Chantal & Shaun:
Respiratory Therapists at Victoria General Hospital, spouses, dog-lovers, adventurers, food enthusiasts, motorcycle riders, humans
I’m sure people laugh when they first meet us. Shaun always says I’m the Energizer bunny. I just go-go-go. I’m a busy person, and I talk a lot. And he’s this calm, gentle, quiet giant. We just seem to balance each other out. It’s the same at work. I’m this tornado and everything that’s going to happen is going to happen where I am. But Shaun is this fluffy pink cloud. I’ll hear that seven patients got extubated today and there’s no one left in the ICU. And I’ll be like, “Oh, was Shaun there?” And they’ll say, “Yep, Shaun was there.” Historically, there are people who just seem to get it all, and some people who don’t. We are those two people.
We met in the pulmonary function lab that used to be here at the General. I was a student. He graduated in 1997, and I graduated in ‘99. We started working together in the same department, and became friends.
I remember saying to another friend that I wished I could just meet somebody like Shaun. That would be perfect. I had never thought about us being together because we worked together. Things happen, and then you still have to work with that person if they go badly. I had actually just applied to go to Arizona. I thought, I’m young, I’ll go work for a couple of years somewhere else. And then Shaun sat me down and said, “Well, actually, I thought we should try dating.”
We met in the pulmonary function lab that used to be here at the General. I was a student. He graduated in 1997, and I graduated in ‘99. We started working together in the same department, and became friends.
I remember saying to another friend that I wished I could just meet somebody like Shaun. That would be perfect. I had never thought about us being together because we worked together. Things happen, and then you still have to work with that person if they go badly. I had actually just applied to go to Arizona. I thought, I’m young, I’ll go work for a couple of years somewhere else. And then Shaun sat me down and said, “Well, actually, I thought we should try dating.”
“I remember saying to another friend that I wished I could just meet somebody like Shaun. That would be perfect.”
“We only dated for eight months before he proposed, and then we married six months after that. Last year was our 20th wedding anniversary. We didn’t get to do anything because of the pandemic, but we’ll celebrate down the road.”
We ended up sitting on his couch all night long. I was on-call for the operating room that morning, but we talked all night and decided that we would try, but that we wouldn’t tell anyone for a few months—until we knew whether it was really going to be a thing or not. Turns out, it was a thing.
We only dated for eight months before he proposed, and then we married six months after that. Last year was our 20th wedding anniversary. We didn’t get to do anything because of the pandemic, but we’ll celebrate down the road.
We’ve worked together those whole 20 years, and we’ve been shift partners for 10 years. We love working together. We mostly work in different units. I love the nursery—the NICU. I do high-risk deliveries. It’s not Shaun’s favorite. He loves to let me have that. But he loves kids and loves to be in the PICU.
We’ve always said that Respiratory Therapists have unusual jobs. We see a lot of terrible, sad things. We go to every code, every trauma, every bad delivery. Having someone who you can really talk to about the reality of what we do, and the gravity of it—it’s like therapy. The good and the bad.
There’s something about having your person there. They have your back. It doesn’t matter if it’s three o’clock in the morning and they’ve been up all night and all of a sudden there’s a trauma. It’s just a nice feeling to have them there.
We go to codes and traumas where the person passes away. You learn to compartmentalize. You go back upstairs and now you’re having lunch, and most people would say, “How can you possibly go eat after that?” But it’s the nature of our job.
We have a fur baby. Poppy. She’s a Portuguese water dog. She’s definitely our focus. My passion is cooking, and it’s what I spend the most time doing outside of work. Shaun likes eating, so it’s a win-win. We also have a garden, and a motorcycle that gets a lot of use.
Our ideal day off would be going for a motorcycle ride, popping into a winery up-Island, going for lunch, and then coming home and snuggling with our dog while we listen to music. We’re big into music—we don’t have a TV in our main area. He pours me a glass of wine and we listen to music and the dog’s there. I love being on the bike with him. I feel very safe with him. He lived a very rural life growing up, so he’s been riding since he was four.
He loves his garden too. He’s got quite a green thumb, and he’s big into bonsais. When we moved into our house, my uncle said to us, “You only get about 30 gardens in your life. You have to make the most of them.” So that became our goal, to have this little oasis in our backyard. A real love of ours is just taking care of our yard.
I also love entertaining. That’s been one of my biggest struggles through the pandemic. Shaun is more of a homebody. But he’s so gracious. He opens his home and he never minds when I have parties and people over.
It’s been hard to watch. We were here for SARS, MERS, H1N1, but we’d never seen anything remotely close to COVID-19. The first six months were scary. We were doing intubations with doctors, and even though you put all of this protection on, we didn’t know if it was enough. We didn’t see anyone for months and months. We were so scared to put our families at risk.
“I also love entertaining. That’s been one of my biggest struggles through the pandemic. Shaun is more of a homebody. But he’s so gracious. He opens his home and he never minds when I have parties and people over.”
“Shaun has always said that every family member we see in Emergency when we’re in those trauma bays is probably having the worst day of their life. Whether it’s their grandma or mom or husband or sister. Even if someone isn’t dying, it’s traumatic.”
The last few months have been pretty rough. We’ve been through some struggles with Shaun’s family. It’s hard because it’s overshadowing for us right now.
Last October, his dad fell, hit his head, and ended up passing away. He had a huge bleed. But the hospital family at VGH really embraced us. We had emergency room nurses, doctors, and care aids helping us. And then we had ICU doctors stopping by because they recognized us, asking if they could help.
We had nurses stopping by to give us a hug. We realized we have a family here. Everybody was just so supportive. When Shaun was having a hard time, one of our managers said, “You have devoted your lives to helping people. Now we’re going to help you.” That really stuck with me.
We had nurses stopping by to give us a hug. We realized we have a family here. Everybody was just so supportive. When Shaun was having a hard time, one of our managers said, “You have devoted your lives to helping people. Now we’re going to help you.” That really stuck with me.
Shaun has always said that every family member we see in Emergency when we’re in those trauma bays is probably having the worst day of their life. Whether it’s their grandma or mom or husband or sister. Even if someone isn’t dying, it’s traumatic.
My family always used to joke that people don’t know what an RT is unless they’ve been sick enough to need an RT. They always call us the MacGyvers of the hospital. We can put together any piece of equipment. We can add connectors and figure out ways to put things together. We are very technical. But because of the nature of our job being in trauma and those awful situations, that’s where the therapist part comes in. When you’re caring for these people and ventilating them, you get attached to your patients and very involved with them.
At the end of the day, it’s somebody’s life. We are running machines that are life-saving machines—and that patient is somebody’s person.
They are humans first, who put other humans first.
More than 8,900 caregivers and staff work around the clock in our Victoria Hospitals
#HumansFirst is dedicated to sharing the stories from behind our hospitals’ frontlines. These stories remind us that those who provide care and keep the lights on in our hospitals also have lives outside of them. They have family and friends, they enjoy hobbies and interests, and they have all lived through their own personal triumphs and heartbreaks. Like all of us, they are human, and they have a story to tell.
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