A young man from Scotland has completed a journey his father wanted to make but couldn’t before he died.
David Wood, 30, came to Powell River in May to thank the doctor who saved his father’s life. With the help of Teedie Kagume, coordinator of Powell River Museum and Archives, David found Dr. Cam Hobson, who operated on his father in 1967 after he was diagnosed with cancer.
David’s father, also named David, emigrated to Canada when he was 19. He met a couple of other Scottish young men and drove from the east coast to the west coast. They made it to Vancouver, but decided they wanted to keep going, to see where they ended up. Where they ended up was on Texada Island.
His grandfather had worked in a mine, David said, and his father grew up in a village that was for miners. “I think he ended up on Texada because there was mining there. He was looking for work.”
His time on Texada was short, because soon after he arrived, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was referred to Hobson, a surgeon, who operated on him, then told him he needed to go back to the United Kingdom for treatment and to be with his family.
Hobson said he remembers clearly treating David senior. “I operated on him because it was urgent.”
Hobson knew he would need radiation treatment as well and David didn’t have any medical coverage in Canada, nor did he have any money. “My feelings at the time of sending him off back home, I just recognized what a blow it was to his adventuresome spirit, to have to go back and start in on radiation therapy,” Hobson said.
Back then, cancer patients were given six months to live, if they were lucky. David senior followed Hobson’s advice, went back to Glasgow and started undergoing treatment at a radiation clinic. He and a nurse who worked there became close. “He would see her every day,” said David junior. “During those three weeks of hell, they fell in love.”
After two weeks, David’s father asked the young nurse to marry him. “His diagnosis was six months. They fell in love and wanted to get that done before it was too late.”
Despite the urgency the young lovers felt, David’s grandfather, his mother’s father, made the couple wait a year. “He said, if you’re still around in a year’s time, you can ask her again.”
After a man has testicular cancer, it’s not easy for him to become a father. David said his parents were told that they might never be able to have children. “They started trying when they got married and I came along 11 years later.”
During those years, David senior hadn’t forgotten about Hobson. After he returned to Scotland he wrote to him. Years later, when Hobson was cleaning out his desk at his office, he found the letter. “I wondered if he was still around, because I remembered him as a bright and pleasant young fellow.”
Hobson wrote to David senior, who wrote back soon after, describing how his life had evolved. “It was very gratifying to find out that he had done so well after having a pretty dire diagnosis for a young fellow,” Hobson said.
Sadly, cancer caught up to David’s dad a second time. “As they found with a lot of cancer patients back then, the radiation therapy that they received would be the cause of later cancers,” David junior said. “In the 60s the treatment that they had was new and they didn’t really know the long-term effects of that.”
David senior died in August 2012. He was 64 years old. David pointed out he had an extra 40 years after he was given six months to live.
Throughout the time he was going through treatment again, his father said he wanted to go to Powell River, David said. “He wanted to meet Dr. Hobson, just to say thank you.”
After his father died, David took a look at his life and the things he said he was going to do someday. “It makes you look at what you actually want to do with your life. It had been my dream ever since I learned to snowboard, to spend the season in Canada.”
David was teaching math and physics at Grantown Grammar in Aviemore, but he decided to pursue his dream and took a sabbatical from his job.
Because he was under 30, he was able to obtain a working visa. He set off for Whistler, arriving in January, and he financed his dream by working in a ski rental shop.
Just before he returned to Scotland, he had one more trip to make, to Powell River, to visit Hobson. “It was a bit of closure for me, to be able to come and do that for him.”
Before he came, he emailed a few people, seeking help in locating the doctor who treated his father. Those emails led him to Kagume, who figured out it was Hobson.
When Kagume phoned him to find out if he might be the doctor who treated David senior, Hobson said he was really surprised.
David junior’s visit was memorable for Hobson as well. “It was really pleasant to meet such a nice young man. I commended him for having an adventure like his father did in coming to Canada, and recognizing his real interest in making this pilgrimage in memory of his father.”
Although his time in Powell River was short, David said he loved the landscape and the views. He could see why the area made such an impression on his father all those years ago.
