monika malecka was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 and received chemotherapy for six months before undergoing surgery to remove her right breast in march 2020 — just a few days after the covid-19 lockdown. malecka was the last person the surgeon operated on until that summer because of the pandemic.
the 70-year-old montreal woman, a retired medical secretary, says that after being “on the patient side of the desk,” she appreciates health-care teams more than ever. she also has come to know the true value of her closest friends.
now, malecka is cancer-free. this is her story.
i live alone. i’m an only child and both of my parents have died. i think my cancer has made me stronger.
it started when i discovered a tumour in my right breast on april 22, 2019. i wasn’t doing any self-exams, i was just soaping myself in the bath, and i felt something strange. and i said to myself, ‘my god, it feels like a piece of wood.’
two days later i went to a radiology clinic for a mammogram. they said, ‘we’ll call you back in a week’s time if we find something, if we don’t call you, that’s good news.’
they did call, but i missed the call. when i went to the clinic the next day, the nurse told me they’d found two tumours. i was shattered. i had seen my father die from lung cancer in 2009. i expected a lot of pain because, in my mind, cancer meant pain.
the nurse gave me a cd with the imaging of my breast to take to a doctor. i didn’t have a family doctor, but i knew some of the surgeons at the royal victoria hospital from my work. a colleague of mine connected me to
dr. sarkis meterissian
, a breast surgeon and director of the
mcgill university health centre’s cedars breast clinic
at the hospital. they called me 10 days later to repeat the mammogram, and do a needle biopsy as well as an ultrasound.