Sometimes the most gripping tales are are not those of fiction. They're not from a bookshelf or a TV screen. They're real life stories that unfold around us. Stories that remind us the power of the human spirit to guide us, help us make the right choices, even to heal us. Today on Chatter That Matters, we dive deep into the indomitable spirit of a woman whose life story could be a master class in resilience. My guest Stacey Curtis didn't just overcome extraordinary adversity, she's found a
way to craft a life of passion and purpose in the wake of it. This is magical. This is wonderful. It's a world of make believe that I would love to participate in. I had no idea where that was gonna lead me. It was just stories. Stacy navigated a childhood colored by Hollywood's glitter and its darkest shadows. Substance abuse roared through her family. Twice in impressionable ages, she moved. But she found her path as a celebrated television and movie director. Perhaps hide in.
Perhaps participate in finding the positives in life. I'm a Three optimistic person. I Takeaways looking for the positives in circumstances. She was in a wonderful marriage to an older man for 10 years, but then found true love with a woman named Marissa, who plays such an extraordinary role in the story. When I met Marissa, there was this explosion that I realized through my life, I've been kinda suppressing it, and I just jumped both feet right
into the pool. And despite the roller Matters that define much of her early years, she found herself in a place which was really a dream in motion, until the day that Marissa, and herself, and their Westie dog, Emma, boarded a single engine plane. This is Chatter that matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC. Stacy Curtis, that's quite an opening. Welcome to Chatter That Matters. Thank you, Tony. It's really sweet of me to ask him to join me. You found a career where
you're sought Chatter. People adore you. You found the love of your life. Everything seems to be going in the right way. And I read a newspaper article that you sent me, and you said, I was looking out the window and I heard a clunk and then just silence. Marissa and I traveled a lot. I was I was exceedingly lucky through my career, to travel across the country. I worked in
Newfoundland. I worked in Calgary, Manitoba, Quebec, and I worked a lot, out in Vancouver, and I fell in love with Vancouver. And there was a period of time that Marissa and I decided we wanted to experience Vancouver Island. And, we had traveled a number of times over to Tofino. Normally Key would travel Toronto to Vancouver, take the flight to Nanaimo, and then we rent a car and drive across the
island. And this one particular trip in 2006, it was in January, I had, I guess, a week off from whatever show I was working on at the time because I was I was working nonstop, you know, a variety of different shows. And we decided, even though I had always been terrified, honestly terrified of the thought of getting onto a single engine plane, I decided to assuage, I think that's the correct word, those nerves. We flew across to Tofino. It was a very dodgy flight
because it was kind of stormy. The young pilot handled it extremely well. It was a very complete flight. You could have 11 people on flight on board. We made the flight over to Tufino. We had a spectacular holiday. The dog's running on the beach. We're having a great time. We get on the plane at the end of the week. Beautiful sunny day. Skies of got the lovely, fluffy white clouds in that. Spectacular blue sky. We take off. Same young pilot. A young family guy on board,
a mother with 2 little children. There was a young, young boy who was 3 and a little girl who was maybe 15 months of age with that mom. The dad was staying behind. They were gonna go off on a holiday to to Disneyland. And there was a couple who were in the front row, in their fifties. We take off about 10 minutes after the flight started. Versace said to me, oh, look at the window. Oh my goodness. It looks like the poster from, Heaven Can Wait. And I looked from her and I looked out the
window And I said, yeah. You're right. Beautiful, fluffy clouds. And then the engine that had been watched, woah. There was a bang. And then there's silence. And I'm looking at the window, and then I turned forward. And from where I was sitting in the in the 3rd row, I looked, and I could see the pilot. And I could see over his shoulder through the cockpit, that he was talking to his microphone. And beyond him was the propeller of the plane just 1 just floating. And he's pushing
buttons and he's talking, and he I can see that something's going on. He's trying desperately to get the engine going. I heard him try to do something, but nothing happened. It was absolute silence. We're gliding. And everybody in the plane realized the severity of what had happened. We didn't know exactly what it was at the time. I, in my being that leader, grabbed brochure that tells you what to do when your engine fails,
what to do when you know you're going to crash. It told us to ratchet down our seat belts, which I went into overkill. I ratcheted and knocked down mine. I talked to Marissa, made sure she was clamped in. The mother in front of me had a little girl. Her name the little girl's name was Mackenzie. I said, Key. The baby you're supposed to hold the baby on your on your front, and you're gonna hold her tight. And make sure your son is wearing your seat belt,
and make sure you're wearing your seat belts. And so I'm talking to that. And the people on the front row behind the pilot were, talking to each other. You couldn't really hear anything other than the silence of his gliding. The pilot made a desperate turn. At one point, I thought, oh, don't go down there because that this point, he he was he was losing elevation. And I was afraid that Key were going to slam into the side of this
mountain, and he kept turning, fortunately. Little did we know that what had happened was, the blade inside of the turbine compressor that runs the plane had, shorn off at the base of it and that shredded all the other blades. There was no way the pilot could restart the engine. He thought that, he could make it to, the Port Alberni airport, but we continued to lose elevation. He kept circling around, because they thought at first maybe we should go back to casino. Then the decision was,
no, we shouldn't. So he proceeded using visual references. He was not trained to be able to, fly by instrument. The real misfortune was the plane did not have a GPS on it. He looked back over his shoulder at one point to, talk to us, and he called out and Key said, okay. Fasten your seatbelts. Get ready for this. And I can see in through the windows beyond him that he was aiming for an open area of care cut that he was going to try and bring the plane into.
I'm a very tense individual. I'm a very toxic individual. This was my worst nightmare coming true. Marissa and I grasped hands. Marissa told me afterwards that she was thinking of the Volvo commercial with the test, that crash test dummies in that, where they would just take the hits. They would just go with it. So she was mentally preparing in that way. That never occurred to me that that would be a possibility. I just could see what was coming through the windscreen.
I prepared for a crash landing. And just before we we Key collided with the mountain, the wing of the plane that the top of a Three, which changed our trajectory and forced us into the side of the mountain. So the tail end of the plane was up in the air, and the front of it, kind of nose dived into it. It was like a movie, Tommy. It was I I saw it coming, and the next thing I knew, cut to black. Did it feel like slow motion?
I mean, how does time keep pace with when you're just circling and wondering and You know, it was it was 10 minutes that I understand afterwards. It felt, on one hand, like it was racing, and on the other hand, like it was in slow motion. Because I have these glimpses of, you know, looking to the young pilot and seeing him trying to communicate, looking out the windows, seeing where he was possibly going to Takeaways down to, the time frame of of
my trying to communicate with people. Okay. That is going to happen. We've got a deal with this. Be prepared. And it's allowed us to say to each other. I know Jill spoke to her husband, Three, and told him how much she loved him. And I spoke to Melissa and told her how much I left her. And aside from that, you set that sense of impending doom. And yet I didn't know what to expect, whether I was going to live or die. That cut to
black was so immediate. And yet when I came to afterwards, what shocked me was the realization that I could see through the top of the the airplane. There was this gap in the metal. I could feel something dripping from the top of my head. And then the next thing I felt was this searing pain in my belly where I guess I had tightened down my seat belt so tight that it turns out I ripped the inside of my bowel open from the force of being thrown forward.
The windows were smashed. The wings were all bent out of shape. Key were all leaning forward in our seats. The seat in front of me where Marnie's mother had been. She was now laid on the floor, and I had no idea where the little girl was. But I undid my seat belt. I undid Marissa's seat belt because I thought, okay, if this is hurting me, it must be dreadful for everybody else. I reached forward, and for some reason, I was able to, you know
normally, the plane, you can't get to the seat in front of you. But because the mother was removed, I was able to reach forward to try and get the little boy's seat belt undone, and he was just hanging in his seat. He'd been killed on impact. How many people survived? There were 8 of us on the flight. The pilot, succumbed to his injuries. Terry was killed, on impact, and somehow his wife, Jill, knew that. There were 8 of us in total. 3 perished. And I don't want to
be dismissive in any way of human life, but what happened to Emma? How did Emma, to my amazement, as I instructed the mother, RBC to hold her child I had taken emma in her little you know carrier bag I had her on my lap and I was holding her But obviously, on impact, she got thrown from my hand. Marissa, was somehow in a position to be able to get Emma out of her case and saw that she was kind of okay. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her. And when I looked down
and I saw her, she was sitting there shaking like a leaf. Like, what the fire just happened? She had no idea what was going on, but she just sat there. I somehow thought that I was supposed to help rescue us getting out of the plane because I could smell gasoline. What was amazing was that our pilot had, flipped a switch that stopped the battery from being able to, ignite the flames, which is usually what I've learned afterwards. Usually, what will happen is, the planes will torch
because the gas pours in from the wings. There's sparks. And that was what made our situation marvelous, that it didn't, cause the plane to, ignite. I unbuckled myself. I turned around. I thought I was going to try to get us out the back door, which was our entrance and exit into the plane, it was kind of up in the air, and I basically collapsed from my own injuries. And my legs were broken. My back was broken, my ribs were broken. Everybody suffered, significant
skeletal injuries and and internal injuries. Where's the plane? As you said, it has no GPS. It's not necessarily being tracked even. How did rescue happen? Luck in my life. There was a training mission that had taken place with the search and rescue teams. That were flying back from Victoria up to Comox, so they were bisecting the island. And we were cutting, that, they were coming north and north from Victoria, and we were cutting the cross, to go from Tofino to over Port Alberni
to Nanaimo. They somehow worked out the trajectory of what our timeline was. And when they lost signal, it turns out there was a logging road that ultimately that were able to bring, some of the search and rescue guys in. But what happened was the search and rescue guys that were flying from Victoria to Comox got the May Day message. They went into Comox. They kept up gear. They prepared themselves. They ended up parachuting to our site. They somehow found us. I can remember coming to
at one point, Melissa said they're coming for us. They're coming for us. You can relax. Just stay put. And all I could think was I can hear a helicopter. I can hear a helicopter. Okay. I I don't have to do anything. And they parachuted in. They dropped gear. We were in this clear cut area. They somehow climbed into the plane. It was like, one of those slippery slides because the upper part of the plane
was up in the air. They had to work their way down to I mean, it's not a big plane, but it was super slippery for them. You know, they had to manage, getting 8 people, in various degrees of being smashed in into part of the plane. Apparently, Jill's leg was through the fuselage. They had to find the little baby who they at first thought had expired. But as it turned out, she got wrapped up in the carpeting, which helped save her life. The search and rescue guys were
our heroes. It was like the the Marlboro man coming in to rescue us. I remember them talking to me. I was kind of face down into the backside of my chair because I had tried to climb out. And they said, Key. This is gonna hurt. And they picked me up and flipped me. And as they as they flipped me, I didn't notice. My back was broken. I passed out. I screamed, and I passed out. They had to pick up all of us via structures. At one point, nurses said, you're not putting me on nothing, are you?
Because she was completely, aware of what was going on. Her injuries were less than mine, but somehow, she was able to communicate with them. And they said, you know, we we found the baby. Here's the baby. You sit with the baby, Marissa. Okay? And they put her right beside the plane and dealt with those of us who had to be triaged. I guess my lung had collapsed. They were dealing with me. They picked Emma up, and they brought her. Emma wanted to be with me, but she kept
jumping on my chest. And I I could barely breathe. That is like, Emma, no. No. Get her off. And then, eventually, you know, they said it took them a couple of hours to be able to get us pulled together well enough on the structures. And the helicopter was hovering. It had one wheel on a on a stump of a log, and it was hovering to be able to haul us up through the clear cut onto the helicopter. At one point, Ron Condley, who is one of the rescuers, said to me, okay. Close your eyes. The washer of
the helicopter is almost the worst. Close your eyes. We're gonna get you on that helicopter. Marissa was then brought amongst the the the last, to get onto the helicopter, and they put Emma on the plane or sorry, on the helicopter. And didn't she just steal the prime seat that she jumped off on one of the rescuers seats and curled up and passed out. Wow. We were transported to Comox which is the, the forces base there.
I honestly don't remember being pulled off of the helicopter, but I remember coming to in what seemed to Key, like, an open space, and I think it was probably the emergency area. I don't know. All the nurses and the doctors, they were on a shift change. So when the word came in that the plane had crashed, the 2 shifts jumped into action. They only had a a few emergency rooms because it's a very small, hospital. It's it's a local hospital. It's not major. I remember coming to and in
the hospital, I said, where's Marissa? Is she okay? Is she alright? And somebody hovered over that top of me in the bed and said yes. Yes. No. She's okay. She's okay. And that said, Emma, where's Emma? I said, don't worry. Somebody's taking Emma. She's alright. I thought, okay. As long as everybody's okay. They said, Stacy, your injuries are really bad. Key can't cope with this, here at this hospital. Are you okay if we put you on another helicopter and we take you to Victoria? Okay.
If we need to, we have to. And then it turned out there was a problem with that helicopter. They helicopter. They had to get another one in. I don't know exactly what went on. 2 of the, patients, myself and Marnie, the mother, were transported to Victoria. The baby was sent to Vancouver because of her injuries and and the hospital capabilities in Vancouver. And Marissa and Jill were kept at Comarch and amnestayed at Comarch's. She was cared for. She was never supposed to get on the helicopter.
Supposedly, the rules are, if pets are on the plane, they should be left behind because the rescuers don't know if they'll charge at them or if they'll bite that. But fortunately or jump or jump under your owner who has a collapsed lung. Takeaways, the that officer in charge said no, This little dog is one of the passengers. And that's what he explained when he arrived to the press who was asking about it. And Emma ended up with, IV tubing around her, and somebody took her out for a
walk while all of this chaos was going on in the moment. Did you ever think, like I'm not I mean, I know you must have thought, I am so lucky to have survived that. But did you ever worry in those first few days when they're looking at you saying, we we can't cope with what's going on, that you might have survived the initial crash, but you won't survive the injuries? No. That never occurred to me. And is that just who you are? I think so. I think so. Do you think because I just did a show on
on the power of the human mind. Do you think that part of the reason you're here is because you had that approach to life versus if you had been more, Oh my God, I'm not gonna make it. There's chances are you wouldn't be here? I think there's a lot of truth in that, Tony. I think that the positivity when when the doctors told me that my back was broken, I didn't ask him, oh my god. Am I gonna be able to walk? I said because he said, is it okay if I switch you back? And I said, well, yeah.
Will I be able to ski? And he said, yeah. Because he was a skier. And I said, okay. You know, it wasn't could I walk or well, you know, I I do know that there was a moment when I arrived, after multitude of surgeries, that the doctors put there's just some equipment that was right up against my bed, and it was vibrating. There was the sound. And I kept hearing, is that the helicopter? Like, is that the plane? Is that the helicopter? It made me very
unnerved. But there was this moment where I felt like in each corner of the room I don't want to call them angels. I am not a religious person. I don't have You have to have some belief in spirituality, Steve. I mean, we're I mean, there's no there's some power there's some power out there and that wanted you alive. Yeah. Yeah. And and I will honestly say that for a period of time Three my recovery, through I, you know, I've spent a year and a half having to rebuild my
body. One of the things that Marissa said was the first thing out of my mouth was, aside from phone my agent, because I had a job I was supposed to go to, and I was worried about that job not being like, that I wasn't gonna be fulfilling it. But it was more the, oh, okay. Now I can get myself in shape. If I've been injured, I'm gonna use this, and I'm gonna rebuild myself. So that when I come out of this, I'm gonna be using that. I heard that they almost had to wrestle you to
stop you with your rehab. You were going that it where most people are going, oh, no. Not again. And you're going, where where's Stacy? She's she's I'm down in the gym. I'm down in the gym. Right? I mean No. There was truth to it. I mean, maybe, you know, there was a period of time where, both legs were broken. I couldn't walk for 3
months. My back was in a brace. But I was in a position where they showed me, Oh, I can get out of the bed by yanking myself out of the bed and into a wheelchair and down the hall to my rehab. And, the physiotherapists and the trainers who were there who ultimately helped rebuild. Marissa's injuries were broken clavicle, broken badly broken femur, bad scars. They that worked on both of us. I was there for 3 months of rehab, which is an incredibly long period of time.
And then I needed another year of outpatient. At first, I had to use real friends to get there, and then I was eventually able to ultimately drive myself once my legs were functioning. But my goal was to get back to work. My goal was to rebuild myself, but I needed to get myself back to a state that I felt I could do the job the way that I had always done the job, which included jumping out of my chair and running to the actors and running to the crew and then coming running back and
never wanting to hold anything up. I was always trying to fit into the schedule and fulfill on the schedule, but achieving the performances that I wanted. So I never wanted to deny the time to the actors. And I see how setting goals, like wanting to ski again, wanting to get back to work is a big part of who you are. But mentally, what kind of state? I mean, are you are you getting some therapy? Are you getting how are you dealing with PTSD? How are you dealing with the fact
that why am I here and others aren't? You know, how how are you dealing with the fact that I might not be the superhuman I was before that plane crash? It's it's a really interesting question that gets posed to, firstly, you you know, there I did post the question. Why? Why did I survive? What what was it, that I have to learn from this, about myself, about, that how I changed my life? Because of the situation and how the accident occurred, we did see psychologists who, did testing.
I talked to therapists about, that do I do with myself now? Can I rebuild myself? Am I able to relearn because I hit my head, because of the injuries to my back and so forth? How do I change, myself to be able to cope with this? For the longest time, I didn't know why I survived other than I knew that I wanted to be present in the moment, even more than ever before because I'd experienced being on the cusp of what it could mean to not have fulfilled my desires and dreams. So
being more in tune with, Key, what's important now? You survive a plane crash, really bad shape, but your attitude, your work ethic, Humpty Dumpty puts the pieces back together again. You're back to where Yes. The best you can be and better than most people that have never had an accident because I know who you are. And in 6 years after your accident, your stomach's held together with mesh wire. I mean, that seat belt that you've that you've
cinched so tight did a lot of damage. They opened you up for surgery. And what did they discover inside? Yeah. We thought it was a female problem. We thought it was fibroids. They opened me up. In fact, they started by doing a laparoscopic, and they discovered that there were some cells in me that did not look healthy. And so that doctor took a biopsy. They discovered that I have a cancer in my belly. It's not actually in the organs. It's in the fat tissue. So it's the same kind of cancer that
ultimately took, Rob Ford's life. The kind of cancer that I had is probably a different strain. I had the great fortune of, ultimately being put together with doctor Carol Swallow, who is one of the top surgeons at Mount Sinai Hospital who specializes in liposarcomas. She was introduced to me, about 6 months before we did the surgery to actually remove the tumor. She took one look at my file, and prior to meeting me, she thought, oh, this is really
bad. I don't think this person's gonna make it. And then she walked through the door, and I had just come back from Matters from Paris. I was all suntanned. I was happy. I had survived the previous surgery that discovered the cancer, and I knew that this was not good. I knew that there was a problem. She said, okay. Judging by your, attitude and judging by the kind of sensibility, how hard you sought that, You know, I by that time, I had gone back to filming.
I did a TV movie in Newfoundland. I worked on Republic of Doyle. I did a number of episodes, but something was wrong with me. You knew there was something wrong with me. So when we discovered the cancer, I wasn't surprised that there was something horribly wrong. It was a tumor that apparently went from hip bone to hip bone, front to back, and the saline tissue surrounded my bowel. It surrounded the kidneys, my bladder.
And doctor Swallow said, okay. Let's do some radiation to try to reduce the tumor against your kidney, and I will do what I can to release the cancer. And I went into the surgery in February of 2013 with the understanding that even with that surgery, I might be lucky to have 2 years. And that changes your perspective, Tony, doesn't it? Life you're in the moment. In 2 years, you think, okay. What are
my priorities? My priorities are my family, my partner, My career that this point, I had no idea if I was gonna make it out of the surgery. I had to talk to my forward producers that I thought I was Tony be working with and explain that I wasn't well. I didn't know how long I was gonna be laid up. They needed to find replacements for me. I was really concerned about, them being taken care of. I wasn't worried about my reputation because that this point, it was, am I going to survive this
surgery? Doctor Swallow managed to get the entire tumor out. She said it was the size of a volleyball, which I find extraordinary because the mesh in my belly from the previous surgeries had hidden it. It had suppressed it, structurally. So I, you know, I knew there was something wrong in there, but even It's lucky you had the mesh. It could have been the size of a lifeboat. Well, it's just that you know, it was hidden. At the time, my mom was,
not that well. My brother was doing okay, but it was just a challenging time. My parents had separated and divorced by that time. My father, in fact, who passed away. He passed away, when my brother and I were working on a show together, and I was still an assistant director. We got word when we were in the middle of shooting in the middle of the eighties. He, he
also died of Chatter, a different kind of cancer. So by the time I got this cancer that I had, there was my brother, my mom, and myself, and Marissa, and her extended family, who had all taken me in under their wing. So, again, I felt supported. And so when I went into the surgery, I wasn't thinking, am I gonna survive the surgery? The doctors presented that to Melissa. She didn't know, whether I would make it through. But
as far as I was concerned, Key. Let's go in, and let's see what will come out the other end. Unfortunately, I ended up with a lot of the complications that come from abdominal surgeries, that come from bowel surgeries. I ended up in the hospital for about a year. I had to have another resection. I lost most of my bowel was lost. My kidney was saved, but Three damaged. My bladder doesn't work. I ended up with a stoma.
I ended up with a number of bags attached to me. You you call it when we're doing the research, you said, this is where you can call me the bag lady. And I say, how do you have humor? I mean What else are you gonna do with it, Tony? I mean, the the reality is Oh my god. You know, it's it's miraculous, actually, because the medical field, a, I have hundreds of doctors and nurses
to thank for saving my life. I you know, there are 2 doctors, doctor Swallow in particular, and those who were her residents and associates who who helped save my life. But beyond that, I've been in and out of the hospital regularly. I'm 10 years out from having been told you have 2 years to live. That 2 years, of course, became a year in the hospital with deep vein thrombosis in
my legs. So I'm on blood thinners. I'm on medications. I have a PEC line in my arm that is a permanent, fixture in my leg because I have to attach a bag at night to get my lip of food. That's the thing that's keeping me alive. I can eat. I can enjoy that the pleasures of of food, some of which don't agree with me in my belly. But I know I've learned the lessons over the years that, you know, French onion soup is not something that I can have very often
unless I'm very close to home. What it did do, though, was the extent of my, cancer and my surgeries forced me to cause me to step back from the industry. I didn't use the word retirement for a number of years because I really just felt that I couldn't do the job the way that I had once done it. I had recovered from the plane crash miraculously. I was able to jump back and and clamber over rocks and, you know, out of the new cylinder all
over the the physicality of it. But when the cancer struck, I thought, Key, this is different. I'm tied to the medical, elements that I have to take care of that myself. If I only have 2 years to live, my time left is gonna be with my family and taking care of myself. There's a profound desire to escape the pain, and we're not quite sure in the moment how to deal with it. We don't really have faith that anything is gonna change, and it just feels like this black hole.
There's no light. I think it's a really difficult conversation that I know I think it makes many of us uncomfortable and yet it is a conversation that needs to be had. Those are the words of Amy Deacon. Amy often joins me to provide much needed context on how humans cope. When we return, more from the many lives and insights of Stacy Curtis, my Three Takeaways. And then Amy talks about why some who have almost lost their lives learn how to treasure
it. It's Tony Chapman from Chatter That Matters. I asked Canadians about their Tony matters. We talked debt, inflation, interest rates, and many were worried, and some felt they could lose everything. In response, RBC has created My Money Matters. It's a site where you gain financial knowledge. You learn how to manage debt, reduce stress. There's even tools and apps to help you deal with the realities of today. That rbc.com/moneymatters. Your financial well-being matters to you and to RBC.
You know, it's interesting. When I think back on my childhood, I was a fair I suppose an exuberant child. I was always out, running around with the neighborhood boys and and my brother ultimately playing war in the front yard and the backyard, and, we had a few apple trees actually. You're listening to Chatter That Matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC. My guest, Stacey Curtis,
didn't just overcome extraordinary adversity. She's found a way to craft a life of passion and purpose in the wake of it. So Stacey, I would love to say that the rest of this is a happy ending, but as you're going through this 10 years of a gift that you're alive and you're with us, your brother, Curtis, that a lifelong battle to control substance abuse. He had met the
love of his life, Marion. Full disclosure, I am now married to Marion, but we'll I'm not even sure that we'll get that in the show, but his love for Marion kind of puts it in check, but your plane crash, his parents splitting up, he starts getting back into substance abuse. And one day Key dies of double pneumonia, thankfully clean, but you discover him. Do you ever wonder why you? I couldn't imagine what it would be like you parented him. You in many ways,
you're his mother. You were the only adult in the room very often in your life with him. How do you deal with just when you think maybe you've got a a couple of minutes to breathe and be normal, this happened. It was all it was genuinely awful because, you know, you're right. I I did become apparent to Mike. I, you know, perhaps was By the way, we should say it's Mike Curtis, and everybody calls him Curtis. Yes. You call you're the only one that calls him by his first
name, Mike. Yes. I You're confusing my audience, so I'm confusing. Okay. Your brother, Mike Curtis Yes. He he took on the name Curtis because I think it brought him, some sense of self. And I but I always called him Mike. And and maybe, you know, maybe I parented him. You know, I think about back when you were in California. And before that, when we were little, I was always, you know, the older sister, the one who took took care
of him on certain levels. Not that my parents weren't good parents on on one level, but through the kind of disintegration of their relationship and and my brother's rebelliousness, I tried to protect him. I tried to help him whenever I could. And yet there were times when I had to step back and say, you know, Mike, Curtis, you're on your own. I cannot do this. If if you can't get a hang on yourself, I'm not going to destroy my
life. I I somehow built parameters to protect myself as I did with my parents some my self destruction. The awful thing was, though, that he kept rebounding. He rebounded for the period of time that he was married to Three. And for the longest time, he had a very good marriage for a period of time, and then it disintegrated. And yet, somehow, as with his friends, Marion stayed to be a close, close friend with him because, they had so many similar tastes and likes
in music and so forth. The sad thing was that he had gotten himself back on track again. He was going to AA even though he had a problem with narcotics, and we're talking serious drugs. He loved heroin. He admitted it. He he found that the most tempting for him, but he got along with the folks in AAE Chatter for some reason. And he had a sponsor, and he was taking care of himself. And yet there was a period of time when Marion went back to South Africa to see her family because they were
still located there. Michael Curtis or Mike and Three shared a dog named Zulu. And they weren't married at the time. They'd They were. No. They didn't get divorced. Yeah. Yes. They were divorced at that point. And so she had gone home to see her family, but Mike said, I'll I'll take care of the dog. And then because he had time off over Christmas. He was on a big shoot, and then a friend, Kathy, was going to pick the dog up Chatter, New Year's.
And I've been in touch with Mike before Christmas. We invited him over, and he said, no. You know, I'm really not well. I've got some really bad fault. I'm I'm just gonna rest. I'm just gonna lay low. And so I talked to him a couple of times, and at that point, we had started to text one another. And so I sent a couple of texts saying, are you okay? Go to this walking clinic. Go to see your doctor. And he said, yeah. Yeah. I will. Now by that time, he
was also back to smoking. I did not know this, but he passed away from the double pneumonia. I got a call from Kathy saying I'm supposed to pick up Zulu, and I can't reach your brother. Have you been in touch with him? And I said, no, I haven't, but let me try and reach him. I tried texting him. I couldn't find out, any answer. So after a day, I thought, Key. Where does he live? So I got in touch with Three. She's in South Africa. She said, Key. He's in an apartment near Wonsons Vale.
I drove over using the description that Three gave me of the house that he was in. He was in a basement apartment. She described the side, access to the back of the building. I get to the door. I think, this looks like Mike. This has gotta be Mike. I start banging on the door, and he's calling in. Mike? Mike? Are you there? Are you there? And I hear of a little dog. And I said, Zulu? Is that you? And it was Zulu. I could hear her inside the door. I ran
upstairs. I got that young boy who lives there to get the keys for me to get in. I prepared myself, Tony. I knew instinctively that my dad my my brother had passed away. He passed away probably a day or 2 before that because of the lupus levels from Zulu, and she was sticking by his side. I was shocked because, of course, one does not expect to come across someone's body, let alone that next your brother. It was very hard to take in. I knew that he just hadn't
followed through. So, I mean, the happy ending if there and if he's listening in some beautiful heaven is how beautifully he has always talked about. Marion's talked about his memorial and how special it was, and everybody came over. And demons are the most horrific thing to possess you. But at times when you can wrestle them away, very often inside is one of the most beautiful human beings, and and I think it's interesting that you had to tell your mom about her son
dying, but you never told your mom about your cancer. My mom and I became good friends for a very long period of time when I was in my twenties and early forties. And then when I met Marissa, I I gained my independence, and I I kind of broke away from my mom's not I wouldn't say tearing apart the relationship, but the friendship that I had with my mom. And we became more mother and daughter.
And I always felt that my brother had this special place in her heart because she always wanted to do for him what she couldn't, and she, tried desperately. But to face my mom and tell her that her her beloved son had died was one of the hardest things I ever had to cope with. And yet, you know, I didn't wanna tell her about my cancer because I thought she's at an age where she's just dealt with my brother possibly. She doesn't need to know that
I'm in danger. It doesn't help her, and I didn't need I didn't need the the support from her that I was, I guess, already, gaining from Marissa and most of his family. And I so I wanted to save my mom from that suffering. You've talked about how you've treasured the moments and you treasure life. You don't wallow at all, and you think about bag ladies. I know for I am proof that you're a great golfer. I've seen you golf. You just got back from scuba diving. You and Marissa have this incredible
love affair and passion for travel and such. But, I mean, you spend a third of your day keeping yourself together. You have a very different day than most. Any advice to others? Because a lot of people are feeling like this the world is tough right now, and it is. The headwinds are horrific out there, and it's a lot of people are really struggling. Any advice to that? Because you've run a gauntlet that
most haven't and a lot further than most thought. Is there anything that you reflect on in your journaling or your discussions that you kind of go, this is something that I've really come to rely on. You know, a Buddhist might say, you know, that mantras, but I mean, is there anything that you tap into that we might benefit from? You know, I don't know, to be honest. I
you know, yes. A third to a half of my day, depending on the day, can be to tending to pulling my body together so that I can seasonally go out and play around the golf or, go kayaking and have myself in shape enough to be able to walk the dog and so forth. You know, so a lot of I was a very physically active person when I was young. I miss skiing. I miss rollerblading. I miss playing tennis, all of those things. But the reality is I came to
understand that I can't do that anymore. I've hung on to the things I can, the golf and the catwalk and the scuba diving. No. Not scuba diving. Snorkel. What I understand is that I have my limitations, but I'm hanging on to my independence, my own self capabilities. I Takeaways reliant on having to go into the hospital for regular procedures to make sure my system stays put together. And I rely on those people
heavily. But I also know that throughout the week, I'm not leaning on nursing staff having to come to me on a regular basis because I can do it myself. As long as I can maintain that independence, I feel that I'm achieving something. I'm managing to continue to have a life, as many people with disabilities do. We just don't necessarily think of the fact that, oh, they have to get themselves into that wheelchair. They have to manage to get themselves out into the world.
I've learned that without that independence, that may be the time when I think, okay. That's enough of Stacy because she's she's leaned on the system heavily enough. We're Three fortunate in Canada with all of the medical industry faults that do exist. I I still have to say that I have been so supported by the nursing and the doctor yourself that continued to, keep me as physically capable and physically alive as possible. I go to see a Physio of America store on a regular
basis. So it's maintenance of yourself, so that you don't become, an onus on somebody else. Like, how important has Marissa been? Because you you have to have a very special person that signs on and says that maybe the dreams we shared together when we first met, even though it might have been a very clandestine relationship at the beginning, but even then you're dreaming as you're, you know, that early days of a relationship, that changes dramatically. Oh, absolutely. Yet she seems to have
not only accepted it, but equally embraced it. But at the same time, the second she looks, you're even operating at 35% capacity. She'll hand you a snow shovel and tell you to go clean the driveway. I mean, I think it's just, you know It's just, you know It's very true. She's one of those that just like, get on with it. Will you just get on with it? Shut up. Don't tell me all the details. I don't need to know about it. Just hook it through this. She has been, an advocate for me throughout the
whole period of time. I mean, 10 years is a long time to to be a caregiver for somebody when, you know, yes, we go into marriages and relationships and, you know, through Sickness and in health. Yes. Health and sickness. In in my case, it's like, oh, jeez. Okay. I was prepared for it for a couple of years. But on the other hand, it has changed our lives. We we can't travel as much as we used to. We have to coordinate all the travel around my medical Chapman that I have to take,
the span of time that that we can go away. There's been a couple of times where I've basically said to her, you deserve a holiday. Go to London for a week. Will you just go and and go and have a good time? Go and see some theater. Go to New York with your friends for the weekend, which Key has done because it's it's almost that to be living with somebody like myself where there's this constant constant need to stay on top of the medical wellness of of
your partner. And so, you know, I really understand for people who are dealing with, couples who have dementia within the the family unit or, the need to be the caregiver. It's without a doubt, without partners who support us, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Without Marissa, I'd be lost, honestly. So, Stacey, I always end my
shows with my Three takeaways. And the first is you don't give yourself enough credit in terms of how your positivity, mischievous smile, you know, the twinkle in your eye just inspires all of us because of what you've gone Three, and you approach most days with a skip in your step that people that have been healthy every day of their life don't have. And I wanna tell you that, and
I'm sure everybody listening is gonna feel the same way. And if they got to know you as I have done as a person, it's exceptional to see. The second is just what you talked about, Marissa, sort of that support is a beacon, the, you know, the allies in your journey, the ones that walk beside you, sometimes they have to carry it.
They become such an important light on the path, and I have to believe there have been days when she's almost willing to give up because it's so onerous and there's days when you've wanted to give up as onerous, but each of you have each other and somebody's always pulling out a hand and reaching up. And I think that's why they talk about how loneliness is such a horrific part of our society nowadays. You don't find that in social media. You find that
with real people. And then the third one is just that, you're such a beautiful storyteller. I that no idea because you and I are often together in so situations and dinner parties and such. And I just understand why you fell in love with stories. You're so gifted at animating. I think we gotta have a Stacy Curtis film night at our home, and we go through some of the I wanna begin with the actual cassette tape of you, the whatever that Drumming finally found a way to put
this together and have you on chat. We finally found a way to put this together and have you on Chatter That Matters. Well, thank you very much. I'll I'll pull out my stack of VHS. Most people don't even know what those are anymore, my collection of shows. But it's been a pleasure speaking with you, Tony, and thank you very much for, including me in your, podcast. It's it's been great. Joining me now is Amy Deacon, CEO and founder of Toronto Wellness
Counseling. She's been on my show so many times because she's wise beyond her years and passionate about the human being and making the most of what we're given. Amy, welcome back to Chatter That Matters. That is just the most lovely introduction. Thank you, Tony. Amy, we've talked about this in the past. People that have knocked at the doorstep of death and fought their way back, like Stacy Curtis has, they treasure it in a different way, don't they?
I think sometimes we don't realize how fragile life is until you do. You don't realize how precious your time here is, your relationships are, how you live your life until it's almost taken away from you. And so it is something it is a theme that is common when people either, you know, are diagnosed with cancer, develop a chronic health issue, have a near death experience that there there's just this sobering
awakening of, oh my gosh. Here I was moseying on, living my best life, taking every moment for granted. And I I the people that are shook and awakened by that typically can't and almost have an allergy to going back to living a life where you just kinda feel like you're going through emotions. And what advice can you give to people to find a way to treat your life that way? Because when you're healthy and and capable, that should be the times that you're really giving that
most. And and as you said, yet so many people meander. I think that is sometimes a blessing. It's almost like, you know, when when I was younger and I didn't finish my plate of dinner and my parents would say, oh my gosh, do you not realize that there are children in this other country that have and you don't appreciate it. But then fast forward the clock and I spent, you know, a cup the summers in in Cambodia volunteering, and then you wake up. Right? It's almost you can't appreciate something
hardship or a into a hardship or a traumatic situation. Steve Covey has this exercise where he forces people or invites them, I shouldn't say force, invites people to reflect on their funeral. And when they have passed, what will people say about them? What will be their legacy? What will your friends say? What will your family say? What will your community say? What will your coworkers
say? And sometimes it's uncomfortable, but there's something about the conversation around deaf that provides an opportunity for us to ask ourselves, are we really living? And if it were to go away, would we be good with how we spent our time here? Amy Deacon, sending you yet another virtual hug because we do these things remotely, but that you so much for once again bringing it all on Chatter That Matters. Thank you so much, Tony. Chatter That Matters has been a presentation
of RBC. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening. Let's chat soon.