Our Founder, Katies Story

The Patient Approach began with Katie.

For many years, Katie and her husband faced infertility and pregnancy loss while trying to grow their family. In 2016, after more than four years of trying to conceive, they finally received the long-awaited positive pregnancy test. But just one week later, the pregnancy ruptured in Katie’s fallopian tube.

What followed was a traumatic hospital experience marked by long hours alone, confusion about her care, and a complete absence of emotional support during one of the most devastating moments of her life. She underwent emergency surgery and lost her fallopian tube. After being discharged from hospital, there was no follow-up, no support, and no acknowledgement of the grief and trauma she had just experienced.

The following year brought another pregnancy — and another loss. After finally conceiving again through fertility treatment, Katie experienced a missed miscarriage and required a D&C. Once again, the experience was deeply isolating. She was sent home from hospital and asked to return days later for surgery, left to carry the emotional weight of losing a child with little guidance or support.

Those early experiences revealed something Katie would come to understand even more deeply years later: healthcare systems can deliver excellent clinical treatment, but patients are often left to navigate the emotional and practical realities alone.

After years of infertility, loss and fertility treatment, Katie and her husband were eventually blessed with their two children. But the challenges were far from over.

Prior to falling pregnant with her youngest son, Bentley, Katie had already been undergoing medical investigations due to ongoing health issues that doctors had not yet been able to explain. When she became pregnant, those investigations were paused and the search for answers was put on hold.

Not long after Bentley was born, Katie began feeling increasingly unwell. At the time, she was a mother to two very young children — aged three years and eight months. Despite multiple visits to doctors, her symptoms were repeatedly dismissed as normal post-pregnancy changes or insignificant health concerns.

Eventually, after presenting to the emergency department with severe neck pain, a doctor finally investigated further. Imaging revealed abnormal lymph nodes. After several inconclusive biopsies, a lymph node was surgically removed for testing.

The diagnosis came back as Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH) — a rare cancer affecting approximately one in five million children. In Katie’s case, it had spread throughout multiple lymph nodes in her neck, underarms, tongue and tonsil region.

In November 2021, Katie began twelve months of chemotherapy while raising two very young children and trying to maintain some sense of normal life. The experience was overwhelming — physically, emotionally, and logistically. Cancer treatment extended far beyond the hospital chair. Appointments, referrals, test results and complex decisions all had to be coordinated while navigating the daily realities of motherhood and survival.

Looking back, Katie reflects on how much of her son’s first year was spent simply trying to get through treatment.

Just as stability began to return, another diagnosis arrived.

In 2024, Katie discovered a lump in her neck that continued to grow over several months. Wanting reassurance after her previous cancer, she requested a PET scan as she approached the two-year mark since completing chemotherapy. The scan revealed widespread activity, leading to further biopsies and ultimately surgery to remove part of her parotid gland.

Genetic testing confirmed a second rare cancer: Ewing’s Sarcoma — typically found in the long bones of children and adolescents, but in Katie’s case occurring in soft tissue.

Once again, Katie faced intensive treatment — undergoing surgery followed by 18 months of aggressive chemotherapy, which required periods of extended hospital stays for continuous treatment, and 20 fractions of radiation therapy.

Throughout these experiences, one truth became undeniable: patients are expected to manage far more than their diagnosis. They navigate complex healthcare systems, coordinate appointments, chase information, process difficult decisions, and carry enormous emotional weight — often without structured support.

It was during active cancer treatment that Katie began building what would become The Patient Approach.

Her vision was simple but powerful: no patient should feel alone in the system. Care should feel coordinated, compassionate, and community-based — not fragmented and transactional. Lived experience would be central, with peer support playing a key role in helping patients navigate the journey.

The Patient Approach was created to bridge the gap between clinical treatment and real-world support — ensuring patients are met not only with expertise, but with empathy.

Katie continues her own health journey today while leading a space built from resilience, advocacy, and the belief that patients deserve better.

In 2025, Steph joined The Patient Approach, bringing her own lived experience of breast cancer along with a background in emergency healthcare. Together, they now lead the centre as equal partners, united by a shared belief that cancer care must be truly patient-first.

Meet Our Founder – Steph

In May 2024, just hours before giving birth to her fourth child, Steph received a phone call that would change her life,  she had breast cancer.

What initially felt like normal pregnancy changes quickly became urgent scans, a biopsy the day before induction, and a diagnosis delivered while preparing to welcome her newborn son into the world. Within weeks of Oscar’s birth, Steph began chemotherapy.

The months that followed were relentless, chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and ongoing

preventative treatment - all while raising four young children.

As a paramedic, Steph understood the clinical side of healthcare. But as a patient, she experienced something entirely different. She felt the emotional weight. The logistical overwhelm. The endless appointments. The gaps between

services that patients are expected to navigate alone.

She saw firsthand how cancer impacts not just the body, but the entire family.

The Patient Approach exists because of that experience.

Steph believes cancer care should feel coordinated, compassionate, and accessible — not fragmented and isolating. Patients deserve support that reduces the burden, not adds to it.

She continues her own prevention treatment today, raising her four children and advocating for care that truly puts patients first.