I was 18 the first time I was diagnosed with cancer – lymphoma. And the Princess Margaret Hospital saved my life then with new and groundbreaking treatments. That was 24 years ago and I believed that cancer now existed only in my rear view mirror. But a year and a half ago, my younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and I went from survivor to caregiver. That is, until 2 weeks after her final surgery, 6 months after her original diagnosis, when, one morning, in the shower, my hand found a lump in my right breast, a lump whose edges I could feel; a lump that should not have been there; a lump that made my heart stop dead and took my breath away. It’s the moment anyone who has been through this never forgets.
I knew that my sister’s surgeon, Dr. McCready, was running the One Day Rapid Diagnosis Pilot Program and managed to get myself into the clinic. There is no worse place than The Waiting Place and I knew that after dealing with my sister’s illness for the last 6 months neither my family nor I would be able to take another long period of uncertainty.
Here’s what I know for sure about cancer – it gets a lot of its power from fear. And fear grows in uncertainty, in the dark places of no information and in those times where we have nothing to do but wait and imagine the worst. And in your head, you die a thousand painful deaths and suffer in ways you never imagined. You dream of funerals and leaving loved ones behind and by the time you actually hear the diagnosis – no matter how bad – you have already suffered too much because what you have imagined; what you have lived in your head in the weeks and months it can take to be diagnosed is almost always worse than the reality. In the waiting, you are victimized, and those initial agonizing impressions are not easily chased from your mind.
With a disease that still offers too few opportunities for humane treatment, The Gattuso Rapid Diagnostic Centre is a bright light, a beacon of hope, a blueprint for the future. Patient-centric, it leaves no time for the fear and panic to take hold. It is the very definition of humane.
In one day, a matter of hours, I was tested and diagnosed and I emerged with real information and a plan. I emerged with hope; hope that didn’t have to override the fear that never had a chance to root itself in the dark spaces of my mind. In one day, I discovered I had the exact same cancer as my sister – Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and that is was completely unrelated to my diagnosis 24 years earlier.
In one day, I was able to tell my family and friends what I had and, more importantly, what was going to be done to save my life. Again.
Here’s what else I know about cancer – we all do better when we have hope; we all do better when we can act; we all do better when we know what we are facing. So this clinic is not just humane but it sets the stage for patients to move forward -- empowered and informed, hopeful and with real strategies, with an action plan and a place from which you can start to fight the disease and not the fear that can paralyze you. And armed with that, before treatment ever begins, we are already starting to win the battle.
Yes, I was diagnosed with cancer twice by the age of 41, and I’m not going to lie and tell you that is easy to deal with, but because of the incredible care and compassion of Dr. McCready, his team and his One Day Rapid Diagnostic Centre Clinic and because of the generosity and grace of Emmanuelle Gattuso in providing the funding to make this pilot project a permanent clinic, I am moving forward empowered with hope and information, not to mention an astounding medical team and hospital behind me and I’m already kicking cancer in the teeth for a second time.
But lastly and maybe mostly importantly, here’s what else I know. One person can make a difference. Dr. McCready is proving that. Emmanuelle Gattuso is proving that. And so can you. Because if more of us step up and say enough! We can do better; we must do better; we will do better, there will be no stopping us. So I hope that you will help us do better and help us to fund this incredible groundbreaking initiative that can change the lives of so many people. Help us to establish a new standard of care.
Right now, there is a woman in the shower who has just found a lump. Right now, there is a woman who has just had her doctor find something suspicious in her yearly check up. And right now, there is a man who is scratching his chest and has discovered a mass. Right now, they all need the one day Gattuso Rapid Diagnostic Centre. Because take it from me, one day makes all the difference and one day the person who needs the clinic the most just might be you.
