A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

Even though I don’t have a lot of faith in traditional mammography, I will continue to have annual mammograms and go for annual check-ups with my family doctor … and check-ups with my oncologist, too.

I had my annual mammogram for the uni-boob yesterday, together with more blood work … and I still have a lot more blood work to do within the next week or so.

After I shared my story about my so-called normal mammogram a year ago, and a few weeks later I was in a lot of pain, the technican shared her story …

She told me about her mother’s ovarian cancer 7 years ago. She shared with me that her mother did as I do and gets annual physicals and did all “the right things”.

Her mother had her physical, including a pap smear, in February of that year 7 years ago and everything appeared to be normal. A few months later in June, she keeled over in pain while cooking a meal for her family.

Six weeks later, her mother was dead. A tumour had grown so large that chemotherapy could not reduce its size nor save her life.

The technician said in 10 years, I’m the 2nd woman she knows that a mammogram didn’t see the cancer growing inside me. She said she does 21 mammograms a day … over 100 in a week … over 5,000 mammograms a year. That’s over 50,000 mammograms she’s done.

I’ll stop buying lottery tickets now since my odds are really horrible.

I was telling her about my blog and that I want to share as much information with other women as I can who may not be aware of women like me … and perhaps save a life or 2 … or at least get women to ask a lot of questions during annual examinations.

I told her about the digital mammography that’s available and seems to be only available in the USA. She said they are getting their first machine next week! She said there will be lots of false positives because it’s new technology. The images will be so clear that technicians and doctors won’t know what they’re looking at because they haven’t seen such clear images before.

I’ll take a false positive and have multiple mammograms any day over cancer! My life is not inconvenient.

Thankfully digi-tits comes to the Toronto area!

An article in The Vancouver Sun entitled “B.C. breast cancer tests under external review” after 22 women died (out of 58 women — that’s a shocking 40%!) underscores the necessity that women need to be their own advocate when they think something is wrong. You can read the article by clicking here.

If you have a doctor telling you that the lump is likely nothing more than a cyst or is nothing to worry about — and they haven’t conducted any tests to make that medical conclusion — and you have this instinctual feeling that concerns you, please, please, get a 2nd opinion — any maybe even a 3rd opinion.

I’m not suggesting that you find a medical practitioner that will tell you what you want to hear, but you need to be diligent about your own health and make decisions that will keep you alive longer — who cares if the doctor you’ve been going to since you were a baby thinks you’re over-reacting! Or the doctor at the walk-in/urgent care clinic thinks you’re a psych case! If you feel something is wrong, then there just might be something to be concerned about and you need to get another opinion.

This is Canada — the land of free healthcare! So what if getting a 2nd or 3rd opinion is inconvenient … so is planning a funeral … I’m sure you wouldn’t want to put your friends and family through that inconvenience either.

When the lump I had was unusually painful, I persisted in going back to the doctor after she said it’s probably a cyst and prescribed me anti-inflammatories. When the pain persisted, I kept going back to her and within a few months and many tests later, including a biopsy, it was confirmed that I had advanced breast cancer … from start to finish, from October 2008 to February 2009, I had a modified radical mastectomy and am alive today.

If I were here today with a painful lump, I’m quite sure I would be in Stage 3 or 4 now … and perhaps with only a life expectancy of a few years. I’d much rather live with one boob than be told I’ll be dead in a few years.

How much more proof do you need? Unless your doctor is Dr. Parnassus (see Heath Ledger’s trailer for the last film he will ever be involved with), you hopefully should have nothing to fear … for those not in the know about his tragic life, here is a link to Heath Ledger’s biography.