Adam Beaury was 14 when he learned in early 2024 that he had a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. His intensive treatment at the Montreal Children’s Hospital included chemotherapy, radiation therapy and two stem cell transplants. He endured debilitating side-effects, long periods in hospital and many complications and setbacks.
His is a story about perseverance and about someone who showed enormous resilience through an incredibly difficult time. It is also a story about the importance of keeping young patients connected to school and their future — and one that highlights support beyond medical care.
Because his immune system, weakened by the illness and the treatment, made him highly vulnerable to infections, Beaury missed in-person classes for much of Grade 9, all of Grade 10 and nearly his entire Grade 11 year. Yet he continued his studies, through the hospital’s school services program and in one-on-one sessions remotely with teachers at his high school, École secondaire Dalbé-Viau in Lachine.
“I think Adam wanted to stick to a normal life, like his friends who were at school, and I did all that I could to help him with that,” said Sahmadia Bouhend, a hospital-based teacher with the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) who taught him math.
“He has a facility with math and I knew he did not want to have to repeat the year,” she said. “He was attentive, autonomous — and determined.”
Bouhend, one of five teachers from the CSSDM and the English Montreal School Board who work with young patients through the hospital’s school services program, was struck by Beaury’s maturity. “He was like a 14-year-old adult,” she said.
Throughout his ordeal, “Adam always had a positive mindset,” said his mother, Asmaa Haïda. “He never complained or felt sorry for himself.”
And at no time did he internalize the illness, she said.
As Beaury himself put it: “It’s my nature: I just took it in my stride.”
He was always a good student; he didn’t always like school but, once he was away from it, “he realized that school was cool” and he wanted to go back, his mother said.
“I missed the social aspect of school,” Beaury said.
Adam Beaury, days before his 17th birthday on Friday, June 26, poses with his mother, Asmaa Haïda, at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Evan Buhler / Montreal Gazette
After doctors determined that his immune system had recovered sufficiently for him to go back to school gradually, he returned to the classroom in late April of this year.
Fellow students were surprised when they saw him in the hallways “but they were happy to see me — the teachers too,” said Beaury, who turned 17 on Friday. “It was exciting to be back in school.”
From the outset, he chose not to share the details of his illness with classmates. “I don’t think they understood how sick I was and I didn’t want them to know.” He didn’t want people to view him differently, he said, or to feel sorry for him.
Adam always had a positive mindset.
Asmaa Haïda
Adam Beaury’s mother
This month, he was able to walk across the stage at his high school graduation ceremony and collect two prizes: a math award for the highest average in the technical and scientific stream of Grade 11 math — his grade was 98 — and an award for perseverance from Forces Avenir, a Quebec-wide program which honours students for attributes including leadership and perseverance: His award is accompanied by a $10,000 scholarship for his first year of university.
And Beaury was able to attend his prom on the evening of Friday, June 19.
The prom was “unbelievable,” he said afterward. “The ambience was electric; everyone was so excited.”
He hadn’t known quite what to expect, he said, but the event space was “very chic,” there was music and a three-course dinner and “at the end, it was just so moving as we said our farewells.”
“I think Adam wanted to stick to a normal life, like his friends who were at school, and I did all that I could to help him with that,” said Sahmadia Bouhend, left, a hospital-based teacher who taught him math. Evan Buhler / Montreal Gazette
The past couple of years have been challenging ones for Beaury. Soft-spoken and articulate in person, he said he asked all kinds of questions about his illness and treatment. “I followed it. It was my path and I wanted to know the next steps.”
All along, he was surrounded and supported by professionals at the Montreal Children’s: doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and teachers, said Bouhend, his math teacher. “We are all involved: It is a team around the patient.”
Lymphoma affects the lymphocytes, white blood cell responsible for fighting infection; they are produced by stem cells in the bone marrow. Beaury had chemotherapy to destroy his diseased stem cells to make room for healthy donor cells in a stem cell transplant in June of 2024.
A relapse that November meant starting again, with a different treatment protocol and second stem cell transplant the following March: The donor this time was his father. Complications forced Beaury to stay in hospital for a month after the procedure.
His mother, who travelled to hospital often twice a day when he was an inpatient, said she sometimes felt “like a hamster on a wheel. You have no life really during this time. Thank God, I was in shape mentally.”
She would bring her son home-cooked meals for lunch and dinner — dishes like lasagna, pasta with béchamel sauce, rice with vegetables and meat dishes he liked. “I wanted the best food for him and I think it was good for him to see that we were there for him.”
“Nearly every day Adam was in hospital, I was there — or sometimes his father,” she said. In addition to their son, Haïda and her husband, Sébastien Beaury, have two daughters, 15 and 11.
I missed the social aspect of school.
Adam Beaury
Graduate, École secondaire Dalbé-Viau
Child life specialists at the Montreal Children’s were also involved. Among their responsibilities are advocating for the emotional health of young patients and working to create moments of normalcy for them. For Beaury, this included an escape room activity, Lego, snacks and board games.
When he felt well enough, Beaury worked with teachers at the hospital and remotely with those at Dalbé-Viau and completed homework assignments even as he navigated medical appointments, procedures and setbacks. He didn’t always feel well enough, though. “There were delays and long pauses,” he said.
At the end of Grade 10, Quebec students must write ministerial exams in science, history and math. Beaury’s health status meant he missed much of his schooling that year but, in the summer of 2025, he was able to prepare for his science and history ministerial exams remotely through an intensive three-week program covering material from the entire year. The program was given by a private high school, École secondaire Duval in Ahuntsic-Cartierville. He wrote the exams at the school and passed both.
“It was not easy,” Beaury said. He expressed gratitude to Leucan, an organization for children with cancer, for paying for the program. Because of his strength in math, he was able to prepare for his ministerial exam in math without outside assistance: He wrote it at the hospital that November — and aced it.
In August, he is set to start a springboard program at CEGEP de St-Laurent which, once he has completed the required prerequisites his illness prevented him from taking, will lead to a diploma program in mechanical engineering technology.
The past few months have been good ones, said Haïda, and her son has been “so happy to have a normal life.”
We used typewriters when I started at The Gazette, and heavy black rotary phones. Today’s newsroom looks different but the work – reporting and informing my readers – remains constant and rewarding. I am grateful to my academic adviser at McGill, where I was a neurobiology major, for steering me to journalism. Evidently he realized I wasn’t cut out for neurobiology.
sschwartz@postmedia.com
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