Living with advanced cancer takes a toll on both you and support network. Waiting for appointments and test results, pressured decisions around treatment, sudden loss of independence, and planning for the end of life…it wears on your body and emotions, and eats away at precious time with loved ones.

With so much of the disease course being unpredictable, the first step you and your loved ones can take is to develop a plan in keeping with your heartfelt goals, values, and wishes.

Advance Care Planning at Eir Centre entails one or more appointments with a staff doctor to discuss your plan, explore and review your wishes, and make internal and external referrals where appropriate.

Advance Care Planning is an insured service under OHIP.

CALM (Cancer and Living Meaningfully) therapy helps patients cope with intense and existential emotions brought about by advanced cancer. The goal is personal well-being, and the best possible life with an incurable disease.

Eir Centre offers CALM with the option of augmenting your therapy with psychedelic medicine.

The benefits of CALM include:

Reduced Psychological Distress: People undergoing CALM experience a significant decrease in symptoms of depression and anxiety. CALM can also help prevent the onset of major depression in patients who are not depressed at the start of their course of therapy.

Alleviated Death Anxiety: CALM is effective at reducing fear and distress related to dying and death, helping you face mortality with a greater sense of peace.

Improved Quality of Life: People undergoing CALM report an enhanced quality of life, leading to better physical, emotional, and social functioning.

Enhanced Sense of Meaning and Purpose: CALM provides a supportive space to explore and re-evaluate values, life goals, and sources of meaning, helping you live more meaningfully despite your advanced disease.

Better Symptom Management: CALM helps patients manage physical symptoms such as cancer-related fatigue and sleep disturbances, improving your ability to communicate effectively with healthcare providers, and giving you more meaningful time with loved ones.

Strengthened Relationships: CALM can enable you to address changes in self-concept and personal relationships, resolving long-term tensions and fostering communication with family members and caregivers. Closed loved ones are invited to participate in some sessions of CALM therapy

Improved End of Life Preparation: CALM can help prepare you for the end of life, giving you the emotional and psychological strength for practical planning such as wills, achieving a better sense of life closure.

Fostering "Double Awareness": CALM helps you maintain a balance between engaging in life, and accepting the progression of your disease and its eventual end.

Watching your loved one go through a cancer diagnosis can be devastating, even more so when you are the one providing personal care as the disease progresses. Confusion, guilt, dread, exhaustion, burnout— the emotions are raw, overwhelming, and can cause real harm to your mental and physical health at a time when you need your strength the most.

Eir Centre offers a variety of counseling and therapy services for caregivers, with our without other wellness services.

A Death Doula offers compassionate guidance and support through life’s final transition. By providing a comforting environment, practical help, and a calming presence, the doula helps patients and their loved ones navigate the end of life with dignity, peace, and meaning.

The Doula will complement the care provided by medical and hospice/home care teams.

Engaging a Death Doula begins with a consultation appointment at Eir Centre, followed by private arrangements for attendance at the home or other place where the death is expected to occur.