{"id":27665,"date":"2017-06-21T10:36:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/?p=27665\/"},"modified":"2021-05-31T15:47:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T19:47:13","slug":"grateful-inuk-patient-shares-his-life-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/grateful-inuk-patient-shares-his-life-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Inuk patient shares his life story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Inuk patient Robert Ukaliannuk rang the triangle after his last radiation treatment and celebrated with a \u201cshake it all off\u201d traditional healing dance.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Other patients clapped as Robert Ukaliannuk rang the triangle after his last radiation treatment and celebrated with a \u201cshake it all off\u201d traditional healing dance. But the moment was bittersweet, given the long road that brought him to The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s <a href=\"\/en\/clinical-services\/cancer-program\/\">Cancer Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s part of healing, to shake it all off, like a dog. Let it go and move on,\u201d said Ukaliannuk, 49, who became sober a year before being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Just before his discharge from hospital in May, Ukaliannuk asked to share his life story, which includes homelessness, parents who are alcoholics, two brothers who committed suicide and a five-year-old sister who went missing at residential school and was later found murdered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey didn\u2019t tell my parents,\u201d Ukaliannuk said. \u201cIt was before I was born. I was named after her, in our culture. Alakah. She was my oldest sister.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.21%;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0;\" title=\"Grateful Inuk patient shares his life story - The Ottawa Hospital\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4TIqfatoFqM\" width=\"641\" height=\"360\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ukaliannuk expressed his gratitude to the nurses and doctors at The Ottawa Hospital who cared so well for him. A biopsy of his upper lungs has left him speaking in a whisper, but he persevered in telling his story, which illustrates how colonization and the residential school system continue to affect Indigenous people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are reasons why we see too many Indigenous people on the streets,\u201d said Carolyn Roberts, Aboriginal Nurse Navigator in the Cancer Centre. \u201c\u2019Cultural competency\u2019 is understanding why he lived a rough life and how he came to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter img-responsive\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Robert_Lung-Cancer_Inuit-Patient-sweetgrass_web.jpg\" alt=\" Robert_Lung-Cancer_Inuit-Patient-sweetgrass\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Robert Ukaliannuk\u2019s roommate in a treatment centre introduced him to the First Nations tradition of using sweetgrass and cedar for cleansing and healing. \u201cIt smells good. It keeps me grounded,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Born in Igloolik, in Nunavut, Ukaliannuk grew up in Iqaluit but moved to Ottawa about 20 years ago. He took a carpentry course and worked as a labourer, but lived mostly on the streets. About a year ago, he began to turn his life around. He went to a treatment centre and became sober. At the <a href=\"https:\/\/wabano.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health<\/a> on Montreal Road, he belongs to support groups, uses the sweat lodge, learned how to pray, and sees his family doctor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe residential school affected my whole family. People don\u2019t know that,\u201d Ukaliannuk said. \u201cMy Dad and my Mom became addicts because they didn\u2019t know how to deal with it. They were blaming each other about my oldest sister because she just disappeared\u2026. My Mom found out about my sister\u2019s grave 50 years later. It\u2019s in Quebec City.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLoss and grief accumulates generation after generation and results in an\u00a0eruption of trauma symptoms and behaviours,\u201d explained Wabano\u2019s <em>My Life, My Wellbeing<\/em> report. \u201cJust as intergenerational trauma has an effect through a family and a community, so\u00a0too can healing; it can be contagious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sadly, Robert Ukaliannuk passed away shortly after sharing his story. The Ottawa Hospital is grateful to him for allowing his story to help shape improved care for patients.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Other patients clapped as Robert Ukaliannuk rang the triangle after his last radiation treatment and celebrated with a \u201cshake it all off\u201d traditional healing dance. But the moment was bittersweet, given the long road that brought him to The Ottawa Hospital\u2019s Cancer Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":27678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13,480,424],"class_list":["post-27665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-cancer","tag-compassion","tag-indigenous-health"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}