Hi,

My name is Bert, I grew up in Canada but later moved to the USA to further my career in video game animation. I have two wonderful boys who I love to spend time with. When my wife was pregnant with my youngest son, I was diagnosed with throat cancer. This was quite a shock as I did not drink or smoke. When I started my treatment, the stress and anguish placed a considerable strain on my family.

“Cancer can have a profound impact on you and how you examine the future, so I started to focus more on family and move forward with my dreams.”

Being an artist at heart, I started sketching my oldest son as he was trying to communicate by mimicking my experiences. Developing a children’s book about cancer was more of a challenge than expected, but I found a funny and magnificent way to communicate the situations of cancer without infusing sadness into the narrative. And that’s how “Talk to Me: I know something’s wrong” came to life.

I knew about Make-A-Wish for many years and have always thought it was a tremendous idea in aiding children living with a critical illness. Cancer has left me with a deeper understanding of how we need to help out each other, especially children. 

“When my book was finally published, I chose to donate part of its proceeds to Make-A-Wish International.”

I think the organization is a positive establishment helping children all over the world and I am happy to continue to support it.

– Bert