I don’t know what it was like for you but for me, saying “I have breast cancer” out loud felt fake, like I was lying. Every time the words came out of my mouth I wanted to hide. Rationally, I knew my diagnosis was real, but the horrible emotions that preceded and followed each proclamation filled me with shame. And the voice inside my head was relentless. It just kept goading me on.

A few years ago, a friend shared a story about the first trimester of her pregnancy. She was thrilled to be pregnant, but at the time, kept her pregnancy under wraps as she hadn’t passed the three-month safety zone. She was also sick as a dog, overwhelmed with intense nausea and fatigue, that heightened during her twice-daily, 25-minute subway commute to and from work. Despite looking green-ish, sweaty, unstable on her feet and gripping whatever pole or hand railing was available, not once in 90 days did anyone sitting on the subway offer my friend their seat. She’d felt invisible.

A breast cancer diagnosis comes with so many questions and there never seems to be enough time at appointments to have some of these questions answered. To help address this, we developed a "Q&E: Questions and Experts" series. In this series, a variety of experts spend the entire virtual session answering pre-submitted and live questions from participants. Watching the videos on-demand might be a little difficult to get through. So, we’ve created this guide to help you get right to the questions and answers that matter the most to you

While there have been many advances made in the diagnosing, treatment and management of breast cancer, individuals diagnosed with or living with breast cancer still face issues that are not yet being addressed by the organizations and government bodies that serve them. In addition to this, the public is generally not aware of the day-to-day impacts of a breast cancer diagnosis on individuals and their families.