PROFILE
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A survivor: “You gotta do what you gotta do” RICHARD MAHONEY richard.mahoney@eap.on.ca
cles her into his taxi. “It’s OK. But I usually end up losing my pants. Every- body in town has seen my ass. Any dignity has been gone a long time ago,” she shrugs. Gervais, who is college educated, hopes to land a job, and still believes that one day, she can walk away from the wheel- chair. She ends on a positive note. “As bad as it has been, people here have re- stored my faith in man- kind. A whole bunch of good people have helped me out. I am blessed.”
Gervais says that at one time she slept two days on the street.“I panhandled. That may be illegal. So, sue me. Try not to get me in trouble with this, but I was freezing. I had no friends, no allies, nowhere to go, I was not sure if I could ever walk again.” She did find help in locating an apart- ment. The March of Dimes provides her with an electric wheelchair. “I can go 12 ki- lometres on one charge. It can go 10.9 ki- lometres an hour. I’d like to go faster but...” In four years, she has travelled 3,763 ki- lometres in her chair. “I go all over town. It can be pretty risky. I have almost been struck by cars. But that’s life. You gotta do what you gotta do.” People with reduced mobility face ob- stacles daily. Occasionally, she takes a taxi. “The taxi driver I know is really great but he can’t take the wheelchair. ” So he mus-
HAWKESBURY | “I have a good story for you,” promises Lise Gervais. “I was the woman in the wheelchair they took from the house that was on fire.” Lise Gervais has quite a story to tell. In the last six years, she has suffered from neu- ropathy, a life-threatening condition that has left her a paraplegic, has escaped two fires and has had several run-ins with the authorities and the medical community. “I have been called nuts, a drug seeker, an ad- dict.” Yet she also stresses that she has encoun- tered many good people since she moved to Hawkesbury from Ottawa. At the time of this interview, she was be- ing temporarily lodged at a motel, awaiting word on when and if she could return to the McGill Street, Hawkesbury building where she had an apartment. March 13, she and other tenants escaped uninjured following the fire that is under investigation by police and the Ontario Fire Marshal. Gervais re- calls that shortly before the early-morning fire started, a man banged on her door, demanding drugs. “I told him to get out. I didn’t have any drugs. A little while later, somebody is yelling, “Get out! There’s a fire!” And here I am.” A year ago, she was among those dis- placed by a fire at Hampden and Regent Streets. That blaze destroyed eight apart- ments, resulting in a loss of about $1 mil- lion. “I need an affordable apartment that is wheelchair accessible,” says the 48-year-old. “Right now, I don’t know where I will end up – the street, hospital, or even jail. At least jail is a place to stay.” Gervais relates that her health began to deteriorate about six years ago. “My legs started feeling numb.”When she consulted a local doctor, “I was told to go see a shrink. I went from a limp, to a cane, to a walker, to a wheelchair.”When she was later admit- ted to an Ottawa hospital, “They said if they did not operate, I would be dead within a month.” Gervais has been advised that she should abandon any hope of walking again. “Un- less there is a miracle, I will be in a wheel- chair the rest of my life.” Gervais is contemplating legal action, convinced she would still be walking if the proper diagnosis had been made when she first began showing symptoms. “Somedays, I have a bad attitude.”But, she adds, “I think I have a reason to have a bad attitude.” Gervais relates that she has been removed from the Hawkesbury and District General Hospital for verbally abusing staff. “I am on a black list. I have made some mistakes. I was not getting the help I needed. I was in pain. I whispered, begged, screamed. I got escorted out by police and security guards, wheelchair and all. I feel I have a big target on my back.” During a brief stay at a long-term care facility, she was briefly suspected of mur- der. A resident died of an overdose of Oxy- Contin. You guessed it – Gervais had been prescribed the same drug. No charges were laid. “But for awhile, I was really scared they would try to pin it on me.”
Lise Gervais: “As bad as it has been, I am blessed.”
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