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.

It’s good to set challenging goals.

I ran my first marathon the year I turned 50, and completed another two years later.  I loved establishing training goals that would force me to push myself physically, and feeling healthy  and strong as the result of running regularly.  In November 2015, I decided on a new goal:  to run another marathon in the fall of 2016, and complete it with a time fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

When I started getting sick in the late summer of 2011, I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I thought my endometriosis was "acting up." Then my symptoms changed and a Google search convinced me I needed my gall bladder removed. I exaggerate, but the point is that while my disparate symptoms piled up, I was sure there was a simple explanation. Cancer never entered my mind, even when my gynaecologist found a lump in my breast I hadn't noticed.

My journey began on New Year’s Eve 2015, when I noticed a red mark on my right breast.  It wasn’t long before my stomach dropped and I felt my face flush while my throat did that swallowing action reserved for moments just like this.

Wendie Hayes of Stoney Creek Mountain, Ontario was diagnosed in 2011 with triple negative metaplastic phyllodes breast cancer at the age of 55 after she discovered a lump in her left breast.  Her cancer is a rare type, affecting less than one percent of breast cancer patients, so it took some time to get the right diagnosis. 

It seems impossible to try to capture the essence of who someone is, was, through just words. Because there are no words that really do justice to honour a person like Laurie Kingston and how her life touched so many people, people she didn’t even know. It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of Laurie, one of CBCN’s board members, who passed away on January 8, 2018.

I was not prepared for the number of decisions regarding treatment that needed to be made from cancer diagnosis to treatment options.  It was both exhausting and overwhelming – how does one make sound life-changing decisions when there are so many options and choices? I learned to trust myself and be my own advocate as I navigated through the many decision points.

For Naomi Pickersgill, living with metastatic breast cancer and being confronted with her own mortality has been a “roller coaster of emotions.”

Adriana Capozzi of Bradford, Ontario, was diagnosed in October 2014 with HER2-positive, Stage III breast cancer.  She received four months of chemotherapy and one year of Herceptin, along with a bilateral mastectomy and 25 rounds of radiation.

I have never been a fan of roller coasters, too much up and down, made me feel sick.  Ironically, my life seems to have become a gigantic roller coaster ride!