Double-lung transplant recipient from N.B. relives experience as an actor in hit medical drama

Cayman Grant was on a flight to Vancouver, mulling over who should guest star in an episode of a medical drama she's directing.

The episode of The Good Doctor was about a young woman who has cystic fibrosis.

"It just hit me — Elspeth. Why not Elspeth?" she said. "I love Elspeth!"

Grant was thinking of Elspeth Arbow, who's lived through two double-lung transplant surgeries before she was 25 because of cystic fibrosis.

Arbow and Grant, both from the Saint John area, met at an acting seminar at Interaction Theatre when Arbow was 13, around the time she underwent her first transplant.

"She never left my mind," Grant told Information Morning Saint John.

When her flight landed, Grant called the casting director and brought up the idea of auditioning someone not already on their list.

In her Toronto apartment, three years out from a cinema studies program at the University of Toronto, Arbow was getting ready for bed when her phone rang.

The call from Grant took her aback, then brought forth some emotions and questions.

"I was initially like, 'Oh wow, how cool is that?' And then every other part of my brain started to kick in, being like, 'Do you want to relive a terrible, terrible thing that happened to you? On screen, to live in perpetuity online?'"

Grant said she knew these concerns were legitimate.

"As an actor, you're revisiting, you're going to your well," Grant said. "That stuff can be really, really detrimental to some people on an emotional level."

But Grant said they had a connection, and she believed Arbow was a good actor who could handle the work.

"I just had to let her know that she could trust me as the director with her."

Network TV casting requires a quick turnaround. After a few hours of consideration, Arbow decided she did want to audition for the role, even if there's a risk that she won't get it.

"I taped myself and sent it off and, within days, I had a casting agreement," Arbow told Information Morning Saint John.

Arbow said she wanted to do it, but she knew it wasn't going to be easy. The episode of the show, which is about a gifted young surgeon with autism and savant syndrome, had many parallels to Arbow's story, including that the mother in the show was recording her daughter's journey online. Arbow's own mother blogged about her journey.

"When I first read the script, I cried," Arbow said.

The first day on set, she was in every scene that was being filmed. Toward the end of the day, she was filming an emotional scene "and I kind of just lost it," she said, laughing. She said she had a "moment of catharsis," where she wasn't totally in control of her tears. But after a while she regained control, she said.

"You do so many takes of the whole scene, and parts of the scene, that at a certain point it kind of just becomes just words," she said. "I can access those emotions now but with control," she said.

She said it helped that she's worked to process the trauma of her illness and her surgeries, and she's not afraid to talk about it.

Grant said the actress who played her mom had a pretty emotional day as well.

"I don't think she knew was she was walking into," Arbow said.

Arbow said she's a little nervous about the episode airing Monday night, but she's excited about her close friends and family being able to see a part of her life they have not seen before.

"It's a dramatized version, obviously, and it's quite melodramatic at times, but they were not there in those moments, so this is going to give them a bit of an idea of what those really dark times were like for me," she said.

Arbow said this has ignited an interest in acting, and she's now looking for agents.

"It was honestly such a fun experience," she said. "I could get used to this."