A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

I’m a proud Canadian. I was born here: born at Toronto General Hosptial to be precise. I was raised here. I have never lived in any other country other than Canada. I own a small business here.

I have not experienced other healthcare systems except briefly last year (December 31, 2009) when I went to Buffalo with a friend who needed an MRI. Since I’m claustrophic, I was also curious to see this MRI equipment that was supposed to be “open”. It’s not what I call open: I think I would still need to be medicated to go in it — there may be lots of room on the sides because they are built for obese people, but you still have thousands of pounds of metal inches from your face. I just heard (October, 2010) that Trillium Health in Mississauga now has one of these open MRI machines.

If you still need to go to Buffalo (or outside of Canada) for an MRI, ask your doctor if you qualify for healthcare coverage — I received a form from the hospital due to my claustrophia. Otherwise, it’s not covered and you’ll have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

I had always praised Canada’s healtchare system and thought we had the best system in the world. That was before I got sick however.

I have cousins in the USA who are very well educated: one is a retired teacher in Chicago and her brother is a NASA engineer. They could not grasp Canada’s healtchare system no matter what we said or how we said it over the many decades we have gone back and forth to visit each other. They kept muttering “socialized medicine” and didn’t understand that Canada was not the former USSR. Now that the USA is in their own healthcare reform discussions, I wonder if my American cousins are still as confused as they were all those decades ago.

We Canadians can choose our own doctor, choose our own hospital, get prescriptions for free, travel the country and if we get sick, we can still access other provinces healthcare systems for free, and very little comes out of our pocket when minor illnesses strike.

Who pays for it? Well, we do. All from our very high income taxes that we pay and pay and pay.

When Cancer Strikes

Let me clarify that I think we have a pretty good system here in Canada. I haved lived a relatively healthy life for 50+ years and rarely needed access to it until I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in December, 2008. I found a lump in October, 2008 and had a clean mammogram in September, 2008, and my surgery was scheduled for February, 2009.

This is when I feel our healtchare system begins to show signs of dilapidation. When a major illness strikes, it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on even when asking lots of questions. For example, I received a form from the medical oncologist (Dr. Chemo) asking how much I wanted to know. I checked off that I wanted to know every detail, no matter how bad it was. They still didn’t tell me much. I had to do my own homework to figure it all out.

I read somewhere that cancer care is a team effort and everyone knows what’s going on.

I can’t tell you how untrue that is. I constantly felt disconnected from my own healthcare decisions: the surgical oncologist didn’t quite know what the medical oncologist was discussing with me; my family doctor didn’t know much either. And then me, the patient, knew even less.

Even with a family doctor, I still had to wait 5 months for surgery. Granted, I did things quite differently from what was recommended. My doctor gave me a referral and appointment to a surgical oncologist. My family doctor called me a few hours later and said she wanted me to see someone else — she didn’t like the first doctor’s waiting time to see me.

My instinct was to keep both appointments. The first surgical oncologist was not a good fit for me: he barely uttered a word to me, spent less than 20 seconds examining me, didn’t look at the x-rays I brought, sent me back to his waiting room and told me to wait — wait for what, I didn’t know — after about 25 minutes, the receptionist called me up and explained that I’ll be having a biopsy — and explained it in front of the other 15 or more people sitting in the waiting room! This so-called doctor had absolutely no discretion or care very little that his receptionist was giving out very private information in front of a room full of people.

I found out afterwards that he is an American doctor practicing here in Canada. Now I understand why the American healthcare system seems to be incrediby efficient.

Decisions. Decisions.

When I had the ultrasound in November, 2008, the tumour was approximately 3 centimetres and by the time I had surgery in February, 2009, it had doubled to 6 centimetres.

I’m still surprised that a lump, a lump that was incredibly painful, that was non-existent in September, 2008, and sprouted to 3 centimetres within weeks, that no one seemed to act quickly.

I’m glad I kept the appointment to the other surgical oncologist who is still my current doctor. I had my appointment with him the day after the biopsy from the previous uncompassionate practitioner. After the biopsy procedure which was very painful, he asked me to lie there for about 10 minutes holding the bandage and after a few minutes, I could hear him complaining to the nurse that he needed the room I was in and to get me out of there. I don’t think 5 minutes had lapsed — how lucky of Canada to have him here.

The new surgical oncologist felt I could have a lumpectomy before Christmas, 2008, and unfortunately that never happened … the previous uncompassionate practitioner recommended I have chemotherapy for about 6 months before surgery and more chemo after surgery. My new surgical oncologist thought the previous doctor’s recommendations were sound. I was devastated to hear that.

I said no to both and asked that he remove my breast immediately … and 5 months later, immediately happened.

Okay, so I didn’t pay for my amputation directly, but paying 40+% taxes, it sure feels like I’m paying for it and paying for everyone else’s illnesses as well. I also pay extra for extended healthcare.

Because we were also in the middle of a recession and that I was partially disabled for about 4 or 5 months (had gangrene after surgery), I ended up having to cash part of my pension to survive in 2009.

I have no family except my mother with Alzheimer’s Disease (thankfully I made the right decision to put her in a nursing home). I have no children. My so-called friends abandoned me. I had no one to help me around the house, no one to help me with groceries. It was an incredibly horrible year.

I wholeheartedly feel that if I listened to the first doctor’s advice, I would likely be dead now had I not made the decisions I made over my own care.

I began 2009 with cancer and ended 2009 with H1N1. I have a newly formed personality based on these experiences.

You’ll find my blogging style likely quite controversial and I hope you’ll tune in from time to time.