Born and raised in Winnipeg, Catherine Wreford has always tried to make the most of her life.
She has performed on Broadway and in movies and TV shows as an actress and professional dancer. She has also run a mortgage company, trained as a nurse, and won Season 8 of The Amazing Race Canada with her best friend, Craig.
In 2013, just weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Catherine received news that changed her life.
A shock diagnosis
In June 2013, while Craig was visiting her and her newborn daughter, Catherine’s head started hurting.
She had been experiencing other symptoms like dizziness, low blood pressure and tingling in her arms and legs, but Catherine thought they were just side effects of giving birth.
Craig urged her to speak with her midwife, who told her she should visit an emergency room right away.
Catherine went to the hospital, the same one she had trained in as a nurse, and was sent for a CT scan. After the scan, she noticed that her colleagues were unusually quiet.
The scan showed a mass on her brain. At age 32, Catherine was diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, a terminal brain cancer.
Doctors told her she had 2 to 6 years to live.
Starting treatment and dealing with intense side effects
Catherine was in shock. While still trying to understand what this diagnosis meant for her, her newborn daughter and her toddler son, Catherine was sent for an MRI.
She learned that she would need brain surgery as soon as possible and was scheduled to have an awake craniotomy a few days later.
Catherine was living in Oklahoma at the time, so her mom flew in from Canada to support her.
After the surgery, Catherine experienced intense side effects, including vomiting, high fevers and brain damage that impaired her speech.
Without being able to speak, it took her 8 hours to communicate with her medical team that she wanted to hold her daughter. She started speech therapy to help her talk, and write again.
During it all, the hardest part for Catherine was that she couldn’t continue breastfeeding her 5-week-old daughter once she started chemotherapy.
Hearing that I had cancer when my daughter was so young was really upsetting. I had to stop breastfeeding. I was devastated because that was my bond with her.
Although Catherine was upset to lose this bonding experience with her daughter, her community and nursing friends came together to support her. They surprised her with a freezer full of breast milk at her front door.
“The breast milk was the best gift ever. It meant so much to me that people had thought about that need for me. It was hard for me to accept that I needed help at that point, so it was the most important gift I’ve ever received.”
Advocating for her cancer care
After recovering from her surgery, Catherine pushed for a test that would analyze the genetic makeup of her tumour.
Even though this was not the usual process at the time, Catherine was ready to speak up for herself.
This test helped guide which treatments would be best for her, and so she started Proton therapy and chemotherapy. Catherine moved back home the next year to be closer to her parents. She wanted to continue the same treatment after the move.
After speaking with her doctors several times, Catherine was able to complete her treatment plan in Winnipeg.
Living beyond her prognosis
Since then, Catherine has an MRI every 3 months. She had a small regrowth in September 2024, which her doctors are monitoring.
On June 24, 2026, Catherine celebrated 13 years since her diagnosis – more than double her initial prognosis.
I’m way past my expiration date, but I have to have faith and hope.
"I feel like I need to enjoy and make the most of every day and maybe I’ll live just long enough for researchers to discover something that will stop this diagnosis from being a death sentence.”
In her day-to-day, Catherine leads a busy life, managing school and extra-curricular activities for her children. She also supported her father during his prostate cancer diagnosis in 2025. She went to his appointments and asked questions on his behalf, to make sure he had the best treatment plan.
Catherine speaks at events on her own and with Craig through the Speakers Bureau of Canada. She wants to keep sharing her story and help people better understand brain cancer.
“Doing The Amazing Race Canada was really worth it. I got to spread the word even further about what we can do to improve brain cancer care and help the people who have it to live longer.”
“I’m alive today because I decided to speak up for myself. I don’t consider myself strong, but I do consider myself brave. I’m proud to still be advocating for myself and for the people that I’ve lost. I’m sharing my story for all of them.”
Supporting brain cancer research
Today, Catherine contributes to brain cancer research through the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Brain Site Committee, a major clinical trials program that the Canadian Cancer Society has funded for over 40 years.
The treatment options available now for brain cancer are almost exactly the same as when I was diagnosed in 2013. It’s so important that we continue funding research so we can improve outcomes for people diagnosed with brain cancer.
Catherine knows that brain cancer trials can be hard to join. Fewer people may qualify, and because of the aggressive nature of brain cancer, there is often a short time to sign up. That is why she works to make these trials easier to understand and access.
She hopes that clearer information will help more people take part in trials and move research forward.
“We need a discovery that will help people with brain cancer have a better quality of life – that will let them have more time with their families. Even six months is a lot of extra time to be with your family.”
In 2025, Catherine attended the Lundin Cancer Fund – Canadian Cancer Society Glioblastoma Discovery Summit, uniting the brightest minds in brain cancer research to shape a nationwide collaborative research initiative.
She found it inspiring to be a part of and hopes her perspective will inspire breakthroughs that can extend and improve the lives of those with brain cancer.
“We need something groundbreaking for brain cancer. We need to put as much money into brain cancer as we do for other cancers and then we’ll find something.”
I want there to be hope for brain cancer research, but it only works if we all work together.
Catherine Wreford, living with cancer
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