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“She believed she could, so she did.”
It’s written on delicate silver plaques tied to the wrists of sisters Rebecca Hollingsworth and Mary Ellen Hughson with pink cords.
It was the sisters’ mantra after each was diagnosed with breast cancer within a week last November. Each had surgery. Together, they lost their hair to chemotherapy and underwent radiation. And together, they were told the cancer was gone.
Now that same spirit is guiding their efforts to raise the final $250,000 for a $4-million state-of-the-art 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanner for The Ottawa Hospital’s Breast Health Centre. It will be the only one in the country dedicated to breast health.
“We need it for us, for you, for your daughter, sister, mother, niece and aunt,” the sisters appeal to would-be donors. “We want the best for Ottawa women … This new imaging can change women’s lives and can be the difference between life and death.”
It was a shock when the healthy women, in their early 40s with no family history of breast cancer, learned they had the disease. Both have young children – five between them, now aged eight to 14 – and had healthy lives, hectic with work and family.
Hollingsworth was first. Something felt different during a routine breast self-exam. Days later, an ultrasound at the Breast Health Centre confirmed she had invasive ductal breast cancer, the most common kind.
When she had a pre-surgery MRI, it found five other tumours that weren’t visible on either a mammogram or ultrasound.
“I’m very blessed that my doctors and the technology spotted them,” Hollingsworth said.
Meanwhile, she had urged her sister to immediately get a bump of her own checked out. Hughson’s mammogram came back negative but a follow-up ultrasound, performed because she, like her sister, has dense breast tissue, revealed breast cancer, too.
Thankfully, for the women’s young daughters, extensive DNA testing revealed that their cancers were a coincidence as rare as a lightning strike and not genetic. But the sisters, like as many as half of women, have dense breast tissue that both increases the risk of cancer and makes it harder to spot on a mammogram.
It’s made them passionate advocates for early detection.
“It was so clear to us that the screening makes all the difference – especially with dense breasts,” Hollingsworth said. “We were very lucky. Both of us. The best news we ever got was that it had not moved to our lymph nodes.
“Early detection is so, so, so important. Of course, before I had breast cancer, I always heard that but I didn’t understand how important it is. It’s critical. It changes your treatment plan, it changes your prognosis. It changes everything.”
Rebecca Hollingsworth (R) and her sister Mary Ellen Hughson after starting chemotherapy.
As the sisters started chemo, they came up with the idea of having toques made and selling them, donating the $6,000 in proceeds to the “Dancing with the Docs” fundraiser with their oncologist, Dr. Mark Clemons.
“We’re so fortunate in Ottawa to have such a facility and the expertise, the surgeons, the doctors, the oncologists there,” Hughson said.
They wanted to do more and set on supporting the 3 Tesla MRI, which is twice as powerful as conventional machines to yield greater detail.
An upcoming expansion of the Breast Health Centre, which will be consolidated at the General campus, and the purchase of the new MRI will have a host of benefits for patients, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation says.
It will reduce wait times between diagnosis and treatment by offering same-day results for women who’ve found a lump or other breast abnormalities, improve the identification of tumours in high-risk patients, reduce false positives and boost research into best practices for breast imaging.
Meanwhile, it will increase access to MRI equipment by more than 3,300 scans a year – allowing quicker access for other patients, too.
Breast MRI is the most sensitive test available for cancer-detection, said Dr. Jean Seely, head of breast imaging at The Ottawa Hospital, who said that when used appropriately it can make a “profound impact” on women’s lives by detecting cancer much earlier.
“We want to put the most advanced tools in the hands of our dedicated team to best support every patient in need of breast cancer care,” Seely said.
Since it opened in two decades ago, the number of patients using the Breast Health Centre has increased by 40 per cent to more than 33,000 patients a year.
This year alone, a minimum of 1,000 Eastern Ontario patients are expected to be newly diagnosed with breast cancer. An estimated one in 8 Canadian women will get breast cancer during her lifetime; one in 31 will die from it.
The sisters say they’re being closely monitored, take hormone-suppressing drugs and are hopeful. Each is quick to express gratitude – for early detection, excellent care and the support they received from each other, husbands, friends and their mother, Ruth Barber.
“I remember saying to mom, if it is (cancer), then at least I know she’s not going to go through this by herself,” Hughson said. “In a way, it was a blessing that we could be there for each other.”
“A trip to Mexico together would have been better,” joked Hollingsworth. “Just saying.”
mgillis@postmedia.com
Bracelets worn by Rebecca Hollingsworth and her sister Mary Ellen Hughson.
查看原文...
It’s written on delicate silver plaques tied to the wrists of sisters Rebecca Hollingsworth and Mary Ellen Hughson with pink cords.
It was the sisters’ mantra after each was diagnosed with breast cancer within a week last November. Each had surgery. Together, they lost their hair to chemotherapy and underwent radiation. And together, they were told the cancer was gone.
Now that same spirit is guiding their efforts to raise the final $250,000 for a $4-million state-of-the-art 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanner for The Ottawa Hospital’s Breast Health Centre. It will be the only one in the country dedicated to breast health.
“We need it for us, for you, for your daughter, sister, mother, niece and aunt,” the sisters appeal to would-be donors. “We want the best for Ottawa women … This new imaging can change women’s lives and can be the difference between life and death.”
It was a shock when the healthy women, in their early 40s with no family history of breast cancer, learned they had the disease. Both have young children – five between them, now aged eight to 14 – and had healthy lives, hectic with work and family.
Hollingsworth was first. Something felt different during a routine breast self-exam. Days later, an ultrasound at the Breast Health Centre confirmed she had invasive ductal breast cancer, the most common kind.
When she had a pre-surgery MRI, it found five other tumours that weren’t visible on either a mammogram or ultrasound.
“I’m very blessed that my doctors and the technology spotted them,” Hollingsworth said.
Meanwhile, she had urged her sister to immediately get a bump of her own checked out. Hughson’s mammogram came back negative but a follow-up ultrasound, performed because she, like her sister, has dense breast tissue, revealed breast cancer, too.
Thankfully, for the women’s young daughters, extensive DNA testing revealed that their cancers were a coincidence as rare as a lightning strike and not genetic. But the sisters, like as many as half of women, have dense breast tissue that both increases the risk of cancer and makes it harder to spot on a mammogram.
It’s made them passionate advocates for early detection.
“It was so clear to us that the screening makes all the difference – especially with dense breasts,” Hollingsworth said. “We were very lucky. Both of us. The best news we ever got was that it had not moved to our lymph nodes.
“Early detection is so, so, so important. Of course, before I had breast cancer, I always heard that but I didn’t understand how important it is. It’s critical. It changes your treatment plan, it changes your prognosis. It changes everything.”
Rebecca Hollingsworth (R) and her sister Mary Ellen Hughson after starting chemotherapy.
As the sisters started chemo, they came up with the idea of having toques made and selling them, donating the $6,000 in proceeds to the “Dancing with the Docs” fundraiser with their oncologist, Dr. Mark Clemons.
“We’re so fortunate in Ottawa to have such a facility and the expertise, the surgeons, the doctors, the oncologists there,” Hughson said.
They wanted to do more and set on supporting the 3 Tesla MRI, which is twice as powerful as conventional machines to yield greater detail.
An upcoming expansion of the Breast Health Centre, which will be consolidated at the General campus, and the purchase of the new MRI will have a host of benefits for patients, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation says.
It will reduce wait times between diagnosis and treatment by offering same-day results for women who’ve found a lump or other breast abnormalities, improve the identification of tumours in high-risk patients, reduce false positives and boost research into best practices for breast imaging.
Meanwhile, it will increase access to MRI equipment by more than 3,300 scans a year – allowing quicker access for other patients, too.
Breast MRI is the most sensitive test available for cancer-detection, said Dr. Jean Seely, head of breast imaging at The Ottawa Hospital, who said that when used appropriately it can make a “profound impact” on women’s lives by detecting cancer much earlier.
“We want to put the most advanced tools in the hands of our dedicated team to best support every patient in need of breast cancer care,” Seely said.
Since it opened in two decades ago, the number of patients using the Breast Health Centre has increased by 40 per cent to more than 33,000 patients a year.
This year alone, a minimum of 1,000 Eastern Ontario patients are expected to be newly diagnosed with breast cancer. An estimated one in 8 Canadian women will get breast cancer during her lifetime; one in 31 will die from it.
The sisters say they’re being closely monitored, take hormone-suppressing drugs and are hopeful. Each is quick to express gratitude – for early detection, excellent care and the support they received from each other, husbands, friends and their mother, Ruth Barber.
“I remember saying to mom, if it is (cancer), then at least I know she’s not going to go through this by herself,” Hughson said. “In a way, it was a blessing that we could be there for each other.”
“A trip to Mexico together would have been better,” joked Hollingsworth. “Just saying.”
mgillis@postmedia.com
Bracelets worn by Rebecca Hollingsworth and her sister Mary Ellen Hughson.
查看原文...
