A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

I received an email from Princess Margaret Hospital about their new fast track “Rapid Diagnosis”, which, in essence, says that women can have a biopsy and a treatment plan within hours.

I guess some people might find that a good thing, but having gone through breast cancer myself, there is way too much information to absorb to make such a life-changing decision within a few hours of a diagnosis.

Am I the only one that finds this a not-so-good thing? Are women really that uninterested to learn more about their cancer before taking directions from a  bunch of strangers, all spewing the same thing.

Let me guess … the Rapid Diagnosis treatment options are:

1. Lumpectomy + radiation: Recovery time is only a few hours to a few days.
2. Radiation + lumpectomy + further radiation: Recovery time is also only a few days since radiation is not painful or invasive.
3. Chemotherapy + surgery + further chemotherapy + radiation: Recovery time is approximately one year.

Number 3 was the so-called “treatment plan” I was told I needed — basically, they throw everything at you and hope that something sticks.

From the time I had the biopsy to the time I received a treatment plan, it was exactly one week — and a bunch of strangers (pathologist, surgical oncologist and medical oncologist) had already decided what my plan should be — all strangers who didn’t ask me a single question about what might be best for me.

I can’t imagine what I would be like now had I not researched everything I could about the type of breast cancer I have — not all breast cancers are created equal and I really hope the women who utilize Rapid Diagnosis take time to think about all the options they have, and not be brain dead.

Digital mammography doesn’t appear to be available in Canada yet, or at least I couldn’t find any sources.

As you can see from the photograph below, there is a clear advantage to having mammograms digitally,  rather than the archaic way we currently have.  And if you’ve read from my About Me page, I’ve had annual mammograms which didn’t find the cancer — thank goodness it was painful, as I may never have found it otherwise.

The article the above photograph refers to an article I found in Star-Gazette (Elmira, NY) entitled New digital mammography equipment could help many women. An excerpt from the article:

” … In 2001, the National Cancer Institute enrolled 49,538 women who had no signs of breast cancer for a Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial at 33 sites in the United States and Canada …”

This is obviously great news for women, and I hope this will become available at all North American hospitals.