I initially started this blog to document my cancer journey, thinking it would have a clear beginning and end. Spoiler alert: cancer had other plans. When we found out my cancer had already metastasized and...
Give a gift of hope
I am deeply grateful for any support you can provide—it truly means the world to me. As a terminally ill single mom to two energetic kids and a rambunctious Jack Russell, life is incredibly challenging....
In the news
I’m a natural sharer, and I’m always ready to speak out about the challenges I face as a cancer patient. Below is a collection of interviews and media pieces where I’ve used my story to...
My story
In February 2019, I found a lump in my breast while showering. Four weeks later, after seeing my GP, getting a mammogram, ultrasound and having a biopsy of my breast and lymph nodes, I heard...
My blog
I initially started this blog to document my cancer journey, thinking it would have a clear beginning and end. Spoiler alert: cancer had other plans. When we found out my cancer had already metastasized and would stick with me for life (literally), this blog became so much more. Now, it’s a space where I share almost everything—from the side effects of treatment to advocating for better cancer care and increased research funding, and even my random musings. It’s a way for friends, family, fellow cancer patients, and caregivers to stay in the loop about how I’m doing and how I’m using my voice to make life just a little bit better for those touched by cancer.
Yes, it shows my vulnerability, but I also try to keep things real with a touch of humour—because, let’s face it, telling people you have cancer (let alone terminal cancer) can be the ultimate conversation killer. I hope my posts take away some of the awkwardness that comes with being an “expert cancer maker.”
If you think someone could benefit from this blog, feel free to share the link! To make sure you don’t miss any new posts, you can sign up to follow my blog, and you’ll get email notifications whenever I post something new. Don’t worry—while palliative treatments aren’t exactly a paying gig, I promise never to sell your email to the highest bidder. It’s strictly for blog updates.
PS: if you enjoy what you read and want to show your support, feel free to buy me a coffee. Your kindness and encouragement mean the world to me—plus, caffeine always helps!
Give a gift of hope
I am deeply grateful for any support you can provide—it truly means the world to me. As a terminally ill single mom to two energetic kids and a rambunctious Jack Russell, life is incredibly challenging. Balancing life-threatening health issues while trying to make ends meet on a fixed disability income has been nothing short of overwhelming. Your generosity isn’t just a helping hand; it’s a lifeline that keeps us going.
Here’s how you can make a difference in our day-to-day lives:
Fuel my mornings: A little coffee and a treat make a huge difference. My favorite pick-me-up from the local coffee shop is around $10—and trust me, the world is a better place when I’m caffeinated!
Fuel my car: With $20 a week, you’re not just putting gas in my tank—you’re helping me get to critical medical appointments and cancer treatments.
Fuel my family: Feeding two rapidly growing kids (who eat like they’re preparing for the NFL!) costs about $200 a week. Your help keeps us nourished and strong.
Fuel my fight: Life-saving medications that aren’t covered by insurance cost a staggering $400–$500 a month. Every contribution helps ease this burden and keeps me in the fight.
If you’d prefer to help with gift cards instead, I do most of our grocery shopping at Real Canadian Superstore, and I rely on Amazon Canada for clothing and household essentials.
Thank you for being part of helping my kids and I turn my lemons into lemonade.
In the news
I’m a natural sharer, and I’m always ready to speak out about the challenges I face as a cancer patient. Below is a collection of interviews and media pieces where I’ve used my story to advocate for better cancer care and increased research funding. It may be too late for me, but by shining light on these critical issues, we can help ensure others won’t have to endure the same fate.
OncoDaily Medical Journal. (2024, February 22). Paula Gordon: If Just One Woman Advocates for herself, and gets an early diagnosis, you’ll have done a mitzvah. OncoDaily Blog. Retrieved from OncoDaily Medical Journal
Tomlinson, J. (2024, February 14). “Younger and younger”: Radiologist calls for updated cancer screening. Retrieved from Global News
CBC News: The National. Ontario to lower age for regular breast cancer screenings to 40 [Video file]. (2023, October 30). Retrieved from CBC News – The National’s YouTube Channel
CBC News: The National. Breast cancer screenings should start at 40, medical task force says [Video file]. (2023, May 9). Retrieved from CBC News – The National’s YouTube Channel
Why we Boobyball and why you should too. Rethink Breast Cancer. (2020, January 3). https://rethinkbreastcancer.com/why-we-boobyball-and-why-you-should-too/
Two days to my birthday, seven to the lump— the tiny split-pea in my breast that grew into an unwelcome empire. Twice, I asked. Twice, they said no. Too young. Come back at fifty, they said.
Guess what? I never made it.
You spread yourself inside me, an uninvited tenant with a destructive party crew, stealing eight centimetres of my flesh, too big to carve away. So I poisoned us both temporarily.
Had we met years earlier, maybe I could have fought you differently. But instead— you took my breast, my hair, my lymph nodes, my hip, my vision. You took my confidence, my family, my goddamn future!
And yet, the Task Force calls this a success. They weigh my suffering against their scales and decide the harms don’t outweigh the benefits of catching you early. They say I am living proof that screening at forty isn’t worth it. But tell me, how is being a shell of who I was a success?
And what did you leave me? Statistics. Percentages. Countdowns.| Four in ten will meet you. Thirteen percent of women will bow to you. Fourteen percent will not survive you. At stage four, only twenty-three percent live past five years. Two to three years, they say. A blink. A breath. A slow goodbye I refuse to whisper.
And yet— I am still here. A unicorn in a sea of ghosts. Janice. Marloes. Libby. Yvette. Robin. Each name, another wound. Each loss, a weight. Each death, a debt of grief we carry in our bones.
You spread inside me, but you didn’t come alone. Your army built their camps, their fires, their siege on my body. Evicting you is a battle already lost, but I fight anyway.
I fight the fatigue, the burning radiation, the chemo-cracked lips, the poisons that save me and the side effects that steal me away.
And the world? The world does not wait. The bills do not soften. You stole my career, my studies, my income.
You left me a single mother with two young hearts to raise, with a Jack Russell to walk, with a monthly insurance payment that barely covers— never grows with inflation— less than half of what I once earned.
They call it long-term disability, as if it’s just another checkbox, as if it isn’t the unraveling of everything I built.
You took. And you took. And you took.
But I— I am still here. I am here in my voice, in the echoes of my life, in the pages of research that might one day write you out of existence. I am here in the moments I steal back from you, in my daughter’s laughter, in my son’s banter, in the warmth of the arms that hold me tight.
I am here, not just for me, but for the 40% who will one day meet you in the dark. I am here. On borrowed time, yes, but with a voice that will not be silenced. I will shout my story. I will advocate for patients like me for the care we deserve.
I try to find unique ways of expressing how living with terminal cancer impacts my family and I. Did you like my attempt at a free verse poem in which I speak directly to my cancer?
February 4, 2025, marked a special World Cancer Day as the Terry Fox Foundation and the Terry Fox Research Institute unveiled their new brand “Finish It” and officially introduced the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN or The Network) as the roadmap to end cancer as we know it. This initiative—45 years in the making—unites Canada’s top researchers, clinicians, and patients in its collaboration to share clinical and genomic data. Leveraging advanced deep learning technology, The Network aims to provide personalized treatments based on each patient’s unique genomic profile and tumour DNA.
The brand promise is bold and clear: the end of cancer has never felt more within reach. Some patients are already experiencing success through the Network’s projects, and this nationwide collaboration is accelerating breakthroughs, expanding access, and making precision medicine available to more Canadians than ever. Oncology professionals and patients alike feel closer than ever to fulfilling Terry’s dream.
Terry Fox has long been a beacon of hope for cancer patients and a national hero who united Canada in 1980 and beyond. Few have been honoured as widely as he has—from receiving the Order of Canada to being commemorated on stamps, the Canadian passport, the Loonie, and soon, the $5 bill. His legacy lives on in the awareness he raised through his Marathon of Hope, immortalized in statues across the country and captured in countless books and documentaries. It’s impossible not to feel overwhelmed with emotion when I reflect on the small role I have been privileged to play in this bold and ambitious mission—one that is larger than life and save lives every day. The thought that I get to stand alongside the Fox family and the brilliant minds working tirelessly to bring Terry’s dream closer to reality fills me with an indescribable sense of honour, pride and gratitude.
I struggled to find the right words to express what I experienced during yesterday’s launch. The care that went into creating the “Finish It” short was truly remarkable. Knowing the Fox family worked with the main actor, who also had a leg amputation, to authentically capture Terry’s cadence as he neared the end of his run was incredibly moving. Watching the scene where 400 volunteer runners, ran up to and then ran passed Terry, symbolizing the “passing of the baton” to us to finish what he had started. For me, the emotional culmination of the event was the never-before-heard version of “Courage” by The Tragically Hip. For those unfamiliar with them, The Tragically Hip is an iconic Canadian band that formed in 1984 and continued to perform until 2016, even as their lead singer, Gord Downie, battled glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. Gord Downie passed away in October 2017, making this collaboration even more poignant. The rendition of “Courage” stripped down to its essence, leaving only Gord’s powerful voice accompanied by beautifully played piano and subtle vocal support from two of his bandmates, created a haunting and beautiful atmosphere. Together, the short film and the song stirred a whirlwind of emotions within me—pride, fear, determination, and above all, a renewed commitment to “Finish It”—for Terry and the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who face cancer every year.
You can watch the full brand launch event here and hear my thoughts on what I think the MOHCCN can do for Canadians.
Cancer has changed many aspects of my life, including my ability to work, but it hasn’t diminished my passion for improving cancer care or advocating for the importance of research. Though I can’t work due to my illness, I’m grateful for any support, whether it’s a kind word, sharing my message, buying me a coffee or sending me a small gift.
Over the past five years, I’ve gained a great deal of experience advocating for change with politicians. But this year, for the first time, I truly felt that my voice was heard—and today, I saw firsthand how it can make a tangible difference.
In my previous post, I shared that I submitted two briefs to the House of Commons Standing Committee. The first was in January 2024, where I detailed how the 2018 Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines failed me. I explained the physical, emotional, and financial toll it took on me and my family, and concluded by proposing two key changes I hoped to see in the updated 2024 guidelines. In June, I submitted my second brief, focused on specific concerns with the proposed updates, offering practical recommendations to address them.
While the report doesn’t fully address all of my concerns, it does tackle many of them. As an individual patient, it’s encouraging to see that my voice has contributed to this shift. However, the report is only as meaningful as the actions that follow. It’s now up to the government to implement the changes outlined within it.
If we want to see real change, we must continue to advocate—not just for ourselves or for those who will be diagnosed with cancer in the future, but also to honour those who have paved the way but are no longer with us. Their efforts, too, deserve to be recognized and carried forward.
As I sat at home this weekend, knowing the hearing at the House of Commons starting today, regarding the newly proposed Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines. …
That’s dangerous for Canadians! Natalie Kwadrans, X, May 8, 2024 For those of you following my blog, you know that I have been a vocal …
My story
In February 2019, I found a lump in my breast while showering. Four weeks later, after seeing my GP, getting a mammogram, ultrasound and having a biopsy of my breast and lymph nodes, I heard the words:
“You have cancer.”
My oncologist at the Tom Baker Cancer Institute
It couldn’t be true. I was healthy. I was in shape and competed for Team Canada’s snowboarding race team. I never smoked. I ate well. I had everything going for me: an incredible family with an amazing husband, two young children and two dogs, a new job Vice-President job, teaching part-time in university and part way through a Masters of Science degree from HEC Paris. Unfortunately, my oncologist told me my life would be paused. I have triple-positive breast cancer, which is considered to be one of the more aggressive types. Treatment was to start right away.
Part-way through my chemo treatments, I found out the cancer was actually in my bones. It had been there all along. I have stage 4 breast cancer. There is no cure for it; it is terminal. My prognosis is grim, with only 22% chance of living the next 5 years and an average life expectancy between 2 to 3 years.
My estimated “expiry date” is somewhere between February 2021 and February 2022.
But I try not to think about that!
I went through five months of aggressive chemo, a mastectomy, radiation to my chest followed four weeks later by spinal radiation. I also began daily hormone therapy and hormone therapy. The treatments, combined with my pre-existing narcolepsy was horrible and I was bedridden from mid-November 2019 until mid-February 2020. There were days that I was so weak, it terrified me. I truly thought that I would fall asleep to never wake up again. I now receive palliative care, which continues to include daily hormone therapy, two targeted therapy infusions every three weeks as well as a quarterly bone modifying agent infusion quarterly.
Just as I started regaining my energy back in March 2019, COVID-19 lockdown was announced. The stress of homeschooling and the inability to attend my regular physical and lymphatic therapies set me back in my recovery. The pain, exhaustion and stress on my body was unlike anything I ever experienced. And that doesn’t factor in the innumerable appointments with my oncologists, various specialists who deal with treatment side effects and the quarterly CT, bone and MRI scans. Being a terminal cancer patient is truly a full time job.
My view in life is to find the silver linings in things. I’ve been given some rotten lemons, yet I am finding ways to turn them into lemonade. I won’t let cancer ruin the little time I have left with my family.
