In early 2020, as the world dealt with the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, 26-year-old Elman Mirzaei faced even more uncertainty. He woke up one morning to two paramedics looking over him, after his girlfriend (now-wife), Esther, noticed him having a seizure in his sleep and called for help. Elman didn’t recall it happening.

In 2017, 24-year-old Laura Thompson was living her dream, having just co-founded a natural skincare company, now known as Three Ships. She’d been having what she thought were minor episodes, where for 10 to 15 seconds she felt a strong disassociation between her mind and her body.

Kelly Dubuc’s son, Sam, has been easygoing from day one. “He was just chill out of the gates,” Kelly, of Guelph, Ont., recalls. “I called the nurse in after he was born and said, ‘I think there’s something wrong with him. He never cries.’ She put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Consider yourself lucky. You’ve got an easy baby.’” Through the years, he’s maintained the same happy, positive attitude.

It’s not something that you’d expect to hear from anyone, however, brain tumour survivor Jedro Magtoto says the prospect of losing his life made him start living it on his own terms. For years, Jedro worked in a corporate sales position, succeeding at his work, but feeling incredibly unfulfilled.

Rebecca Grundy believed in using her voice for change. She’d been working as a government lobbyist for the Progressive Conservative (PC) party in Ontario and as a successful public relations and communications professional. In the latter, she worked on campaigns for Rethink Breast Cancer and lobbied to bring Novocure’s Optune device, a wearable treatment for glioblastoma, to Canada.