A Diet to Die For! Breast Cancer in Canada.

A few days ago I received a letter asking if I would participate in a study for the Ontario Breast Screening Program (Cancer Care Ontario).

Of course I filled it out and said yes!

An excerpt of the letter dated March 31, 2011:

“… From time to time, research projects about breast screening make use of the information obtained by the OBSP. You indicated to the OBSP that you are willing to receive information about research. You are being approached for this study because you have had a mammogram at the OBSP and also have had a breast cancer diagnosis…”

I apparently said I would be interested in 2008.

The criteria for this particular study is women between the ages of 50-74 and had a breast cancer diagnosis, and who have told the OBSP they are willing to be contacted about research studies.

If you or someone you know may be interested in providing information to this valuable study, their phone number is 416-971-9800.

Get on the list and be counted! If not for this particular study, the next one or the one after that … they are all valuable!

We need to end this disease as soon as we can!

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!