I GOT TO RING the bell. My early intervention & preventative treatment for cancer is over!
In the midst of a polar vortex—the likes of which we haven’t experienced in decades—Alberta’s healthcare teams never blinked. Our electricity system operator (AESO) damn near choked, but even when temperatures dipped to below minus 35 degrees, front line healthcare workers were doing what they do. And that says something.
Early detection of pre-cancer cells in my breast last spring (via a routine mammogram) followed by a timely intervention over the summer (a mastectomy & revision surgery), and thereafter radiation (as a preventative measure), brought about a great outcome. Of course, there’ll be lots of ongoing monitoring but this chapter is closed. Hopefully forever! But who knows…
FACT: Cancer is Alberta’s #1 cause of death.
FACT: One in two Albertans can expect a cancer diagnosis sometime in their lives.
This time, I was one of the fortunate ones. But I won’t lie. It was scary at times. And showing up in the concrete bowels of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre this month for my daily date with that honking big radiation machine wasn’t exactly fun. It’s not just the treatments—this ward is a gathering space where cancer patients & their families hunker down, many weary, most frightened.
Every time I walked through those doors, I made a real effort to look at people, to see them, to let them know I cared. One day, I carried one of my larger dinosaurs in with me—it brought a smile to many and when the technicians hoisted Fiji (the dino) onto the radiation machine, we all roared with laughter.
Of course, there’s nothing funny—haha funny—about cancer. It scares the hell out of most of us. Who doesn’t want reliable healthcare systems that can diagnose cancer as early as possible and treat it as aggressively as a patient chooses? Everyone looks forward to the day when cancer is a just another preventable disease, but in the meantime, we need to be prepared for the worst.
The brand-new Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre is scheduled to open its doors sometime this year. Exactly when, in 2024, is a well-kept secret. People who’ve seen the inside of the building say it’s like a 5-star hotel. It cost Albertans a bundle, over $1.4 billion, and wouldn’t have been possible without politicians of all stripes (including yours truly) pulling together.
Albertans are very good at building stuff (the ring road around Calgary is another recent example). But even the most state-of-the-art construction & technology isn’t going to deliver reliable healthcare for our citizens. As I’ve blogged, wait times for cancer diagnosis and treatment are getting stretched to the point where care is being compromised. Delaying treatment increases a person’s risk of dying.
I have this on good authority: Estimates for 2023 suggest 23,200 new cancer cases were diagnosed in Alberta, up 40% from 16,600 new cancer diagnoses in 2013. In that decade, the number of radiation oncologists practicing in Alberta has risen by only 5.6% from 54 in 2013 to 57 in 2022.
Looking ahead, the number of new cancer cases in Alberta is conservatively predicted to increase by 29% from 2020 to 2030; and by 56% from 2020 to 2040. We’re a growing province—we like that—but we have to prepare. The obvious gap is our cancer workforce. And right now, staff recruitment and retention isn’t going so well.
WE MUST DO BETTER
To all the healthcare workers who were there for me—and are there for every other Albertan diagnosed with cancer— in good times and in bad, without fail, you have my deepest gratitude and respect. My family and I relied on you and you were there for us.
And to you, dear reader, thanks for accompanying me on this journey. It eased my fear to share, and hopefully it’s opened up pathways for others to talk about ways to navigate this horrible disease that up-ends the lives of so many.