About Allison

    Allison has been front and centre in the music education and performing arts fields in Ottawa for almost three decades.   During her career as a music teacher, she spent thousands of volunteer hours directing extra-curricular school bands, leading school band trips, and staging student musicals.   Allison also spent twenty years performing in and directing Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with the Savoy Society of Ottawa.   Allison has been recognized for her work in the community on many occasions, including as recipient of the Whitton Award (1993), Arts Advisory Award for Innovative Programming in the Arts (1997), Community Builder Award (2000), Hopewell School Music and Drama Award (2006), Capital Critics Circle Award as Best Director (community) (2006-2007) and Lifetime Achievement Award from Hopewell School students (2008).   Upon her retirement from teaching, a wing of the Hopewell School was dedicated to Allison and the “Allison Woyiwada Music Award" is presented annually to students at Hopewell School.

The Aneurysm Surgery

    Allison is now facing a new challenge in which she can benefit from the community's support.    Late in 2011 Allison was diagnosed with a "giant" brain aneurysm which required surgery.   Allison had the surgery in a 10 hour "clipping" operation at the Heart Institute in Ottawa on May 28, 2012.   Following the surgery, Allison was kept in a medically-induced coma for almost two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit at the Civic Hospital in Ottawa on account of brain seizure activity.  Since that time she has been kept in the Neuroscience Acute Care Unit and in the Neuroscience InPatient Unit at the Ottawa Civic Hospital.  The shunt which was installed to facilitate draining fluid from her brain became infected in July 2012 and it was removed to permit treatment of the infection.  The plan is to install a new shunt within the next while.

Healing and Rehabilitation

    Although the "clipping" operation very likely saved Allison's life (the aneurysm was "the size of  a plum" and its rupture would have been "catastrophic") she now has significant cognitive and physical deficits which require extensive rehabilitation therapy.  Allison's basic post-teaching insurance coverage only provides limited benefits for rehabilitation therapy.   Also, Allison's tolerance post-surgery for inordinate noise has very substantially diminished (unlike in her teaching days!) and accommodation in a standard three-to-four bed hospital room has not been optimal.  Allison's post-teaching insurance coverage only provides limited benefits for hospital rooms, whereas the costs are $180 per day (semi-private) and $220 per day (private).   There will also be a significant monthly fee once Allison reaches the stage when she can be released from Hospital and accommodated in the restorative program at the Saint-Vincent Hospital in Ottawa.