Calli’s not out of the woods, yet

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/11/2015 (3616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I had a question for Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon last Friday after she gave a stirring address on the occasion of the St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg’s annual dinner that finally welcomed women.

“Could I get a copy of your speech?” was my question.

She said I could, and the result was the centrepiece of Tuesday’s column.

And she had a question for me.

Her question was about Calli Vanderaa. Obviously, Filmon had followed my columns about the 16-year-old shooting victim I first met when she was a nine-year-old rescuing a puppy that was left for dead in a trash bin in the North End, which was near Calli’s home at the time.

Filmon wanted to know how Calli was doing.

When Filmon and I spoke, it had been a day since I had checked on Calli and a week since she had gone home from a three-week stay at the Health Sciences Centre. Calli had been rushed to the HSC in critical condition late last month after a bullet fired from a stolen RCMP-issue handgun narrowly missed her heart and spine during a random shooting in the parking lot of a Windsor Park convenience store.

As it happened, on the day before Filmon inquired how Calli was doing, I had asked, too.

Earlier in the week, I had contacted the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority because Calli hadn’t received the home care her single father, Corey Vanderaa, thought they would get after his daughter had left hospital.

Instead, Corey was told he would have to drive her to a clinic near Seven Oaks General Hospital to have her dressings changed. This at a time when his mother, who had also been like a mother to Calli, was in Grace Hospital.

By last Thursday, when I followed up with Corey, Calli was receiving home care and had been for several days.

At that point, not only was home-care staff on the job comforting Calli, so was the cat Corey had bought at his daughter’s insistence, even though he is not a cat lover.

All seemed well. Or as well as could be expected, given Calli was sent home to heal, even though she was still battling a post-surgical infection and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

On Saturday, I sent another text to Corey, letting them both know the lieutenant-governor had asked about Calli.

“Thought you would like to know that,” I wrote.

Actually, Filmon had asked about Corey, too, knowing he is a single father who had taken time off from his job as a gravel truck driver to care for his daughter.

Corey didn’t respond to the text about the lieutenant-governor’s inquiry, which was unusual for Corey. I thought maybe he just needed a break and cell-off quiet time with the daughter he raised on his own. Or maybe he had found a way to go back to work and resume drawing a paycheque. That’s what he said he hoped to do when I dropped by their apartment with a $100 cheque from a caring reader. That’s what he hoped to do if Calli was getting better.

Finally, Wednesday morning, concerned that Corey still hadn’t replied, I sent him another text.

“How is Calli doing?”

It was nearly two hours before Corey responded. Turned out I had a reason to be concerned. “Not good. We are back at HSC. Came last night by ambulance. Infection has spread. She’s not doing well.”

Later, when I asked, he said he was at the hospital. And he had been there all night.

I asked Corey what I could do to help. He had no answer.

Maybe the lieutenant-governor’s question is as close to an answer as any of us have.

Show we care about Calli and continue asking how she’s doing.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca