About the foundation
What the foundation does, who leads it, and how it is run.
Growing up on Signal Hill
Heather Claudette Burry was born on November 26, 1960, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, to Peter and Jennie Burry. She was the youngest of three children, raised with her older brothers, Keith and David, on Signal Hill Road. Her father drove a bus for a children's rehabilitation centre; her mother was a homemaker who also worked at the local post office.
During her school years she travelled — trips to Vienna and other parts of Europe — before choosing the profession that would define her working life.
A nursing life
Heather graduated from the General Hospital School of Nursing in 1981 and went to work at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's. She spent two decades in neurosurgery before moving to obstetrics, where her work was supporting families and welcoming new life. She also worked at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital. Colleagues and patients knew a nurse who balanced the demands of the job — night shifts included — with being home for her children after school.
Her family came in the middle of that career. She married Barry Cutler. Their daughter, Bethany, and their son, Christopher — born on Christmas Day, the first Christmas baby in St. John's that year, interviewed with his mother by local media — grew up first at 31 Harnum Crescent; in 2021 the family moved to Osmond Place in Mount Pearl.
After 35 years, Heather retired from nursing and turned to the things retirement is supposed to hold: home improvement projects, her garden, camping at Terra Nova National Park, and vacations in Florida. She also sang — recordings of her singing were found on a burnt CD after her death and later released as a Christmas album, Holiday's With Heather.
The diagnosis
In the fall of 2022, Heather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
She had spent her career inside the health system, and she trusted it. What followed taught her family how much that trust would be tested. Pancreatic cancer moves quickly, its treatment options are limited, and in a small province the path to those options — testing, trials, second opinions, drugs funded elsewhere — is rarely laid out for you. Her son would later put it plainly: once you get that diagnosis, it can feel as though minds are already made up. It was up to the family to make sure she got the care she needed.
The fight
Christopher and Bethany — neither of them with a medical background — became their mother's advocates. Every night they were at the kitchen table and in the research: breaking down studies, preparing for every appointment, and asking for things that were never offered first. Pancreatic enzymes. Nerve blocks. Somatic testing of her tumour (her cancer carried a KRAS G12D mutation). None of it was offered; all of it had to be pushed for. Clinical trials were mentioned only as a "maybe someday," if the cancer progressed.
The family travelled to Baltimore, where Heather got a second opinion at Johns Hopkins. The specialists there felt strongly about a plan: a regimen called NALFIRINOX as a fallback if her current treatment stopped working, ahead of a clinical trial expected to open that summer. On March 1, 2024, Christopher emailed her oncologist setting out that plan.
Then the system slowed down. The drug would need a pre-approval letter through the provincial drug plan before it could be authorized. Christopher contacted Eastern Health's medical teams, their drug specialist, and four different biopharmacies, and finally the manufacturer directly — who confirmed the drug could be sourced, shortage reports notwithstanding, if the oncologist reached out. At the appointment the family had prepared for, it felt as though the NALFIRINOX discussion was happening for the first time.
Chemotherapy stopped. Shortly afterward Heather developed ascites — fluid building up in her abdomen — and within two months she was gone. The delays cost time she did not have. In pancreatic cancer, there is no time to spare.
Her last weeks
Heather spent her final hospital stay in the 5 North B unit of the Health Sciences Centre — the hospital where she had worked for much of her career, cared for in the end by the profession she had given 35 years to.
She died at home in Mount Pearl on May 5, 2024, surrounded by her family. She was 63.
Her funeral was held on May 10, 2024, at Barrett's Chapel in St. John's. Her honour guard was made up of nursing colleagues. In her final wishes, she asked that donations be made to Craig's Cause in lieu of flowers — still thinking, at the end, about other people facing the same disease.
Why the foundation carries her name
The Heather Cutler Foundation was established in 2024, in her memory — founded by the family that sat at that kitchen table. It carries her name because her story is not only a family's story. It is a record of the gaps: the test that had to be asked for, the second opinion that had to be travelled for, the drug that waited on a letter, the trial that was always "someday." The foundation exists so that the next family starts further ahead than hers did.
In Christopher and Bethany's own words, from the foundation's founding statement:
When my sister and I were thrown into the world of pancreatic cancer, we weren't researchers or medical professionals — we were just two people who loved our mom and refused to accept that nothing more could be done. Every night, we sat at our kitchen table, reading medical journals we didn't always understand, asking questions we didn't know we were allowed to ask, and discovering just how much of pancreatic cancer care depends on where you live, who's in your corner, and how hard you're willing to fight.
We founded The Heather Cutler Foundation because we know we're not the only family who's ever felt helpless, angry, or blindsided by a diagnosis. This isn't just a foundation. It's a promise. A promise that no one should have to fight for basic answers. That geography should never determine your access to a clinical trial or cutting-edge treatment. That everyone deserves hope backed by evidence, compassion backed by action, and advocacy that refuses to wait for permission.
Whether you're newly navigating this disease, supporting a loved one, or simply want to be part of something that truly changes lives, you belong here. We are Canada too — and together, we're not just raising awareness. We're raising the bar.