The Journey Begins

October/November 2008

Like many women over 50, my breast cancer story started with a mammogram. As part of the Ontario Breast Screening program, I have a mammogram every other year. I saw my breasts as part of the control group, the healthy ones. After all, I have no history of the disease in my family. In the past, when I completed questionnaires on the disease, I have always come out as low risk.

On October 14, 2008, I had my regular mammogram. No story here. About a week later, I was at my doctor's office to get some relief for some congestion that I was experiencing. She had just received the results of the mammogram. There was something” unusual" on the image of the left breast. My doctor advised me that this was "probably nothing" but that I would have to go to Sunnybrook for an ultrasound to make sure. I was instructed to pick up my mammogram films from the lab where the procedure had taken place and deliver them to radiology at the hospital. Having done that, I waited for my appointment.

When Sunnybrook scheduled me for November 19th, my doctor decided that date was too far off, that I would get an earlier appointment at St. Mike's, so I had to pick up the films from Sunnybrook and deliver them to St. Mike's. I felt like a courier. I waited for my new (earlier) appointment.

After over a week, I had received no phone calls from St. Mike's, so I called them. This is a good lesson about navigating our health care system. If you do not hear from someone after a reasonable length of time, get on the phone and advocate for yourself. I have become quite good at that over the last several months.

The woman I spoke to looked into my case. She called me back that day and informed me that I had no appointment at St. Mike's because they had not received my most recent film! Sunnybrook still had it. It appeared that I had been only been given the older mammogram results and the October 14th images were still at Sunnybrook. Oops. Courier Mary made another delivery and waited some more. Eventually, my supposedly earlier appointment was scheduled for November 28^th.