “I was lost and depressed. I was desperate, I had no one to talk to and no idea what to do.”

Renowned psychoanalyst and author Guy Corneau was speaking in Mont-Tremblant shortly after Maria’s husband’s terminal diagnosis, and she made it a point to attend the seminar. Corneau’s speech on dealing with the end of life was the first time Maria understood the word “caregiver”. Shortly afterwards, a friend referred her to Palliacco. All of a sudden, she was not alone.

While her husband commuted from Mont-Tremblant to Montréal for three months undergoing treatment at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital five days a week, Maria participated in weekly sessions at Palliacco for caregivers. “The support I received from Palliacco was life changing,” Maria recalls.

When Michel’s treatments were finished, he was forty pounds lighter and a shell of the man he once was. But Palliacco had prepared her. While Michel was weaker now, she was stronger.

They fought together, and they won. Seven years after the initial diagnosis, Michel received an “all clear” verdict, and today has returned to tennis and the sports he loves.

A mission to serve

For almost a decade now Maria has been volunteering at Palliacco. When she retired in 2021 Maria began devoting even more time to helping caregivers face the terminal diagnosis of a loved one.

“I’ve been there,” Maria says. “I understand. It is my mission to give back and help others, just as I was helped so much.”

Palliacco’s annual Trek Under the Stars is February 10 in Saint-Agathe-des-Monts, February 17 at Chalet Bellevue in Morin-Heights, and March 2 at Domaine Saint-Bernard in Mont-Tremblant. Maria and the team at Palliacco look forward to seeing you there.

palliacco.org

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