I am a metastatic breast cancer patient with liver and spine metastases. I am also a mom and a grandmother. One day, I felt a very hard pea-sized lump right under the skin. My family physician sent me for a mammogram and ultrasound. The radiologist came in and said he was concerned and brought me back the following day for a biopsy. I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. I was petrified and scared. Since working at a cancer centre, I had every bad scenario going through my mind. I had a double mastectomy followed by four months of chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiation. It was difficult losing my hair, feeling nauseous and weak but I was determined to beat this horrible disease.

Is there anyone out there who feels like I do? Like they’ve lost a part of their memory to tamoxifen, chemotherapy and/or radiation and will never get it back? If you are like me, do you ever wonder where your memory went, like, is it on the beach in Puerto Vallarta or maybe it took a sabbatical and didn’t provide a return date?

I am 33-year-old woman from Alberta, Canada. I used to work in the oilfield until I had my son in September 2021. I used to be very independent, and an active dog mom to four dogs. I am now a proud mom of five dogs and one tiny human! I found a lump at two months postpartum but thought it was a blocked milk duct. It kept getting bigger, so I went in on February 28, 2022. I was sent to get an ultrasound and a mammogram on March 1st and 2nd. I was biopsied on March 4th, and my pathology report came back on March 21st. I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.

Experiencing side effects from breast cancer treatment is a common occurrence for patients. While systemic chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted therapy are effective treatments for breast cancer, learning to cope and live with their unwanted or unexpected side effects can be challenging. We reached out to breast cancer patients to hear about their experiences with this.

I have advanced stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC). MBC is when breast cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Typically, it spreads to the bones, liver, lungs, and brain. There is currently no cure for MBC but there is treatment, and some women can live for many years.

I’m still scared and I’m still nervous, but I’m okay. I’m finding a sense of peace and calmness in all of this chaos. These past 42 days have been life changing. Being diagnosed and the end of a relationship has really tested my ability to find acceptance in everything. I continue to smile and laugh; life is truly incredible. The universe works in ways that I’ll never fully understand and in the darkest moments there is still light to be found.

I came to the Podcast game way late, like decades late. So when most people were tuning in on their morning commute to work, I was still listening to the mumbo jumbo in my head instead. Not that there’s anything wrong with this, I’ve always enjoyed my own company and I’m also a bit of a late bloomer which can translate into sometimes being a latecomer, so there’s that. But if I knew then how much I love a good podcast now, I’m fairly confident the time I spent waiting in Princess Margaret Hospital’s air-conditioned rooms would have passed by a lot quicker.

Stacy Zelazny lives in a tiny town in Ontario, literally, she resides in a little-known place called Tiny, Ontario. Stacy describes herself as a mom of two amazing girls who is married to her best friend and winning the biggest fight of her life.

“Breathe.” “Just breathe.” If I had a dollar for every time someone told me to do this —while I anxiously waited for my biopsy results, had another round of MRI exams, before and after surgery, throughout the months-long treatment and the years I spent swallowing a daily dose of Tamoxifen — I’d have a down payment for a vacation home in Mexico.

Well, the results are in.

Take a seat.

Take a deep breath.

It’s positive.

One night in July 2015, I went to sleep, and everything was fine. When I woke up, it was obvious that everything was not fine. My left breast was swollen, inflamed and painful. I was shocked and worried but tried not to overreact. Then I started making excuses. Maybe my period was coming. Maybe it was cellulitis. Maybe it was a clogged milk duct. Maybe it was. Maybe it. Maybe …

To highlight the various types of programs listed in FinancialNavigator, we have put together this blogpost series, FinNav 5. In this post, we highlight five programs that provide prostheses, wigs, and other care support items and packages.

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.

There is never a good time to get a breast cancer diagnosis. Our family was about to vacation in Australia when I got the news. Because I had been on a fitness kick in the months beforehand, I felt so healthy that I couldn’t believe anything was wrong, but it was. A grade two tumour and two affected lymph nodes meant that holiday plans had to make way for surgery.

I was diagnosed in December 2019 at the age of 47. I was healthy, happy and at the height of my career.  Just as I said to my husband of 25 years “Life just can’t get any better”, our world came to a grinding halt - “you have breast cancer”.

Breast cancer research is critical as it provides information on the detection, prognosis, treatment, and elimination of the disease. Researchers also continuously engage in studying breast cancer to help us better understand risks associated with breast cancer as well as how breast cancer interferes with other diseases and aspects of life.  

Chances are, if you have breast cancer you’ve heard about Tamoxifen. I remember the first time my oncologist talked to me about the chemo-infused hormonal-therapy drug. It was during my weekly check-up when I was still having daily radiation. He explained that because the cancer cells found in my right breast were 95 per cent estrogen and progesterone receptor positive, my body’s natural hormones could attach to the cancer cells and help them grow. Obviously I didn’t want that, so I said yes to the drug without even hesitating.

I’ve started counting the number of times I emotionally beat myself up every day. Each mean, cruel and hurtful criticism said silently to myself in the privacy of my own mind. Yesterday I hit number 22, my all-time high for the week. So far today, I’m up to seven unkind thoughts. It’s nine o’clock in the morning and my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m.

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.

The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium is the annual breast cancer conference that brings together researchers, clinicians, patients and manufacturers from all over the world to discuss the latest breast cancer research. While the 2020 symposium was held virtually, there was still an incredible amount of new research shared.