Fourteen years ago, I got the news that I had cancer. It was in both breasts. My colleagues were there for me all the way. Then, after nine months, my treatment ended, and I went back to work as a family doctor, but things were different. I was fragile. I had a new body. I was living with a newly diagnosed BRCA gene mutation that put me at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. I required a prophylactic hysterectomy and breast reconstruction, making choices that would impact me and my family. The psychological impact was massive.

I am from a long line of breast cancer survivors, so when I was diagnosed in 2008 with breast cancer, I was not in the least surprised. I was just 50, my twin sister and I celebrated that milestone in February 2007. By December of that year, I knew something was wrong.I had a mammogram at Sunnybrook that fall, in October I believe, and received “all clear”. Both the mammogram and the vigorous breast examination at Sunnybrook failed to detect an exceedingly small tumour situated close to my left armpit and sitting deep on a ligament. It was undetectable at that time. Later that fall, I noticed a puckering in my breast when I was drying my lower body, just out of a shower at my gym. I knew instantly what it was, so I booked an appointment with my doctor at the high-risk breast screening centre at the Odette Centre.