Within days, this Afghan lawyer went from helping refugees, to becoming one himself

Guest: Saeeq Shajjan

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I was really scared I was in shock, and I think it was going to die, it was my friend going to die, but they were going to do with us. I didn't think we were going to be kidnapped. I was actually pretty surprised when what they wanted was actually us.

MATT GALLOWAY: Edith Blais was travelling in Burkina Faso when she and her friend were abducted by an affiliate of Al Qaeda for four hundred and fifty days. The young woman from Sherbrooke, Quebec, was held in the desert, an ordeal documented in a harrowing new memoir in 30 minutes. She's here to talk about life in captivity. Her escape through the dark and how she thinks now about those who took her hostage. Also this morning,

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It was amazing to observe that our patients depression symptoms really dissolve. She was better within an hour of turning it on for symptoms and improve the next day. Within a few months, she had gone into remission.

MG: For four years, deep brain stimulation has been used to help manage symptoms of those with Parkinson's and epilepsy. Now this technique is being tested on people with severe depression in an hour. The promise of a so-called pacemaker for the brain that The Current begins this morning at a hotel just off a busy highway north of Toronto.

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MG: Hi, is Saeeq there? Hey, this is Matt Galloway from CBC Radio The Current. How are you?

MG: The parking lot of this hotel is a busy spot. This is where some of the newly arrived refugees from Afghanistan are staying. There are people milling about outside, talking on their phones, getting fresh air with their kids. And I'm here to meet Saeeq Shajjan, right?

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SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Yes. Hi, Matt. Nice to meet you.

MG: Nice to meet you.

MG: He's a Harvard educated lawyer, and he looks like one, too. Wearing a crisp blue shirt and dress pants, Saeeq escaped Kabul with his family in the middle of August. They first went to Doha, and then they ended up in the Greater Toronto Area just over a month ago.

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MG: Had you been to Canada before this?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: No, that's my first.

MG: It's your first time. It's such a cold... Yet winter is coming here around this time.

MG: We head around to the back of the hotel, to the empty gym and squash court, where he's been spending a lot of time with the two oldest of his three kids.

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SAEEQ SHAJJAN: So does this Fayek. Yeah. The oldest son is 13, and then I've got Nasrallah. He is 11. Both are playing squash these days. Nothing else, and they do swimming after they play squash.

MG: When you say nothing else, I mean, these are the teenagers in this hotel that keeps them busy and helps burn off a bit of energy and keeps them distracted.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Yeah, I think it's very good. That's why I'm doing it. To keep them busy, make sure that they're not in the room all the time. They do watch a lot of movies and cartoons on their on their tablets. At the same time, I'm trying to push them to read a little bit also, but they will say no. Once we go to school, we'll will do the reading so they're not helping on that front. But at least getting them out, trying to keep them active. I think that's the best they can do at this point.

MG: Play the squash. We will try that.

MG: We're not allowed into the hotel because we're told there are privacy concerns for the other refugees. And of course, there are worries over covid. I ask Saeeq what the conversations are like inside with the other refugees who are staying here.

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SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, mostly it's all about Afghanistan. It's all complaining from politicians, how they betrayed us, how they how corrupt they were, how they were just thinking about them. So it's not about the country and not about the people. And we would also talk about, OK, what is next, when they will provide us the housing, when we will move out of the hotel? What kind of job everyone is looking for. So mostly these are the two topics

MG: I want to talk about how quickly life changed for you. You were a lawyer in Afghanistan?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Yes.

MG: What kind of law were you practising?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, it was a full service law firm. I was doing very much everything, but mostly I was focussed on commercial law for companies that they were operating in Afghanistan. It was a very good, busy, profitable business, a business that I was able to help so many other lawyers who were there with me and we were providing internship opportunities for students, which they were really, really happy with. So it was a very good life. There was nothing that I could ask for more, and all of a sudden we have lost everything.

MG: And you were working with the Canadian Embassy as well.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Yes, I was working with the Canadian Embassy since 2013. I was providing them legal services whenever they would need, and most of the time, those legal services would be related to property, law issues, employment law issues. At times, there would be issues with their contractors. At times, that would be certain things that we would need to do it for the embassy, with the government, with the government of Afghanistan. And we were doing that, as I said since 2013, to present.

MG: What did you love about life in Kabul?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, I would say the hope that we had for the future. I was not really happy with the way things were going out at that point. The government was not efficient at all. President, he was losing his control. He was actually showing his actual face that we didn't know back in 2014 or two thousand nine when we were, like, really hoping that he would be the one for for the future of Afghanistan. Corruption was everywhere, but at the same time there was a system, there was a government in place and there was hope that things will get better. Of course we were complaining from from our police with complaining from our judicial system. We were complaining from the services that were provided by the government. But there is a hope that it can get better and there are signs that things were getting a little bit better. Day by day, but all of a sudden, there is nothing. There is no government right now. There are no institutions that are functioning and we have lost that hope, unfortunately.

MG: When did you realise that things were changing?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: When did I realise I think it was 15th of August that all of a sudden we heard that the president has fled the country effectively. There is no one to run the government. Taliban, they entered the city late in the afternoon and you could see them everywhere. That's the time that OK, so there was a little bit of hope that it was going to happen what kind of government they're going to form because we have this peace talks going on in Doha and there are some politicians that they would. They were hopeful that that there would be a kind of like like, let's say, a unity government or a government where either Afghans will also have a part in it. But I think we had to wait like maybe for a month or so until they announced their cabinet and when we saw the cabinet. So you could see that that they're not really prepared to run the country. They're not prepared to govern the country. And with the kind of announcement and appointments that they made, no one is like really trained for that job. No one has any prior experience or even educational background and the feel that they're given the responsibilities. So that makes you really disappointed it, OK, these are not the people to run the government. There is no hope that you can have for the future of the country.

MG: What was it like seeing the Taliban? You said you saw them everywhere. What was it like seeing them in the city?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: I saw them on the day that I was leaving for the airport. Other than that, as soon as we heard that things are not good in the city, so I was in my office, it was like around 11:00 in the morning. I called everyone. We had a quick meeting and I ask everyone to go home before things get worse. So I sent everybody home. I went to home myself also, and I didn't get out until I was going to the airport because I was not feeling safe and under 17 when I saw them. So you could see them that they are very much on the streets. And of course, these are not the faces that you want to police the city for you. So it is really scary, scary in a sense that these are not the people that they would have any respect for human life. Forget about human rights. So that makes it very difficult and challenging to live in a city that is actually policed by Taliban members who are not trained to be police who do not have like any. Value for four people lives, they will do whatever they feel is right to do.

MG: Why did you feel like you had to leave?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Unfortunately, there are people that they do not believe, that others also have the right to live in this country. Others also have the right to have a say in things. So things that I was doing, especially trying to halt or be part of of of the help and efforts to have a better judicial system in Afghanistan, they do not believe in that. Their judicial system is on the streets. Whosoever has an opportunity to make a ruling, they will do it on the spot and all the decisions are extrajudicial. They do not follow the legal system that we have in Afghanistan. They do not follow the Islamic system that you have it like for centuries right now, which I believe is a very fair justice system if you really go by the spirit of the religion. But unfortunately they do not believe in anything. They would do, whatever they can to just spread fear amongst the people so that they can govern the people.

MG: I mean, were you afraid for your safety given your role in the justice?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, absolutely, absolutely. That is the only reason that I'm out of Afghanistan. Otherwise, I think I always had opportunities to get out of Afghanistan and settled in so many different countries. When I was studying in the states, I had an opportunity to stay over there or at that time, come to Canada. But I chose to go back to Afghanistan and help the in a way that I could, and I was doing that. I was very happy with what I was doing, but all of a sudden you see that your own life is in danger and you better get out of here.

MG: What was it like? We've seen these extraordinary images of people trying to get to the airport and trying to get to the planes at the airport. What was it like for you to try to get your family to the airport?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, let me comment a little bit about how it was. I think you would have a similar situation and there might be worse than what we Afghans were doing in so many other countries in the Third World. So a lot of people, they have this belief that you have better employment opportunities outside your own country. So I think you would see similar images of similar opportunities provided to people of any Third World country. That's why it was such a chaos. It was not easy for us also, because going through that huge crowd that you have seen the images, it's it's not easy for anybody. But I would say that we were just lucky on that day that we were able to manage it, and especially when I'm talking about my parents that we had to have them on wheelchair. My father is in his late 70s, almost 80 years old. My mother is in her late 60s, who had done recently a bilateral knee replacement. Not easy for her to walk a long distance. It was really a horrible situation. You couldn't really imagine how you're going to do that.

MG: How did you get through? I mean, what was it like?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: So when when we got to the airport, so initially it was it was difficult in a sense to, as I said, Taliban they're not really trained to be police. They would not listen to you. They would not allow you even to speak. So I had to confront with a couple of them and one pointed the gun at me and said that he will shoot me. I had to step back, although I told him that, no, you cannot do that, you cannot shootme. He said why I cannot do that. I said, because you're scared, you are afraid of Allah, and he will punish you for this. And I was saying it in a smiling which I now regret that why I even told them that you cannot shoot me. He could shoot that moment. But I was trying to somehow pressure that guy and make him listen to me. It didn't work. I had to come back again next time. It didn't work again. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. I made my way to go to somewhat meet someone who was from the Embassy of Qatar. I recognised that guy from his uniform and found my name on the list. And then I said, OK, he said, Go bring your family. So I had already asked the family to sit in a corner.

MG: To sit in a corner.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Yeah, sit in a corner, which we had like, like all these big stone walls behind that so that they're a bit safe. And by the time that I was coming, there was a crowd of maybe like around 1000 or maybe more than that already passed that area. So it was not easy to to bring them. So when I say lucky, this is the point where I really feel lucky. I spoke with one of the members of the Taliban and I told them that I need you to help me. I have my family who are on wheelchair. It's not really easy and this was a very nice guy and a rare example of of nicety that you will see amongst them. He said that yes, you would help me. He came all the way back through the crowd and took us to where we want it. So then again, we went to the guy who was from the Embassy of Qatar, showed our passports, matched it with the names and then allowed us to get inside the airport. But again, what I'm saying that we were lucky. It wasn't that easy. We had to spend like three hours or maybe more than that, waiting, trying to find the names on the list, go get the family, bring them back. It wasn't easy and at the same time, it was scary also, because the number of the crowd that we had over there, it was uncontrollable. Everyone was trying to get inside the airport and then Taliban, they would be fighting every now and then trying to make sure that that they're not coming forward. So an attempt to push them, they would fire, which was a scary. And when I'm saying that they are not really trained and they are also not trained to manage such a huge crowd. And a lot of them, they would be very young boys of 17, 18, 20, and even I would say that they're not really able to control their gun. And we saw cases that people were killed. We saw one man who was passing by. He was actually hit by a bullet in his thigh. He was bleeding. So that was a situation which was really chaotic, really scary for everyone, and we were no different than others.

MG: How did it feel when the plane finally took off?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: I would say it was a bittersweet moment because you feel good that you are out, but then at the same time, you're feeling for so many others who are left behind, who would be waiting and hoping and expecting from you that you would be able to help them get out of the country. So I would say it was not, not the moment that anyone would want to be in.

MG: You had your whole life there and I mean, you have to get to the airport with no time. Like, what were you able to bring with you?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, I was able to bring with me, my three kids, my wife, my parents, my two sisters. And then after a week or so, we were able to get my extended family out also. So I would say that that that way it feels good that they're out. But at the same time, what I'm talking about expectations from others who are left behind. Believe it or not, I'm not really enjoying the moment that I'm out with my family safe until I make sure that everyone else who is in danger is out of the country.

MG: And you have a lot of other family members who who are still there.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, of course, yes. I do have my cousins. I do have my close friends that they're like, like family to me. I have my colleagues and my law firm who are like family to me, and that's what we were talking about all the time that, OK, we are one family. And honestly, during all these years, we proved to be one family for each other.

MG: What about what you left in Afghanistan? I mean, you had a thriving business. You have a home, you bring what suitcases? And that's about all.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, not even suitcases. I would say backpacks.

MG: So how would you characterise what you left in Afghanistan?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, it's very difficult to say anything about it. Honestly, to this day, I cannot believe it. I left my office, which we were the best law firm in the country. We were ranked by so many different institutions as the best law firm in Afghanistan, and it takes years of of hard work, day and night, seven days a week. And now all of a sudden, I'm no one. I had a name that was established. Almost everyone knew about me, so I was not only a lawyer, but at the same time I was into runner that a lot would would kind of like, really listen to me and take advice from me. So all of a sudden, I don't have anything right. I had to abandon everything. I would say it's a very difficult feeling. I hope nobody else goes through the same that I went.

MG: What's the hardest part about that?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, the hardest part of it is that it's fine. I would take it. But when you see someone is expecting something from you and you're not able to help anymore. There was a time that I was a helping hand for so many people. Financially, emotionally, so whatever someone was asking for, I was able or I was actually there for them to do that. But now all of a sudden, I'm in a position that I'm asking for for help myself. Or let me give you one other example on Saturday, which was August 14. We were doing a charity drive for refugees that had recently come from other provinces to Kabul city. We donated some money. We donated some, some food and clothes for for the refugees. Same week later, around Wednesday, Thursday, we were refugees ourselves looking for donations ourselves because I had no money with me. We we didn't have any clothes. Beginning of the week, we were helping others end of the week, all of a sudden you're in a similar position.

MG: Life changes really quickly.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Really quickly. Yeah.

MG: What about for you? What happens now? I mean, do you know you were in a different hotel? Now you're in this hotel with your family? Do you know how long you'll be here?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, honestly, I don't know. I think I can not be disconnected from Afghanistan. As soon as I have an opportunity, I personally think that I would go back. I'm not sure whether I would take my kids with me anymore there because they were already in danger during all these years that I was there. A lot of friends, they would pressure me. They would encourage me to get out and make sure that that your kids, at least they have a better future. So I may let them stay here, and I would go back to do the little things that I was doing to help everyone have a better life in Afghanistan. So as soon as I feel that I can do something, I would be allowed to do things that I want to do, even if there is a danger, I would take that risk.

MG: In the meantime, I mean, what are your immediate hopes for your life here in Canada?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, the immediate hope would be that that I need to find some sort of good employment. Kids go to the school. I think that those are the two things.

MG: What do you think Canadians need to know about the situation in Afghanistan?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: I would say that the Canadians should know that that Afghans, they are grateful for all their support during the past 20 years. I'm aware of so many different programmes that was actually possible because of the taxpayers money in Afghanistan and those who are really helping lives of Afghan people. What is going on, I think nobody would really expect it the way that things are happening in Afghanistan, I would need that the I would say that the Canadians would need to so stand by the people of Afghanistan. And the best possible way is to make sure that the government of Canada is doing the right things by pressurising the government of Taliban, that they need to somehow show a little bit of respect to human rights. And once we have that, I think the people would have some sort of a sigh of relief, which right now I think everyone is under house arrest, either force or enforced because you do not want to get out. Even if you get out, you're not allowed to get out in so many places. We have seen footage shows where Taliban, they would beat a woman with lashes for no reason. We have seen that that they would take people to unknown places. So forget about whether someone is allowed to work or not. But I think at the very first and important thing is that they should be allowed to leave. They should be allowed to live a fearless life in Afghanistan, which they do not have that. I think that that is what the international community can do to make sure that the Taliban are listening to the international. I'm sure they would listen if they really think of running the government. Let's say for another three to four years, they would need to have some sort of good relationship with different countries in the world.

MG: What do you miss the most about Afghanistan?

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, I would say everything. I would say everything. The country itself. People. My own practise, my office, my friends, the world that I was doing, the students that I was meeting.

MG: it's really emotional for you. I mean, it's hard to imagine how quickly things change.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Well, it's difficult. Believe it. It's very difficult to talk about it. No one was really prepared for this. I wasn't prepared for this. I never thought that I would leave the country.

MG: I appreciate speaking with you and good luck. Sure.

SAEEQ SHAJJAN: Thank you.

MG: Saeeq Shajjan is an Afghan lawyer and now a refugee. He and his family are living in a hotel with other refugees in the Greater Toronto area. The CBC News is next, and then I'll speak with Edith Blais about what it was like to live as a hostage for 450 days in West Africa. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

Canadian Édith Blais on being held hostage for 450 days in the Sahara

Guest: Edith Blais

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, a medical breakthrough in California has doctors treating depression through electrodes. What the discovery means for patients with mental illness. Coming up in about 30 minutes but first 450 days as a hostage in the Sahara Desert.

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The two main possibilities that they were concerned about is kidnapping, which is something that happens a lot in Burkina Faso, is what they're telling us and what we can read on their Canadian government website. And or they're stuck in a small, small village somewhere, and they can't get out. If they have been kidnapped but they have been telling us where we have been reading actually, is that it would take four to six weeks before we are contacted because they secure the people they kidnapped before contacting and asking for money.

MG: In January of 2019, the mother and sister of Edith Blais had no idea why Edith had disappeared, but they were right to fear a kidnapping. It would be well over a year before the mystery of what happened to the young woman from Sherbrooke, Quebec, and her Italian friend would be solved. Edith Blais has written about her terrifying ordeal in a new book The Weight of Sand: My Four Hundred and Fifty Days Held Hostage in the Sahara. Edith Blais. Good morning.

EDITH BLAIS: Good morning.

MG: This is a wild story. Tell me why you initially wanted to go to Africa, what was behind the trip?

EDITH BLAIS: Well, me and my Italian friend, we met a guy from Togo. He had to land there and he had a project, a permaculture farm, and he wanted to receive travellers from around the world and at home and they could help him on this project and everything. So we thought it was a good idea. And since my friend was from Italy, we thought taking his car down from Italy to Togo.

MG: And you had done, I mean, a lot of travelling. Before you write in the book about how you, you know, looking to live a more simple existence. Tell me about that and about what travelling gave you.

EDITH BLAIS: When I was 29, I left. I thought I was going to go back after three months and I never came back. I was travelling, going to Central Americ, everywhere, and I was going and hitchhiking, living with my backpack. Very simple life. I really loved it. I met a bunch of people that I went to visit a lot of people from Europe that I went to to visit after in Europe. I was travelling like that for five years and not going back home just as I was, I was just loving it and going back sometimes to western Canada to go work, to make some money and then travel again. So that was pretty much my life for the five years before that happened.

MG: And is that still your life now? I mean, you're on the road kind of right now hiking right now?

EDITH BLAIS: Oh, yeah. But it's easier now because I'm with my boyfriend. We were travelling in his van, so it's a lot easier than hitchhiking with the backpack.

MG: When I mean the trip starts and things are OK. And then when did things start to go sideways for you?

EDITH BLAIS: It's when we had we took a transit visa for Borkina Faso, it was three days and we met one guy that was from France but was living with his wife in Burkina Faso. And he said, Well, there's a way you can maybe have a visa Entente where have five of the countries you can go in and in and out, and it's less expensive. And Burkina Faso was in that Entente. So we went to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso to ask if we could have that. And they said, No, you have a visa transits so just leave, like you have to leave tonight. So that's what we did. Once we were in Togo, we were going to work for a friend and I still wanted to travel. I was leaving Africa. I loved the people there and the culture. I just didn't want to stop yet. And I asked my friend, Do you want to go to Benin first? And then we'll go to Togo. And since we had to go out, like at night, we have just we just had like some hours to get out. And then before the night fell, we were kind of in a hurry. So we didn't stop to try to find some Wi-Fi to check if the border was safe. And that was kind of our mistake. It wasn't very safe, either. I remember where we were going that road to go to the border for Benin. There is nobody there, just me and Luka in our car for hours and the road was very [unintelligible]. It had holes everywhere we could. We couldn't go very fast. It was very, very slow. And that's it. That's where the ambush happened close to the border. There was a six men waiting for us with their AKs and blocking the street, and they're just running at the car. And we couldn't, we couldn't go anywhere because, I mean, we could roll very fast. And yeah, they opened the door and got us out of the car.

MG: What was going through your mind as this is happening?

EDITH BLAIS: Well, I remember just the eye contact with Luca. Just, I remember in the eyes, we could tell, like, maybe this is the end. Like, maybe this is our trip is going to end, or our life is going to end. What was going to happen? We didn't know, but it was just like the surprise in our eyes, like, Oh wow, this is really happening. And the- like, we were scared also, so all of that was just in that look and looking at Luca and our eyes just caught. We had to go out after that. They took us out of the car and then they started to move us into the park,

MG: Who were the men who grabbed you?

EDITH BLAIS: There are fulanis, but they're all part of the same group. No small groups, there are all fulanis, but they're all big part of like, [unintelligible] in Africa. Africa, they all have the same mission. At the end there, they brought us right up to the desert by a bunch of little fulanis and then they're Arabs of the desert. And then there was also the Tuaregs.

MG: And how frightened were you as this is happening?

EDITH BLAIS: I was really scared. I was in shock, I think, more than anything, just trying to figure out what was happening like was I going to die? Was my friend going to die? What was going to happen with us before that happened? Well, they were going to do with us? I didn't think we were going to get kidnapped. I thought everything except that they were going to steal us. I was actually pretty surprised when they what they wanted was actually us. So they left with us.

MG: How did they treat you?

EDITH BLAIS: It was the last thing I was thinking. They treated us fine. If you follow what they tell you to do and you don't rebel, they won't hit you, they won't, they won't do anything, they just want you to follow and they want you to follow until they get you safe and hidden in the desert.

MG: You didn't follow them after a while. I mean, you and Luca both went on a hunger strike. Why did you do that?

EDITH BLAIS: Well, because you're kind of mad at one point and we've been like they were hiding us in small little holes and yet this lay down day and night and we were going a little bit crazy not being able to do anything. And at one point is like, what can we do? There's nothing you can do. And the only thing that they can't make us do was eat. It was pretty much that like trying to rebel a little bit and see if it was going to take us somewhere, like maybe they would speak faster if they didn't want to lose their hostages. Or we didn't know. Like it was all new to us. So we knew that we could do. We tried it and we saw that it bothered a lot the guardians that they were making some calls to bigger shifts. So we were just continuined because we were seeing that it was doing something. We didn't know what it was doing. It was working. So.

MG: How long were you on a hunger strike for?

EDITH BLAIS: We did it for 35 days and then to punish Santa at the end, and they took us five days of water off. We're like, we didn't have water for five days at the end. So that kind of like almost killed us. That's why we started to eat again.

MG: You said that you were kind of going crazy. One of the things that you say in the book is that one of the hardest parts is that you couldn't mentally survive the idleness. How difficult was it to to be stuck there and just essentially not be doing anything?

EDITH BLAIS: I was feeling like if I was put in like a black hole and I just had to stay there day and night and just wait, there is no way to explain like you have to live it to understand it, I think. If only I had a book that I could read just to be able to put my mind on something or at one point when I was with Luca, I was like, If only I would have a pen, I could write and, you know, just do something with my mind instead of not having anything. Well, I had him so we could talk together. But I mean, that was it.

MG: And then you didn't. I mean, you were split up and you were taken into this camp of women.

EDITH BLAIS: Yeah, the day after we started to eat again, they separated us. It took like half a day of travelling, and I was put with three other women. Yeah, there was one elder woman she was when I arrived, she was 71, and she was there for two years and a half and there was two other ladies. They were both 59 at that time. And the one was there for three years and the other one two years. And that's what struck me. I was like, OK, I've been here for four months. Like, I'm not getting out of here soon. Like, it's a matter of years, not months. I was wondering how I was going to- how they managed to go through all those years, and I was wondering how I could manage also. It was so hard.

MG: What was the relationship that you developed with those women there in that camp?

EDITH BLAIS: Oh, it was a really, really good relationship. We were taking care of each other. It was really nice, actually. And the one that was 71 years old, the elders, she was taking care of me like she was my mom. It was really, it was nice. We didn't have anything. We didn't have much. But what we had, we tried to give it to the other or the other, it would help us manage through everything.

MG: Were you, I mean, did you start to despair thinking that you were going to be there like them for four years at a time?

EDITH BLAIS: Yeah, well, the one thing you try not to do is that because it goes down so quickly, you try to hold on to hope, and that's the only thing that keeps you going day after day after day after day or else if you go to despair, it gets so dark and it's very hard to get out of there. So it's like a tricky place you don't want to go. The best hope I had at that point was not to get out because I saw that people didn't get out of there. It was maybe it did get put back with Luca. And so there was I was holding on that hope all the time.

MG: You were moved around again. And in the book that you say you were both a treasure and a nobody. What do you mean by that?

EDITH BLAIS: Well, they tell you what to do, they don't- like for them, if you, you're not a non-believer in the eyes of Allah, you're worth like nothing alive. So it's a little strange. It's like if you were like a thing, so they look at you like you were a thing also. So you don't, you're not really worth something, but at the same time, they're working to keep you alive, to be able to to exchange something for you with the governments or they wanted to try to sell you. So it's kind of a yeah, it's a weird feeling.

MG: You eventually, I mean, when you talk about being a non-believer, you eventually convert to Islam. Why did you do that?

EDITH BLAIS: That was towards the end when I got separated from the women. I was with the woman five months and then we got separated. I was after alone for six months up north. Then it was very, very hard. At one point I did a little. I started, I stopped eating again after five months, I was alone. It was- and then they sent a chef to come and talk to me. And the chef, first of all, he spoke French, so at last I could know a little bit was happening. And first question is, is Luca still alive? We've been separated for 11 months and for 11 months I didn't know if he was alive. I didn't know what was happening with him, if they still had him. Nothing. So he tells me, he says, Yeah, I know everything. And he's still alive. He's with us. And he did a little deal with me. He said, If you start eating again, I'll send somebody to his camp and he'll do a video just for you. So you see that he's OK. And then it was like, Oh my God, it was the best thing that didn't have ever happened for me, like four or five months just to see his face. And now on a video, I could really see like I knew him a lot. I could really see how he was doing, if he was well for real and everything. So I said, Yeah, OK, I'm going to eat. And bring me that video. And at the same time, he said, you're going to also convert to Islam. And then we had a little discussion there. I didn't say yes, but he didn't wait for me to say yes. Like it kind of stopped like that. One week later, I received this video from Luca. And in the video, Luca says that he converted to Islam. So then I was like, it was a shock, another shock. I was so happy to see him, but at the same time, I knew if there was a chance I could be with him. I really had to be converted also, because we said at the beginning, that we were a wife and husband to be able to stay together because of their religion. So I knew that if his wife was not converted, they were for sure not put us back together if he was. And I was wondering if it was a tactic because he told me that in the video, as like, why is he telling me that? Does he want to trouble me? Or like, is it real? Or I was trying to see if it was a strategy or if it was like he was really converted? I kind of didn't see it. I couldn't see it in the video, so I just tried it like I was and OK and I decided to do it. And then one week after I did convert, they showed me the prayers and everything, and then we got back, put back together, me and Luca.

MG: Do you have any regrets about that? I mean, how do you how do you look back at that decision now?

EDITH BLAIS: Oh, noIt is a decision that saved my life, so I can't regret it. I remember at the beginning I told Luca, I don't want to convert because just for respect of all religions, I don't want to lie because I knew I was a non-believer like, I'm not Muslim. And and if I was going to do it, it was like in a lying. I was going to lie about it. And so I did not want to do that. But at that point, at that moment, I was really, like, stuck and it was a really a survival strategies. I had to do it just to try. It was to be able to do something. It was the best thing I did because if I didn't do it, I would probably still be there.

MG: So you talk about survival strategies, I mean, what did you do to not lose your mind in this as the days tick on and as the years, you know, the months kind of tick on towards a year and then beyond a year, what were you doing to try to keep yourself together?

EDITH BLAIS: At the beginning, I was with Luca. I wasn't that bad. Well, it wasn't too bad. It was hard, but I had him. And after that, it was getting a little bit harder. But when I was with the women, there was one woman that had a pen. She offered me to use the pen. So at that point I was that was like a life saver. I could write poems every day. I was writing a new poem and they were encouraging me and it was good for both sides because in the morning I would write my poem. And after I would read it to them and then we would just like talk about it. And for a couple of hours, I mean, it was keeping us on something new and my poems were not dark. They were talking about life and everything that was surrounding me, like the stars and the sand. And you know, it was is a nice place to go in my mind. And it was a nice place to give to the woman, too. After that, I got separated and the pen started to not write anymore. It was getting hard when I was alone and I started to do some yoga, but I was hiding trying to do it, so it was like a lot on my back. But it was helping me a lot just to be able to move it. It does something to your brain, you know? So that kept me hoping and on top of it.

MG: You mentioned that you were reunited with Luca and eventually the two of you decided that you were going to escape. Tell me about the plan. How did you get to the point where you thought we have to go and we have to figure out a way to get out of here?

EDITH BLAIS: Well, since the beginning, we wanted to try it. I remember when we started the hunger strike, it was the first strategy, and if it didn't work, the second strategy was to try to escape. But then we didn't get there because we got separated. So after that, I mean, I couldn't do it for sure because I didn't have any contact lenses and so I couldn't see anything. Everything was a blur. It was too dangerous. Luca, he tried to escape when we were separated in the month of September, and he got caught and he got punished very severely, and he was after that chained for six months. He was kind of hesitating also, you know, when we were talking about it. It was like, I really wanted. I had nothing to lose, I was thinking like, or we lose our lives here or we try something. And I really, really, really wanted to try something. I had a lot of wilful energy. So we planned it. They were taking our shoes off because where we were, usually we were in the desert sand like the desert, where we think of with the dunes and sand everywhere. But when we were up north, when I got separated from the women and put back with Luca, it was a rock desert. So there is a lot of rocks everywhere and just pieces of sand that so there wasn't sand everywhere. That was very, very helpful when we was trying to escape because in the sand you, you put so many footprints they could find you right away, but they were taking our shoes off. At night, so we couldn't all their rocks were very pointy, so we couldn't manage to go very far without our shoes. And we didn't have any water also, but we kind of try to hide the fact they were taking some water from our showers to keep some water for our escape. And I started to make some shoes for Luca with some towels and some of our carpets and pieces of cardboard. And I had a pair of shoes that they didn't know in my bag, so I was fine. And for one month, like we did, we prepared everything. And after that, there was the full moon like three days after the full moon, we tried it, so we would have enough time after the last prayer because the last prayer is maybe around 7:30. So we would have the darkness to be able to leave without them seeing us. And after that, we would have like a good moon to be able to follow. We wanted to go west. That was our direction we decided to take. So to be able to go west all the time and follow the moon and the stars. That was a plan and we were very, very lucky, like, life helped us because the night we decided to leave, there was a big wind sand in the night. So that was good for two things. They were like all the noise we would make trying to flee on the rocks. It was so loud the sound that they didn't hear us leave and also the pieces of sand that we had to go through anyways. They couldn't find our footprints because the wind all erased everything, all of our things. I think the wind saved us. I think they would have found us.

MG: You describe this amazing scene of walking through the dark in the desert and you have no contact lenses. You can't really see what's going on and your knee is twisted and you're not sure where you're going and what's going to happen. I mean, what was going through your mind as you get further and further away from from where you were being held?

EDITH BLAIS: I was just, I was going for it. I was just and I had this feeling for 15 months. You'd been like under their orders, not even able to like walk without them telling you you're allowed. And at this point, we were leaving because we decided we were leaving and we were free. I told myself, like, even if they catch us in the morning, I'm going to be free for a whole night. So I was kind of like a knight on a high. I was free. I was going where I wanted. We were going west, and that's what we were doing.

MG: You ultimately end up getting rescued on the road, and there's a process in which from that you are taken to a safer place. Then you're put on a plane and you're flown eventually back to Canada. What was it like when you saw your family in Sherbrooke?

EDITH BLAIS: Oh, wow. Yeah, that was a very big moment. It was kind of strange also, because when I was going back home, they told me, OK, well, because you're isolated, let's say you don't really know what's happening, but they tell me there's covid. And when you go back home, you have to be isolated for 15 days in quarantine and you're going to be with your mother, so your mother is going to be quarantined with you. Yeah, life just went on from there, and I was really, really happy.

MG: How are you? I mean, you're physically- you come back and there's a physical return. But how long did it take for you to become you again?

EDITH BLAIS: At first, it's a little weird and you try to go back to normal life now. I started to write my book at that point just to get it out of me, and that was actually something good. I think that I did. And then after for the summer, I wanted this feeling of having my life back. I went to work out west like I usually did, and it was in the Rocky Mountains. So I loved the nature and it was so resourceful and just being able to have a normal life to work every day, that was just a wonderful time, just me being able to do whatever I wanted to do. I mean, it was great, and then I went back home with all my friends and family again, and then I felt just super great.

MG: You say in the book that no one can go through something like this without being changed. I mean, how are you different now than you were before you took this trip?

EDITH BLAIS: I think when you lose everything at one point, once you regain things, I mean, you don't think that for granted anymore. I mean, everything I have like, I really appreciate it. And after I mean, I thought it was going to be there for years and years old right now is funny is like if I feel that I have bonus time that I didn't think I was going to have. So and they're here doing whatever I want. I like this is bonus. I can go travelling in the van if I want. I mean, I don't know. I just feel like free and I'm trying to do, like, live in a positive way and try to take whatever positive thing I to get out of that.

MG: I'm glad you're OK and that you're healthy and safe. It's quite a story, and I'm glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

EDITH BLAIS: Well, thank you for inviting me.

MG: Take care of yourself.

EDITH BLAIS: Thank you.

MG: Bye bye. Edith Blaz new book is called The Weight of Sand: My 450 Days Held Hostage in the Sahara. Well, coming up after your regional update.

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The feeling for her when we were able to treat her depression so rapidly was very uplifting. She, for the first time, felt it wasn't something she was doing wrong, but something that could be treated like other medical conditions.

MG: A new treatment for severe depression is being hailed as a medical breakthrough. Coming up how to treat mental health by rewiring some circuits in the brain. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

Deep brain stimulation offers promising treatment for depression

Guests: Dr. Nir Lipsman, Beth MacKay

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. A little preview of a story coming up soon on this programme. If you had even a passing interest in track and field in the 1960s, you might know the name Bruce Kidd. He was one of this country's most electric athletes. He was so fast that he made distance running feel exciting. Even the NFB made this wild documentary about him in the 1960s. Bruce Kidd has long been retired from competition, but he hasn't exactly hung up his sneakers. He's still in love with the idea of motion and has been a vocal advocate for the power of sport. I'll be speaking with him in the days to come, but for now, here he is and what running gave him when he was a child.

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It gave me a physical joy. It gave me a confidence in my own physical energy. It opened up spaces. For me, it was a way of of discovering the places where I lived and going farther and farther. And there was an exhilaration, too, to moving your body through space and time. I know that sounds corny or abstract, but but I relished that I relished the power that that gave me. And to this day, I prefer to be, I can't run anymore, but I can certainly ride. I prefer to be covering ground on my bicycle rather than being on a stationary bike or on a treadmill. Covering space, covering neighbourhoods, discovering new areas, regardless of what the season is, that has always brought me great joy. I grew up around the waterworks and we had a lot of leagues baseball, ball hockey, burby football and and I was known for my my lack of acceleration and my lack of explosive speed. And I don't know how it originated, but Gord Cardwell, sadly no longer with us, who was very fast on his feet and could run backwards very fast, once dared me to race him over 50 yards. He running backwards and and me running forwards and he beat me. So I challenged him to a rematch in the Malvern Harrier Championships that were being held the following week, which was a one and a half mile race. I started off the line with what seemed to be a jog, and within half a mile I was ahead of everybody by 50 to 100 yards, so I just kept on running and I won the race. And the coach, the first teacher, immediately recruited me for the school team and that led to other races, and that eventually led him to saying, Bruce, I can't take you any further, but I've called the University of Toronto track coach Fred Foote, who just happens to be the Olympic coach. I was 15 years old, but I was immediately thrown into runners in their late teens, their 20s, even their 30s, and that changed my life.

MG: That's the great Canadian distance runner, Bruce Kidd. You can hear my entire conversation with him in the days ahead on The Current. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. They are calling it a pacemaker for the brain. And now this matchbox sized device is being used to treat severe depression. It's known as deep brain stimulation, or DBS. The researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, now have a breakthrough in using DBS to treat mental illness. Here is how Dr. Katherine Scangos described her patient after she received the treatment.

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When we turn this treatment on for the first time, it was amazing to observe that our patients. Depression symptoms really dissolved. She was better, you know, within an hour of turning it on. Her symptoms and improved the next day. And when we first officially measured her depression symptoms 12 days later, her depression had dropped by more than 50 percent.

MG: It's a treatment that gets us closer to understanding depression and better being able to treat it. Dr. Nir Lipsman is a neurosurgeon and scientist and director of the Markwell Centre for Neuromodulation at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. Doctor, good morning.

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Good morning. Hi.

MG: How big of a breakthrough is this for treating severe depression? I mean, Dr. Schanke is there describes almost immediate relief for her patient.

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Yeah, I know it's it's an incredibly exciting study device. As you mentioned, DBS itself is not new, so deep brain stimulation is an established procedure for Parkinson's disease, and it's been investigated in depression now for for a really almost the last 20 years. And in fact, you left University of Toronto has been at the fore. Front of doing so. But what's really novel and interesting with this study is is how they stimulated and the approach that they actually took. That was really the breakthrough with this particular study.

MG: I guess briefly walk us through how this works. I mean, how what is deep brain stimulation? And in this instance, how is it being used?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Exactly. So DBS itself, as you said, is a brain implant. It's a pacemaker for the brain. And the idea is that electrodes are implanted in key parts of the brain, and they provide electricity to kind of jam the circuits in the brain that cause a certain symptom or a certain condition. So the idea is that typically it's a one size fits all solution where the electrodes are inserted and they're stimulated, and that's that. But the idea here and what they did is that they spent 10 days recording activity from the brain before they put the actual electrodes in. And what they tried to do was link brain signals in the brain with the patient's mood. So trying to map what is depression signature look like in the brain for this particular patient. And once they had that signature, they programmed a battery to stimulate the brain only when that depression signature was detected and that no other time. So I think about it kind of like a brain stimulation Whack-A-Mole, where when a signature is detected, it's abolished with stimulation. So that signature is unique to that patient. And when that signature again occurs, it's abolished and eliminated with the stimulation. So it's really personalised to them. And that's really the major breakthrough the highly personalised approach to treating depression and how do

MG: they know where the mole is going to pop up? I mean, if it's Whack-A-Mole, how do you know which part of the brain is involved in depression?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Yes. So they spent as before they actually implanted electrodes. Again, they implanted up to 10 electrodes that recorded activity from the brain in regions of the brain that we know are intimately associated with mood and with anxiety. It's part of our brains, limbic circuitry. So we know that this is a critical circuitry for mood and for anxiety disorders. And we know that if there's going to be a pathologic or abnormal signature, it will arise somewhere in that circuit. But we need to know where and that's where those recording electrodes come into play and when they were recording that they try to provoke depression in patients, whether they read a sad script or where they go about their their life or while their electrodes are being recorded and they try to identify that signature. And then they did that and they were able to personalise the treatment in that way.

MG: How does this change, how we think about depression and what's happening in the brain?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: You know, I think it's it's an incredible development and step forward. You know, DBS itself is a circuit based treatment, which means that its target specific regions of the brain that we know are important in that condition. For me, it's a major value of this paper and others like it is the validation that patients get and that we get as a community that patients are suffering from a real brain circuit condition. So whether it's mood or anxiety, these are driven by brain processes and they can be influenced and hopefully changed in these conditions are no different than treating Parkinson's disease or brain cancer. But the difference is that those patients don't have to go the extra mile to convince loved ones, caregivers and really the medical community that their symptoms are real, challenging and and very disabling. So work like this really validates that, and it goes a long way in helping us develop treatments.

MG: Do you see this treatment replacing what our traditional, more conventional treatments for depression?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Not yet. You know, the study is is powerful and it's really interesting. But, but of course, it's not really a trial or study per se. It's a single patient experience. It's a very detailed and well-done study of a single patient. But it's difficult to know how much of this will generalise to larger populations. It's incredibly promising and again, and gives us that clue about those depression signatures that may exist in the brain. But this is not for everybody by any stretch. So it's going to be several years before we really study this and see whether it has legs. The other thing is it's brain surgery, and in fact, it's two. Brain surgery is the first one to insert the electrodes to record activity in a second, one to insert the electrodes to do the stimulation. So there are real risks with neurosurgery. So the standard treatments which are evolving as well are going to be, you know, psychotherapy. They're going to be behavioural treatments and they're going to be a psychopharmacology medication. Those are are going to be the treatments that are highly effective for depression that should be done with a psychiatrist or primary care.

MG: But those treatments, we know that they they don't work in upwards of a third of patients with depression. So this this, you could imagine, would offer tantalising promise to those patients.

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Absolutely, and you pointed out that about a third of patients are so-called treatment refractory or treatment resistant. So three out of 10 patients with depression will be treatment resistant. And for those patients, there is an urgent need to develop novel approaches, new approaches and there are options, there are patients that undergo transcranial magnetic stimulation. Patients that undergo deep brain stimulation and focussed ultrasound, other tools and technologies that we're actively investigating. So there are options, and DBS may very well be a part of that.

MG: Doctor, stay with me. I want to bring another person into our conversation. Beth MacKay underwent a similar type of surgery in Calgary to treat her depression. Beth, good morning to you.

BETH MACKAY: Good morning.

MG: How would you describe the depression that you were living with before you had the surgery?

BETH MACKAY: I would describe it as crippling. I was completely unable to hold down a job. I was basically a houseplant plant instead of a human being.

MG: And you'd lived with that for how?

BETH MACKAY: I think at best estimate since I was about 11 years old.

MG: So when you heard about this idea of deep brain stimulation, I mean, what went through your mind?

BETH MACKAY: Well, I had tried everything available prior to that, so I was pretty excited about the option of something new and everything I read sounded really promising and the videos of it working on patients with Parkinson's was it looked like a miracle. It looked amazing. So I contacted them almost immediately and went through with it without really any hesitation because I didn't feel like I had an option.

MG: Tell me about that lack of hesitation. I mean, this is brain surgery. As the doctor was saying, it's it's to brain surgery. So what did your your surgical team tell you about what was in front of you and what you would be going into?

BETH MACKAY: My surgical team was fabulous. They were constantly telling me that if I had any doubts, any questions, any concerns, we could cancel a day of if I walked in and was like, I don't want to do this, they were ready to just pull the plug. But after spending my entire I mean, beyond my adult life, depressed, the prospect of potentially emerging from that was worth any kind of surgery. There was the risk of dying on the operating table seems more appealing than continuing to live. That's how depressed I was.

MG: So you do the surgery and you come out of the surgery. And what's different?

BETH MACKAY: So my surgery wasn't individually tailored, like the study in California. So my improvements was much more gradual over the next couple of months. And that's what we were expecting, like we weren't expecting that they would turn the system on and I would instantly be better. But over the next couple of months, as I recovered from surgery as well, I gradually became able to get up in the morning. I became able to accomplish more than a handful of things every day, and it just gradually improved to the point where I think arguably I'm basically a normal person at this point.

MG: Does it mean, can you feel that something is different in your mind?

BETH MACKAY: That's so hard to answer, I feel like I have escaped from being held down by it of tremendous weight, and it just felt like it gradually disintegrated until I could stand up without the weight holding me down every day, but I don't like I can't feel the electrical signal, I can't feel the stimulation.

MG: But it's more like, do you feel I mean, whether you know, a depressive episode in past might be on its way and that you would worry about what that would mean, and now you don't have that. You don't have that fear. You don't have that worry.

BETH MACKAY: I don't think that worry will ever fully go away. I mean, I had had medications temporarily work in the past. I had the experience of being better briefly and then resuming full blown depression. So there's always that fear in the back of my brain that it might come back. But I had the surgery in 2016 and I haven't had a relapse since, and that is the longest I have ever, ever not been depressed in my life. So every year that goes by, I think the fear gets smaller and smaller.

MG: You mentioned before that, I mean, it was difficult for you, for example, to be able to hold down a job. Has that changed?

BETH MACKAY: Yeah, I am working basically full time. I work for myself, I get up every day, go do all the things I need to do, and I, I don't know, I feel like a fully functional human being at this point.

MG: Pretty exciting. Dr. Lipman, what do you make of what you're hearing?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Oh, it's it's absolutely incredible, and I'm thrilled to hear such an amazing result, and that's exactly what we want to hear. And in such and in such an articulate way, really captures the kind of effects that we see with DBS for depression, which is a kind of loosening of shackles, a kind of lightening of this weight that patients with treatment resistant depression often feel. And and again, very well describe this idea that we don't really expect or see rapid changes. It's really a gradual change that happens over time. The way that I describe it to our patients is it's not a light switch, it's a dimmer. It's something that over time begins to lighten over time. And in fact, sometimes family members caregivers are the ones that start to notice changes that maybe even patients themselves don't notice. You know, you're spending more time out of bed today or you're going shopping, you know, things that maybe in the past you weren't able to do, now you're able to do it. And so that's a great result, and I'm really happy for you.

MG: We know that there is a stigma that's attached to mental illness and attached to the depression diagnosis. Take a listen again to Dr. Katherine Scangos. She had this to say about how this treatment perhaps could help reduce the stigma that is associated with mental illness.

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This particular patient said she felt a lot of that stigma and experienced it for years. And, you know, people had said, Oh, if you can exercise or do your journaling better, your depression would go away. And so she had internalised a lot of thought even from her family. And so the feeling for her when we stimulated and we're able to treat her depression so rapidly was very uplifting for her and freeing in some sense to her family. And she, for the first time, felt it wasn't something she was doing wrong, but something that could be treated like other medical conditions.

MG: Beth, does that sound familiar?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Beth.

BETH MACKAY: Oh yes. Yes, absolutely. That is completely my experience. Before surgery, I had to tell everyone in my life that I was going for brain surgery because I mean, I was going to be bald and have weird lumps on my skull. And a lot of those people I had never talked to about my depression. I had never- I'm not even- I'm sure they knew. I mean, they knew something was wrong, but it was- I felt like it was a personal failing, which is ridiculous because I did not feel that way about other people's mental health issues. But I certainly felt like I could just, if I could just force myself to be better, then then everything would be OK. But I must be lazy. I must be just a failure. It was, it was a lot of extra, a lot of extra stuff to deal with.

MG: What were you going to say, Dr. Lipsman?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Yeah, no. I totally totally agree with that. And it speaks to that validation that I said earlier. I mean, this is where technology really, really helps us advance our understanding of of depression. Take epilepsy as an example where, you know, a century ago or longer, you know, people who had seizures were thought to be possessed, for example. And you know, it wasn't until imaging came around or advanced brain imaging that we recognised that seizures may be the most common types of seizures may come from abnormalities in the temporal lobe, and the treatment for that may be very effective in surgery to respect that part of the brain. And then now seeing temporal lobe epilepsy is highly treatable. Similarly, with depression, the more technology advances and that includes our imaging of the brain and in this case, our ability to intervene directly in the brain, the more validation it would give this idea that it is a brain circuit condition that requires a brain circuit oriented approach.

MG: We know and I've heard this from from other researchers that they worry that this kind of approach is not being funded in the way that it should be, given the breakthrough results that may be possible. Why do you think doctor that mental illness isn't receiving the same kind of funding that you know, we know the other diseases cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's receive a lot of funding. Why isn't mental illness getting that funding? Is that the stigma attached to it?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Absolutely, for sure. You know, this is something that many of us in the mental health research field are constantly struggling with. It's very difficult to get funding for therapeutic or treatments investigating treatments for patients with with mental illness, including including depression. It's multifactorial, I think there are many factors. One of them may very well be the stigma piece and also the fact that, you know, there's no blood test for for depression, there's no imaging test for depression. It's hard for us to see and to diagnose, and therefore many people believe to treat. So it is. It is an issue. But, you know, fortunately, you know, work like that's being done here in Toronto and then, as you've seen in California, will hopefully change that with time

MG: just in the last couple of minutes that we have, this is early. I mean, this is the U.S. trial was one person. The previous trials had been stopped because people thought that there wasn't any real evidence that this was working. What do you say to people who live with depression who see this as a great hope? I mean, this is exciting, but is it premature?

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: It is exciting, and I would tell them to hang on to that excitement. And we as a community feel that this is certainly a breakthrough. But there are breakthroughs happening all the time, and I'm listening to the patient, you know, in her experience, I just think this is what we what we work for while we live for that kind of breakthrough in that kind of relief from a crippling depression, that technology is constantly evolving. It's constantly developing. What I tell patients is look at our cell phones, you know, a decade ago and what they look like and look at what they look like today. The technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and we're learning more and more each day. So there's tremendous hope out there. And I think that, you know, this is something that for which all of us can have a lot of promise for.

MG: Beth, what would you say to people who would find themselves in the situation that you found yourself in before you had your surgery?

BETH MACKAY: That you have to keep going. There isn't any better option, but there is hope on the horizon. There are so many things being developed. The U.S. did. My study is doing stuff with current transcranial magnets and they are using ketamine and they are people are studying the effects of magic mushrooms. There's all kinds of things just right on the horizon that could potentially help people. And, you know, lots of the standard treatments also work for people. It's just you have to keep trying. Eventually, you will find something that works for you.

MG: And that hope is incredibly important in those moments.

BETH MACKAY: Absolutely.

MG: It's fascinating to speak with you both. This is, as I said, incredibly tantalising research, and we will watch and see where it goes in weeks, months and years ahead. Doctor, thank you.

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

MG: And Beth. Great to hear from you. Take care of yourself.

BETH MACKAY: You too. Have a good one.

DR. NIR LIPSMAN: Dr. Nir Lipsman is a neurosurgeon and scientist. He's also director of the Hardwell Centre for Neuromodulation at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. He was in Toronto. Beth McKay underwent deep brain stimulation to treat her depression. She is in Calgary. That is the current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio one, its queue. We wanted to leave you with word of a great Canadian that we lost this week. Her name was Nadia Chaudhri. She died from ovarian cancer. She was a neuroscientist and a professor at Concordia University in Montreal. And you would know his her name if you spent any time on Twitter. She was a Twitter star in this country. Nadia Chaudhri was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2020 and immediately took to the social media site. Over the past year, she shared her thoughts, her pain and her fight with the disease. She would share Stem job postings. She would encourage women to apply to those jobs. She mused openly about what was waiting for her after her death. In September, she tweeted, I will feast in my new life and welcome everyone to my forest table. I am not afraid. Nadia Chaudhri was angry that she was misdiagnosed by doctors for so long and angry over the lack of funding for ovarian cancer research. She talked about the difficulty she had in getting medical experts to take her pain seriously, and she urged other women not to ignore their own symptoms. In her last days, she was raising money for an annual scholarship at Concordia University to support the training of neuroscientists from underrepresented backgrounds. We want to leave you this morning with a video that she retweeted earlier this fall, shared with her by one of her followers, and she replied to that video. I want musicians with ukuleles singing in my room. This is for Nadia Chaudhri. It's a cover of Greengrass by Tom Waits. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll see you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

The Current Transcript for October 7, 2021

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Within days, this Afghan lawyer went from helping refugees, to becoming one himself

Canadian Édith Blais on being held hostage for 450 days in the Sahara

Deep brain stimulation offers promising treatment for depression

Thursday October 7, 2021 Full Transcript

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