How to cope when you need a mastectomy

Originally titled "My personal best," from the October 2007 issue of Canadian Living Magazine, on newsstands or click here to purchase online.

Years ago, I became the first news camerawoman in Canada, shooting for CBC National and CTV’s national news. As a woman in a male-dominated industry, I drew a lot of media attention. I was even asked to model for Playboy magazine (which I turned down, though I was a Sunshine Girl for the Toronto Sun).

I’ve always worked out and done bust-firming exercises to maintain my shape. Today, as a businesswoman in my 50s (I co-own a Toronto-based video production and satellite transmission company with my husband, Lawrence Partington), I continue to wear clothes that show off my figure.

But when I received a cancer diagnosis and was faced with the prospect of a mastectomy, I was so shocked to hear I had widespread and life-threatening cancer that I didn’t focus on the loss of my right breast. At least, not at first.

The start of it all
My ordeal began in January 2002, when I found a large lump during my monthly breast exam. A re-evaluation of my old mammograms and a subsequent needle biopsy in my doctor’s office confirmed that I had cancer with multiple sites throughout the breast. Because the cancer was widespread, I needed a mastectomy, which was scheduled in two weeks.

Getting a cancer diagnosis is shocking for anyone but perhaps even more so for me given my family history. On both my parents’ sides, I come from 10 generations of Nova Scotians, most of whom lived well into old age. I remember thinking, Maybe I’m not going to live to be old after all.

Fighting for my life
At the time I was so focused on getting rid of the cancer that I just couldn’t think of anything else. When I met with the surgeon, I was not aware that reconstruction could be done at the same time as removing the cancer, and he didn’t bring up the subject, either. We were both just fighting for my life.

At home, Lawrence worried, too. We’ve been married 22 years and have a son, PJ, 21, and a daughter, Joy, 10. We were scared that the cancer had been caught too late. Losing the breast didn’t seem that devastating.

Page 1 of 4