I have been living with metastatic breast cancer for over eight years. While I am usually averse to using battle analogies for living with and dying from cancer, finding the best care has required a fight, considerable perseverance, and hard work. Fortunately, my ER+/PR+ tumours (pleura/liver/lymph) have responded well, but not great, to hormonal therapies.  I’m onto my seventh line of treatment. 

I went for my regularly scheduled mammogram in April 2014. The notice I received for my mammogram stated that I was to be screened annually because I had 'dense breast tissue’. This was the first time I had heard that term. When I went for my mammogram in Regina, I told the tech that my letter stated that I had 'dense breast tissue’. After the mammogram, she looked at the images and said yes, “dense breasts.” I had no idea what this meant for me, but I was to find out soon.

About 10 years ago, Charlotte Pennell was pruning bushes in her garden in Winnipeg. One branch seemed especially tough to cut. Then she looked down and saw that she was cutting her finger. She was horrified that she had so little feeling in her hand.

For Jenn Abbott, finishing treatment for breast cancer is like a flying trapeze.  Having received her “NED” (no evidence of disease), she is in mid-air, no longer holding on to the bar that represents the medical team that saved her life, while at the same time, not yet catching the second bar that represents the rest of her life after cancer.  She is in limbo, facing post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by her cancer treatment which included five surgeries and a severe adverse reaction to chemotherapy that meant she had to stay in the hospital for two weeks. She feels PTSD after cancer treatment is real.

January 4, 2010, I became a fly on the wall.  I was at my surgeon’s getting results from my biopsy.  It was supposed to be a quick appointment as the initial needle test of fluid prior to the biopsy was negative for cancer, or so we thought.  I remember hearing the doctor telling me “unfortunately it was cancer….” I felt like I was having an out of body experience. I was there but literally watching over my body and the doctor from a distance.  My world suddenly changed both physically and mentally.

I’m from Ottawa. I was diagnosed de novo in March 2011 with metastatic breast cancer and metastasis to the bone. I am 53 years old. I am a mother, daughter, sister, artist, lesbian, atheist, and gardener.

Cindy Blondeau of Moosomin, Saskatchewan is pleased that the federal government is legalizing marijuana.  For this metastatic breast cancer patient, pure CBD oil from this plant works better than any other painkillers that she has tried.

“Go UP the stairs.  Slide DOWN the slide.  No, Sweetie.  Go UP the STAIRS.”  She could barely walk, but she was climbing up the slide.  Then, and now.  Spend ten minutes at a playground, and the appeal of climbing up the face of the slide is undeniable.  I am acutely aware of the dangers of falling off the slide, the risks of children bumping into each other. I vaguely remember falling off a slide, decades ago--one of the old, tall ones—before playgrounds had soft surfaces.  I like to see everyone going in the same direction.  Up the stairs.  Down the slide.  Nice, orderly, predictable, and safe.

Montreal resident Kelina feels like a “sitting duck” because although researchers are working hard to find treatments for triple negative breast cancer, there are no targeted therapies available to this cancer, which was diagnosed in December 2015. 

At the age of 46, I was diagnosed with stage two/grade three multifocal, invasive lobular and ductal breast cancer. I had found the lump myself after a year of constant infected cysts in my breast. I had been told I had very dense breasts, which is part of the reason the cancer was not visible on a mammogram. I had it confirmed by biopsy and had a right mastectomy followed by four rounds of chemotherapy. Six months later, I chose to have my left breast removed and began reconstruction.