Winter blues treatable: doctor

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Ted Jablonski (left) and nephew, Francois Courcelles, are on a mission to educate Canadians about SAD.

Caught up with work in Calgary, Dr. Ted Jablonski couldn't make it to St. John's High School's centennial reunion in June.

But on Wednesday afternoon, the 50-year-old physician wheeled back into his hometown with a bigger mission on his mind: to take the sting out of stigma around mental illness.

Twenty-seven days ago, Jablonski -- who left Winnipeg in 1986 after graduating from the University of Manitoba -- took off from Victoria. His goal is to cross the country on what he dubbed the SAD No More Canadian Tour, a 78-day running and cycling trip to raise awareness about seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The condition causes serious depression, usually during winter.

It's a trip two years in the making, or, a lifetime in the making. "I've probably (had SAD) my whole life," Jablonski muses, minutes after cycling up to the Perimeter Highway on the way in from Headingley. "I make no bones about it. You can have a mental illness and still be very, very successful. Just because you have an illness, it doesn't mean you can't overcome it and do just fine."

Growing up in the North End, the doctor used to spend long winter hours sitting by a sunlit window. The childhood craving for light was a clue, he says, of a condition that grew worse as he aged -- SAD is believed to be caused in part by a lack of light in the winter.

It wasn't until five years ago, when Jablonski went to chair a long-awaited medical education conference at the stunning Banff Springs Hotel, that he knew something was wrong. "I was literally non-functional (that) winter," Jablonski recalls. "I spent a year dreaming of this event, and I was totally miserable. I went, 'You've got a problem here.' That was my aha moment."

Jablonski has tried every trick in the book to fight his SAD -- a combination of lifestyle changes, light therapy, medication and exercise helped him beat the winter blues.

Now, he wants not just the public, but other health-care professionals to know that SAD, which affects up to four per cent of Canadians, can be beaten.

Two years ago, Jablonski and his wife Monique started planning the SAD No More tour, which will end in St. Johns, N.L., on Oct. 17. It's a whirlwind, with Jablonski sandwiching 35 speeches to health-care professionals and the public between hours of cycling or running down the highway. Today and Friday in Winnipeg, he'll speak at two private meetings with physicians, while juggling television and radio appearances.

His message: It's time to wake up and realize the winter blues are a serious, and treatable, mental-health issue. So far, the response from the public, he says, has been warm. His fellow doctors... well, not so much.

"The medical community isn't quite so enthusiastic to have one of their own expose our soft underbelly," he says. "We're not supposed to get sick, ever."

But this doctor did, and he's still on the road. After years of training, the trip has been a breeze: the Jablonskis have "lucked out" with mostly good weather and clear roads, they say.

In Brandon, 25 people attended Jablonski's presentation, even asking his wife Monique about living with someone with SAD. "I'm very proud of him," Monique says. "His message is getting accomplished... and for us, it's maybe made us closer, working as a team."

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 26, 2010 B4