Celebrating Alistair

Spencer, Cynthia and Gary Hoy with a photo of Alistair at the family’s home on Gilead Road.

Golf event seeks to raise awareness of the critical role blood donations play in treating childhood leukemia

Alistair Hoy was an ordinary kid. He got sick one December and 17 days later he was gone. For those he left behind there is no sense to be made of how or why this happened. Yet there is an abiding need to honour Alistair’s life and do whatever their energies and talents allow to help the next family avoid the agony they have endured.

Alistair was just 14 when he died. Until then, he was an active, energetic, bright-eyed and healthy boy. He had grown up in Don Mills— a leafy neighbourhood in Toronto. He went to school and played sports. He particularly enjoyed hockey, playing for the Parkwoods Selects. He shared the dreams and ambitions of most young boys his age.

His family had purchased a farm on Gilead Road in the County two years earlier, and Alistair and his brother Spencer grew to love summers in the wide open spaces of the 200 acres of fields, creeks and woods.

A year and a half ago, Alistair stepped off the ice after a game feeling ill. After a week at home with flu-like symptoms, he went to family doctor who immediately sent him to Sick Kids’ Hospital. One hour later, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He was admitted to hospital that day. Further tests determined that Alistair had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Treatment started the next day. Alistair was responding to treatment, but on New Year’s Eve, Alistair contracted a massive infection. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, he had the first of three five-hour surgeries to remove the contaminated tissue and contain the infection. On January 6, Alistair died of multiple organ failure as a result of the infection.

The speed with which he was taken was staggeringly brutal. There had been no warning. No history of illness—no family history of cancer or blood disease. Alistair’s death was, and remains, beyond understanding.

Alistair’s dad Gary remembers arriving in the oncology department at Sick Kids’ Hospital in Toronto—a wing with 85 beds. He recalls thinking to himself that 85 families were going through the same thing his family was. It was a dizzying reminder of the pervasive and unrelenting horror of cancer.

Alistair’s Parkwoods Select photo the year he became ill.

In the course of his treatment over those 17 days, 162 units of blood were used to try to save him. This gift became a way for Alistair’s family to begin putting some meaning into his passing.

“Never once was there a question of blood being available for him,” said Cynthia Hoy. “As his mother, I cannot imagine the additional anguish that not having blood available would have caused. Without all the transfusions, Alistair would not have had a fighting chance to battle cancer.”

Since Alistair’s passing just over 18 months ago Cynthia, Gary and older brother Spencer have organized a couple of successful blood donation events in Don Mills.

Now they are planning an event in their new home of the County.

On September 29 they invite golfers and non-golfers alike to join them at the Wellington on the Lake Golf Club. The tournament is billed as Links for Leukemia. It will feature a nine-hole scramble with a cart and lunch.

The Canadian Blood Services will also be on hand to provide information and determine blood types. There is no bloodmobile in this region so donations will not be taken on site.

“We still need help to create awareness of the need for blood donation,” explained Cynthia. “More blood is used in treating cancer than many other hospital treatments, including trauma.”

Leukemia is the most common form of childhood cancer. The good news is that 95 per cent of children diagnosed survive the disease with treatment. Treatment, however, requires a lot of blood, as was evident in Alistair’s case.

Alistair’s family is hoping this community will come out for a few hours on Saturday September 29 to show their support.

The Hoys say they received remarkable support from neighbours and friends here in the County in the days after Alistair’s death.

“Something like this illustrates the importance of family,” said Cynthia. “It helps to know that we are not alone.”

For more information about this event contact Sandy or Paul at the Pro Shop at Wellington on the Lake Golf Course at 613.399.2357 or online at www.golfwellington.ca.

To learn more about Alistair and his family’s quest to make something positive from this tragedy visit www.project162.com.