Seventeen Months of Waiting: What My Family’s Experience Taught Me About Canadian Healthcare

Author: Yonina Wu

In late 2022, my mom began experiencing health issues that didn’t have immediate answers. At first, the signs were subtle — little things you could almost brush aside, the kinds of symptoms you tell yourself are temporary. But deep down, we knew something wasn’t right. Like so many families across Canada, we entered the healthcare system with questions, hoping for clarity. What followed, though, was not a straightforward path from concern to care. It was a journey defined almost entirely by waiting.

The timeline tells the story more clearly than anything else:

• February 2023 – my mom was scheduled for initial testing.

• September 2023 – an MRI finally confirmed a sellar region tumor.

• March 2024 – she underwent surgery.

Seventeen months from start to finish. Seventeen months of waiting. Not because her condition was too complex, not because doctors didn’t know what to do, but simply because the system couldn’t move any faster.

Living Through the Wait

When people talk about “wait times,” they often reduce them to numbers: weeks, months, averages. But living through a wait like ours is not abstract. It’s not just sitting at home and twiddling your thumbs until the phone rings. It’s carrying a heavy, invisible burden every single day.

I remember those first few months after her initial test was booked in February 2023. We told ourselves it was just a routine precaution. We tried to keep life normal. But normal started to shift. My mom grew more tired, her energy dipping at moments that used to be effortless for her. She began experiencing changes that didn’t make sense, and our family rhythm adjusted around her without us even realizing. We cooked more meals for her, picked up tasks she once did with ease. None of it seemed like an emergency — but it didn’t feel right either.

Then came the wait for the MRI. From February to September, we lived with this strange tension: knowing something was wrong but not knowing what it was. Every new symptom sent us spiraling: was it connected? Was it worsening? Should we push harder for answers? Each time we reached out, the response was the same: the MRI is booked. Just wait.

Seven months is a long time to “just wait” when your loved one is getting worse before your eyes. We didn’t have clarity, but we had questions, and those questions filled our household. Conversations that used to be light and casual became anchored by health. Vacations and plans were postponed — because how can you plan when you don’t know what’s coming? Every birthday, holiday, and ordinary dinner had an undercurrent of anxiety.

When the MRI finally came in September 2023, the relief of having an answer was quickly replaced by dread. A sellar region tumor. The words hung in the air. Suddenly everything we had noticed made sense. The fatigue, the vision issues, the changes we had tried to rationalize — they all had an explanation now. But instead of bringing peace, the diagnosis brought a new kind of waiting.

Her surgery was scheduled for March 2024. Six months away. Six more months of carrying the knowledge that there was a tumor pressing against her nerves. Six more months of adjusting to her worsening vision. Six more months of living with the fear that something irreversible was happening while we waited for a date to arrive.

The Emotional Weight of Limbo

I cannot overstate how exhausting it is to live in limbo. When someone you love has a serious condition, you expect the hardest part will be the treatment itself — the surgery, the recovery, the medical decisions. But for us, the hardest part was the silence in between.

We were stuck in this suspended reality where life had to continue, but nothing felt secure. My mom tried to carry on with grace, but I could see the strain. Small things like climbing stairs or reading for long stretches became difficult. She was determined not to show fear, but I could hear it in her voice when she asked, “Do you think it’s getting worse?”

For me, the nights were the hardest. During the day, there were distractions: school, work, errands. At night, though, the quiet left too much room for thoughts. I would replay scenarios in my head — what if the tumor grew faster than expected? What if her vision didn’t recover after surgery? What if something happened before March? The “what ifs” piled up, and no one could give us answers.

This emotional toll doesn’t show up in wait time statistics. But it is real. Anxiety, sleeplessness, helplessness — these are as much part of the patient experience as the diagnosis itself.

The Financial and Practical Strain

People often assume that because Canada has universal healthcare, families like mine don’t face financial pressure during medical struggles. But that’s not entirely true. The care itself may be covered, but the waiting creates its own hidden costs.

There were days my mom couldn’t go to work because of fatigue or vision issues. That meant lost income, especially difficult for households already balancing tight budgets. There were travel costs for appointments, often booked at inconvenient times in hospitals far from home. There was the need for flexible schedules — my family members had to rearrange work and school commitments around tests and consultations, often with very little notice.

And then there’s the cost you can’t put a number on: the toll on family routines. Waiting for care doesn’t just pause the patient’s life; it pauses the whole family’s. Plans are put on hold, opportunities missed, and energy diverted into managing uncertainty.

Trust, Shaken

Perhaps the hardest part for me, personally, was the erosion of trust. I grew up believing in Canada’s healthcare system as something fair and dependable. It was often described with pride: “free at the point of use,” “equal for everyone.” But living through this journey made me realize that universality doesn’t necessarily mean accessibility.

What good is being “covered” if the care arrives too late? What does equality mean if some patients, through geography or circumstance, wait even longer? What happens to trust when families are told to be patient while watching their loved one’s health decline in front of them?

By the time my mom finally had surgery in March 2024, I felt grateful for the skill of her medical team — they were brilliant, compassionate, and effective. But I also felt a lingering bitterness toward the system itself. Not toward the doctors or nurses, who are doing everything they can in an overstretched system, but toward the structures that allowed her to wait so long for something so critical.

Our Story in a Larger Context

The truth is, our family’s story is not rare. Across the country, families are waiting months or even years for treatment.

• Over 6.5 million Canadians don’t have a regular family doctor.

• The average wait from referral to treatment is now 27.7 weeks — more than half a year.

• In Ontario, surgical waitlists have climbed past 250,000 people, many of them waiting in pain or disability.

• For cancer patients, delays as short as four weeks can increase the risk of death by 6–13%.

Our story is one version of this reality, but there are thousands more, each with its own timeline of anxiety, disruption, and uncertainty.

Lessons Learned

Looking back, there are a few lessons my family carried through this experience.

The first is that time is not neutral in healthcare. Every week of waiting matters, because conditions don’t pause while the system catches up. They progress. They worsen. They steal outcomes that could have been better.

The second is that waiting affects more than health. It touches mental well-being, financial stability, and family life. It’s a holistic burden that stretches far beyond the hospital walls.

And the third is that change is possible. Other countries have reduced wait times through better triage systems, expanded diagnostic capacity, and more community-based care. Canada can too, but only if we stop treating long waits as inevitable.

What Needs to Change

Based on our journey, and on what I’ve learned since, here are some concrete changes that could reduce the human cost of waiting:

1. More Diagnostic Capacity – Shorter waits for MRIs and other tests through more machines, extended hours, and decentralized locations.

2. Streamlined Referrals – Allowing urgent cases to go directly to specialists without months of gatekeeping.

3. Surgical Backlog Relief – Expanding operating room hours, hiring more staff, and supporting those already in the system to prevent burnout.

4. Transparent Waitlists – Giving patients real-time updates so they aren’t left in the dark about where they stand.

5. Support Systems During Waits – Mental health counseling, financial support, and guidance for families in limbo.

6. Digital Triage and Guidance Tools – Platforms like HealthHubUs can give patients immediate clarity about symptoms, help prioritize urgent cases, and reduce unnecessary ER visits.

None of these are quick fixes. But even small steps would have made a difference for my family, and they could make a difference for millions of others.

Why I’m Sharing This

It’s not easy to write about my mom’s health. Illness is personal. Families instinctively protect their privacy, and my first instinct was to do the same. But I’ve realized that silence only makes it easier for these delays to remain hidden. If families don’t share what waiting really feels like, policymakers can continue treating it as just a number on a chart.

I’m sharing this story because I want people to see the human side of wait times. Behind every statistic is a family living with uncertainty, fear, and disruption. Behind every delay is a loved one whose condition doesn’t stop progressing just because the system does.

My mom’s surgery in March 2024 saved her life. For that, I am profoundly grateful. But it should not have taken 17 months to get there. She deserved timely care. Every Canadian deserves timely care.

Conclusion: Every Day Matters

Healthcare should be about healing, prevention, and trust. But when care is delayed by months or years, time itself becomes the most dangerous factor. Tumors grow. Vision fades. Families unravel.

The hidden cost of waiting isn’t captured by statistics alone. It’s captured in sleepless nights, lost wages, postponed plans, and futures altered forever.

If Canada truly believes in universal healthcare, then universality must mean more than coverage. It must mean timely, equitable, and human-centered care.

Our family’s 17-month journey through diagnosis and surgery is one story among many. It should not take personal accounts like this to prove what the data already shows. But if speaking out helps even one more family avoid the same uncertainty, then it’s worth it.

Because in healthcare, every day matters. And no one should lose their health to the calendar.