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LABRADOR CITY, N.L. — Dealing with cancer is often a long and arduous path, but it was Linda Daigle’s final journey home that proved the most difficult for her and her family to deal with.Shawn is originally from Wabush in Labrador, and met Linda, who grew up in St. Brendan’s in Bonavista Bay with the maiden name Bridgeman, while they were both going to school in St. John’s in 1987.
He eventually took a job as a draftsman with the Iron Ore Company of Canada in Labrador City and they welcomed their first daughter, Ginette, in 1990.Life was good for the Daigles for most of the next three decades. They got through Christmas at home and things seemed to be going well until March 2023 when Linda began complaining about a migraine, something she never really had before.
Linda Daigle, left, of Labrador City, hugs her husband Shawn after ringing the bell marking the end of her chemotherapy sessions to deal with breast cancer in 2021. - ContributedThe Daigles, after enduring the long weekend for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation waiting for answers to the latest testing, were told on Oct. 3 they could either take low-dose radiation that would give Linda a little more time or they could do nothing and go home to live out her final days.
“What they told my wife was they needed the flight to pick up a trauma patient in Stephenville,” said Shawn. “Why would we question that? Someone else needs it, so we’ll just get the next one.With time on his hands, Shawn began tracking flights on FlightAware, a website that provides real-time, historical, and predictive flight tracking data. He knew what planes the government used for medical transports.
“One nurse told us it could be two weeks before we could get a flight, but we didn’t have two weeks,” Daigle told SaltWire.A family friend graciously offered to pay for a chartered flight home. Daigle contacted EVAS Air but was told it would be Oct. 9 before they could arrange a flight and crew.Later on Oct. 7, the Daigles were finally told a government-arranged flight would be available to take them the following morning, weather permitting.
The view from the flight on Oct. 8 that finally brought Linda Daigle back home to Labrador City so she could die surrounded by her family. She died less than two days later. – ContributedDuring the flight, said Daigle, his wife was in a lot of pain and the nurse accompanying them gave her what she could to help control it.
His daughters later told him that, just before she died, Linda seemed to come to her senses, looked normal and relaxed. They told him they were praying with her and took her last breath just as they finished The Lord’s Prayer.Daigle said his wife never complained about her diagnosis, even though she knew it was a death sentence.
A timelier flight home could have given his family more quality time spent with his wife during her final days. Instead, the little time they got together was spent managing Linda’s pain.
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