Breast Cancer Journey – Collateral, misses, and chaos

Saturday, 11th April, 2026

This post is a bit of an overlap, but it’s all because of my breast cancer that they had to happen. I must also warn you that there is plenty of whining, and I’m not really sorry. OK, I am, but there it is.

It was a hectic week once a peaceful Easter Monday was done. It was also a week full of frustrating but hilarious failures. What was it I called those days in Torino when things didn’t go as planned? Horrified that I now forget.

My eyes:

On Tuesday, I had an appointment with the Eye Cancer Clinic at Princess Margaret Hospital. They’d phoned to let me know to expect to be there for four to five hours, and they weren’t too far off from that expectation. Why there? When I went to see about restarting my cataract surgery course, the surgeon had insisted that, before doing anything to my eyes, I needed to make sure the freckle/nevus in my eye wasn’t cancer. (Did you know? they’d ask every time.) But I’d now had cancer twice, so… It was, quite honestly, a very scary thought. With my health anxiety, I worried and stressed that I already had eye cancer, and I was going to lose my eye. I fought this every day, telling myself how many decades I’d had this freckle without anyone commenting much on it. As a cancer survivor, it’s never that simple. Every ache, pain, change anywhere is an alert, nothing to be ignored, but carefully looked at and written off as ‘nothing.’ I was also scared at not knowing what tests they might do on my eye. I trusted them, but I barely trusted myself to be patient and cooperative. Spoiler: I was.

What happens at such an appointment? First, an eye chart. I was the expected “terrible” at this one. (Not their words, mine.) Numbing drops, dilating drops. Waiting. Then, when my eyes were so blurred I took my glasses off, so I didn’t notice it so much, they called me in for more tests. These involved looking into machines that focussed and unfocussed images, made me stare, don’t blink, and flashes — scans, photos… More waiting. The final test was the one I was dreading – an eye ultrasound. My brother had guessed “closed eyes,” but no. More numbing drops, a bunch of gel squirted into my eye and then a cold, slippery sensation as they scanned my open eye with the ultrasound wand. Weird but not awful. What a relief.

More waiting. Krish brought me a soup from downstairs. We were close on the four-hour mark.

Finally, they called me in again. A doctor announced herself and sat at a computer, looking at images. She asked if I’d known about the freckle, and I told her I had. How long ago, she asked. Decades, I let her know. I held my breath. Well, there’s no cancer, she said. More relief. Another, more senior, doctor came in, and she repeated to him what she’d learned from me. It’s not cancer, he proclaimed, and I was done.

The arm on my glasses, the one that’s come off and been stuck together with metal clamps or sticky tape, fell off. I stashed it in my pocket, fed up with the whole thing. When I got home, it wasn’t there. I now have only one arm on my glasses. Nice. Lopsided and out of focus, and needing to zone in on a better solution. Stay tuned.

On Wednesday, I had a good day. The first in forever. I’ll save that for another post. I’ll say, however, that the words No Cancer have a very profound effect! I need to learn.

(Not) Lymphatic Massage:

On Thursday, I booked myself in for a lymphatic drainage massage. I thought I had, anyway. I had had to postpone this one two or three times to fit in with everything else, and realised that my port incision might still be too fresh to be touched. While not a super failure, it had its challenges. I arrived at the student clinic a full hour early and asked the driver if he would drop me at the shop across the road. He refused – citing the rules, which I know, but some drivers are more relaxed with them – life happens. He said he needed to drop me safely at my destination. I told him thank you but I would now have to cross the dangerous road. He was stoic. I got on with it. I lived. The store is huge, and I found and bought a few things there. I crossed back again and again I lived. Inside the clinic building, I headed towards the clinic only to be faced with several stairs that I couldn’t go down with my walker. Someone told me there was another accessible entrance at the other side of the building, but did I need help? I asked if she could manage to carry the walker down for me, and she did. Hooray.

I was assigned to Justin. I’d told them that I didn’t mind what gender my masseur was, but I admit to being slightly concerned when it was a young man, maybe in his late teens. I needn’t have worried. He didn’t know I wanted the lymphatic drainage, but he did his best after speaking with his instructor. I didn’t have to take my clothes off, and he did some gentle strokes on my arm – that’s all you need, apparently – and some more energetic moves in my armpits and around the collarbone. He finished with a head and neck massage, which was good. I’m not sure I will go back if it’s not the massage I really need. I suppose I have to cave and spend the money on a ‘real’ one. Cancer cost reminder.

The receptionist told me that WheelTrans uses their accessible door. I went out that way, but it was an asphalt path, and I doubted they would drive on it. I called them and said I was at the accessible exit, but they didn’t have a clue. Of course not. I told them that I was next to the parking lot, at the back of the building and would wait there. The call centre agent asked me many questions and seemed no further ahead. He said the driver would call me if I wasn’t around – no, they rarely ever do, so I said I would walk around to the front if I could get there from the parking lot. When I finally got there, I saw a WheelTrans vehicle already waiting and asked him if he was there for me. Yes, he was. I let the agent know I was OK after all and hung up. On our way out, the message came over the radio to meet me in the parking lot. Oh well, whatever.

On the way out, the driver stopped to talk to a young man who leaned in the window and looked at me. ‘My son,’ the driver said. The son had come out of the new LRT (Light Rapid Transit) station beside the clinic. What timing! Turns out the driver lived just a block away. Since I had lived in the general area for a couple of years in 1967, we chatted about how it’d changed. When I told him when I’d lived there, and what the changes were, he stopped talking and exclaimed, 1967? I was born in 1968. Whoa. (He looked older. Maybe I looked younger?) The LRT is infamous. It had taken 15 years to build that crazy (25 station, 19 kilometrelong) line It caused so much havoc.

Compression bra fitting

Friday was interesting. I had an appointment to be fitted for a compression bra. I have lymphoedema after my radiation. It’s a pretty common aftereffect and, to be honest, I don’t really know I have it…except for the darn bras. I’m the type of person who, despite being large-breasted, would happily go braless. I’m that woman, like many, who throws the bra off the minute I get home or if already at home, the minute the guests leave. A compression bra is my nightmare. Think of a corset or control panties. But it’s a bra. It’s made to bind and constrict. You’re supposed to wear it all day long, even when home, and all night long is even better. It has hooks, zips and velcro fastenings.  (Picture at the link.) The straps are wide and pulled/velcroed tight. It reaches several inches below the bust. It looks like a serious sports bra-meets-corset. It doesn’t end there. Inside the bra, you need to wear a compression pad. It looks like a sanitary pad, but it’s filled with beads or chips that compress the breast even more. I have some fancy silicone ones, but I much prefer the handmade ones my therapist cobbles together for me each time we meet. You need a new one every four months, and you pay a portion each time because the Canadian health service won’t cover the whole cost. Another time I can talk about the cost of cancer…maybe.

I’ve had to delay these bra-fitting appointments about half a dozen times. Remember me saying I need a secretary? Both the massage and bra-fitting appointments have had to be changed many times. While at the eye clinic, I had a call from the bra fitters that they would see me the next day. No, I said, that was cancelled and gave them the new date. Noted.  It took me about half an hour to realise that I’d now booked both places for the same day and time. Square one again. The next day, I looked firmly at my calendar and made the call to get it right.

The bra place was in the north end of the city. It’s a Jewish area mainly, and I was reminded of Stamford Hill but with different costumes. My driver got me there and then asked, Is this it? I think so, I said. I’ve never been here before. If it’s 3077 this is it. Do I park here, he asked. I don’t know.

Inside the building, there were stairs up but no elevator. I pressed the button for assistance. Janice? came a voice from the top of the stairs. Then a whirring noise that went on for two to three minutes. A chair lift had been sent down. No, I called up. I have a walker and just need it to come up with me. Apparently, no, I had to leave my walker at the bottom of the stairs next to a busy walk-in clinic. I prayed.

There was much talk about where my government forms were. No one could find them, and I had to retrieve them from deep inside the hospital portal. And the bra. It’s certainly lighter weight and less cumbersome than the one I’d bought full-price, but I’m dismayed to hear that I need to wear it all the time with the 250g weighted prosthesis I reserve for “special occasions” to maintain the compression. I protested, in vain, of course. I’m at home most of the time, I said. Would YOU wear it to do dishes or watch TV? She smiled and said nothing. I was now in full whining mode and decided to just smile.  I was surprised to be given two after paying my share ($88). One to wear, one to wash, they said. OK! 

I visited the toilet, using their key. I rearranged myself and my head. I was already so tired and still planned some shopping before my ride came. My walker was still at the bottom of the stairs. Hooray. (Don’t ask how I walked around upstairs without it – answer, not very well.)

I crossed the road to the kosher restaurant I’d planned to get some take-out food for lunch. It had four stairs and no ramp. A passer-by swooped in and took my walker up for me, then retrieved me. I always feel grateful yet embarrassed at these gestures. I don’t know if I can fix that. After some exploration and noticing that every crumb of bread was gone from the shelves (it’s Friday!) I dismissed the menu and left. A lady saw me, and I was swooped again. She said she worked at Baycrest, a huge Jewish care facility in the area. I did not want to break a hip, she said. I tried to decide how I felt about being treated like an elderly patient. Maybe it showed on my face. You look really good, she said. Strong. Hooray.

At the supermarket by my ride meeting place, I picked up a slice of pizza that went into the oven and came out lukewarm. I was too tired to argue. I bought some vegetables and wandered over to the freezer case section. There were Hassidic women in this store with their kids. They were in their bubble, just as the Haredi had been in Stamford Hill. I smiled and went to pay.

The WheelTrans ad told me to wait at the north end of the supermarket building at the K Karate and BMO sign. K Karate, OK, BMO nothing there. So I waited for my Beck cab to arrive. Beck cabs kept pulling up and picking people up from the shop. None said WheelTrans, and none came out to talk to me. The sun went in, and it got cold. I messaged Krish that I was waiting to come back. A moment later, he messaged me that he got a message that I was a NO SHOW. When I’d entered and left the store, there was a collection of poles that stopped carts from leaving. It was about two inches too narrow for my walker, but I got through with a bit of shoving. I’d come out the same way with a cashier’s help. As I stared at my No Show notice, the cashier came over and asked if I was Janice. Apparently, a driver had stopped and asked for me, but not at the K sign, at the supermarket door, and she noticed it had no WheelTrans sticker. Foiled! I phoned the call centre and talked to a very impatient agent. I just want to make sure that the next person you send comes to the K Karate sign or phones to find me, I said. You’ll have to take that up with Customer Service on Monday, I was told. I’ll try to find you a ride, she said. I hoped so. I was ‘in the middle of nowhere.’

I waited. I shivered. I didn’t dare move. I saw a WheelTrans vehicle coming in past the supermarket, not the model I was told to look for, but I waved, just in case. The vehicle passed me by and stopped in a parking spot, perhaps 20 metres away. Not mine then. Ten minutes later, it left again, but the driver called out to me, Janice?  It was my ride, and no idea why, once again, there was miscommunication. But I was in. His very first WheelTrans passenger ever, apparently. Two minutes after leaving, the radio announced, Meet Janice at the K Karate sign. I give up.

The driver was shy, nervous and nice. I tumbled indoors, wiped out. I emptied my pockets. I still had the toilet key!

Some days. And days. And days.

Index of all my Breast Cancer Journey Posts