Page 79 - Donnie MacDermid of Margaree Valley: "It could have been worse!"

ISSUE : Issue 73

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1998/6/1

Donnie MacDermid of Margaree Valley "It could always be worse!" We have known about Donnie Mac? Dermid for years. People often told us about the inventive, one-handed man who built and flew airplanes, and who lived in Margaree Valley in a house built mostly underground. By the time we settled down with him for a Cape Breton's Magazine type of interview, he had suffered (and beat!) a heart attack, and had only recently had a stroke. It's im? portant to know these details in light of the active life Donnie has lived so far, and to understand why the conversation starts right off with his ideas about medical treat? ments. Our thanks to his wife Dor? is, who made us welcome and of? ten ran the steps from her favourite part of the house down to the kitchen in the underground por? tion, bringing up photos, and serv? ing cookies and tea with wonderful good humour. Donnie MacDermid: Okie was asking Randy, he said, "I didn't hear a word from Donnie lately, I wonder what's wrong." So Randy told him what had happened (that Donny had had a heart attack). So (Okie) told him, "You go home and you call him and tell him to call me tomorrow morning." He said, "I have some advice for him that might be very helpful to him...." So any? way, I called him. So he tells me about this chelation thing.... So I went up, and I was four weeks up there in Toronto. When I went there, the first day I went there it took eight ni? troglycerin tablets to get me to the doc? tor's office.... I had to take the last nitro right at his door before I went in. I was walking back from the clinic to the boarding house--I was staying at a bed- and-breakfast up on Athabasca Avenue.... So I'm walking, all upgrade, and all this cold north wind blowing straight down that street, and that's very hard when you've got heart trouble, is cold wind. I tried walking back the fourth day after I had the fourth treatment, and I got one block and I had to stand awhile and rest and take a nitro. The next day I did better. I got a couple of blocks, tlien I just stood there and rested. I didn't take a nitro. And so it went, everyday was getting a little better. I'd get a little further and I wouldn't have to take a nitro. Just stand and rest for a minute without taking one. And so it kept improving. So that at the last of it I was walking back--I was doing it about an hour and four minutes non-stop--no nitro's, no resting, no noth? ing. No bus.... I was walking all the way. (And you credit this to the chelation treatments?) Yeah, definitely.... And I couldn't go from here to my TV and back without taking one before I went. That's a fact. Even to get to bed at night. I'd sit down beside the bed, and by the time I'd get my pants taken off I'd have to take a nitro. The same thing in the morning. I'd wake up and before I'd Gas Tank Replacements & Repairs For Personal Efficient Service: Call 539-2122 Sydney Radiator New Heaters & Radiators or Repairs We Service and Ship 121 Prince Street, Sydney Anywhere on cape Breton island 20 Years a Family Business 2 Years Warranty on All Parts * We Accept VISA & MASTERCARD

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