"Hell."

That's the word Tricia Clement uses to describe her family's ordeal last fall. When she and her husband, Dave, took their son David into the hospital on October 18th, they knew it might be serious. The eight-year-old was "extremely confused and disoriented." As they rushed into the hospital, he started to slip into unconsciousness.

What they weren't prepared for- how could they be? - was a tumor. More precisely, an ependymoma.

It was located in their son's brain.

The surgeon assigned to the case gave them some reason to hope.

Some.

"With complete removal of the tumor, and radiation," Clement quotes the doctor's words, "it could be a cure."

The Clements, who hail from Sudbury, a small city in northern Ontario, spent five weeks in or near the provincial capital, Toronto, much of it at Sick Kids Hospital- one of Canada's top public facilities. Her husband cared for their six-year old, Benjamin, at home, but made the five hour drive down on weekends.

The tumor was removed on the 10th of November, 2005. David underwent 32 radiation treatments, and was declared cancer free.

End of story, right? Not quite. Increasingly, caregivers and medical professionals are recognizing what families have always known: the cure is just the beginning of getting better.

The Clements needed help. They got it in the form of Cottage Dreams.

Seana O'Neill knows what it's like to see a loved one struggling with cancer. She also knows the value of a little breathing room- an opportunity for cancer patients and their families to reflect on what they've been through, heal hurts, then get excited about moving forward.

Cottage Dreams (CD) is the brainchild of O'Neill. The charity is based in Haliburton- in her estimation, along with Muskoka and Parry Sound, one of Ontario's three prime lake cottage centers. Cottage Dream's mandate is to match philanthropic cottage owners with cancer survivors, providing the latter with a free-of-charge Sunday to Friday cottage vacation.

O'Neill is fortunate. Growing up, her family had a cottage. When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer 18 years ago, O'Neill saw the way the family's retreat by the water became a safe harbor for her mother.

The charity founder bought her own cottage back in 2002. She spent her maternity leave there. But when she was faced with returning to work- she was employed in Toronto's film industry- it struck her as unfortunate that her cottage would sit empty most of the year.

That was when it occurred to her: How many cottage owners could spare a week, just one week, each year to make a difference in the lives of people recovering from cancer?

As it turns out, quite a few.

O'Neill first floated the Cottage Dreams idea to her friends at a Labour Day party. Everyone thought it was a splendid thought. The next step was to contact a lawyer, as well as a real estate agent who specialized in cottages. The agent sent out letters to a hundred clients. Within two weeks, ten had written back expressing interest in participating.

By the time Labour Day weekend rolled around the next year, the dream had become a reality. Cottage Dreams had charitable status and a board of directors. Most importantly, it had placed its first six families.

"I think we'll reach 150 by the end of the year."

O'Neill is talking on the phone from CD headquarters. The charity has grown considerably from 2003. Upwards of 450 cottage owners have offered their cottages. The charity's goal this year was to do 100 placements. They'll exceed that goal by fifty-percent. The goal next year will be 300.

Unless funding, or lack thereof, gets in the way.

In 2004, CD received a grant from the Ontario government of $204,000, to be spread over three years. The last installment arrives in 2007. The government also pays the salaries of some of CD's staff- part of a Ministry of Human Resources employment program. But that funding ends even sooner, this coming fall.

She's met with the Ministers of Health federally and provincially. Both say they want to help. Neither has made a commitment. Sustainable funding was CD's biggest obstacle to going national. Now it's proving to be an impediment to their very survival.

O'Neill hopes the private sector will step in, preferably with some big donations. Reaching corporate decision makers isn't easy though.

"Getting into a boardroom is like phoning [the White House] and asking to speak with George Bush. It just doesn't happen," she says.

It was an article in the Toronto Star newspaper that first caught Edie Barley's eye. Then she and her husband, Phil, noticed an ad in Cottage Life, an Ontario-based magazine that donates space to Cottage Dreams in every issue.

The Barley's cottage is in Bala, on the Moon River, located in the aforementioned Muskoka region. It's an older place, but the two families who've stayed there for free vacations don't seem to mind one bit.

It was just this past June that they had guests. A woman, with a four year old child who was in remission. The previous September, back in 2005, it was the mother who had survived cancer.

Phil says he knows the healing power of cottage country. "They need emotional care... it's mending the family more than anything else."

Edie has had a couple of "minor bouts" with skin cancer and, in her words, "We all know somebody... who's been through it." After hearing about CD, the right decision was easy for her: "If it helps them heal, what the heck, let's donate the cottage."     

The cancer care model is based on killing the illness. What resources there are get devoted to that single-minded goal.

O'Neill thinks the care model needs to be expanded. Cancer hurts families. It leaves children frightened, spouses depressed, finances shaky, and cancer survivors bewildered.

The charity founder describes a grim scenario: A woman- a mother with two children. Mommy suddenly gets sick. The children are young, too young to really understand. But their mother's hair has disappeared and she can't get out of bed. Perhaps the kids have to live with grandparents, or the family's finances are so strained that piano lessons and soccer have to be abandoned.

Then, one day, mommy comes home and announces she's "better." But the truth is, while she may be "better," she's not yet well, and neither is her family.

Women who've had mastectomies struggle with intimacy, says O'Neill, and children need help becoming children again.

Lance Armstrong's high profile bout with cancer has helped bring "survivorship" into the spotlight, says the advocate, but a lot more still needs to be done. In the meantime, governments don't' have a line in the budget for the work being done by Cottage Dreams. Says O'Neill, "You're not research, you're not care, you're not breast cancer, you're not prostate, you're not children, you're not the elderly."

In fact, CD is most of those things- it's just not any one of them exclusively.

The Clements have just returned from a holiday.

During David's illness, the residents of Sudbury really got involved in helping the family. The studio where the eight-year old took dance lessons raffled gift baskets at Christmas.

Friends and coworkers had collections. A nurse assigned to their case helped them access local resources. Northern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer (NOFCC) helped them financially.

And Cottage Dreams came through with one week of summer bliss on 12 Mile Bay, just off LakeHuron's Georgian Bay.

"We actually got to meet the owner...," says Tricia Clement. She later adds, "They're obviously wonderful people."

Life has improved for the Clements since their scare at the end of last year. David's spirits are high, although he bears scars from his ordeal: epilepsy, controlled by medication, and a neurological tic that causes him to cough incessantly when he's awake.

Tricia says her son's "a little sensitive" about his cough, but he doesn't feel sorry for himself: "He said he was glad that he had cancer because he got to meet a lot of people."

What did a week at a lake cottage mean to the Clements? It meant "just being a family, and getting back to that."

"I don't even know what we talked about," she says, and chuckles. Then she adds, "We laughed a lot."

For more information on Cottage Dreams, please go to their web-site at www.cottagedreams.org

By Eric Sparling