For 18 years, Rita Pak worked as a high school science teacher and often taught her students about cancer awareness and self-exams. This knowledge would later be important in her own life.
In December 2024, Rita discovered a lump in her breast. Being 44 years old, she didn’t qualify for routine mammograms under provincial guidelines and decided to wait to see if it would go away on its own. But by January 2025, the lump was still there so Rita saw her family doctor. By March, she was scheduled for a mammogram and an ultrasound. She ended up getting a same-day biopsy and within an hour, Rita was told she had breast cancer.
I was only 44 at the time when I found the lump, and so I didn’t qualify for a mammogram yet. It’s good that the guidelines are slowly changing to include women in their 40s in regular mammograms because there are more and more cancers being detected in younger women. It would be so amazing to have yearly screening in every part of the country for people like me.
The diagnosis resulted in a year-long treatment plan: a lumpectomy, 6 rounds of chemotherapy, a mastectomy and reconstruction, followed by 15 days of radiation. Because her tumour is estrogen and progesterone positive, Rita will also undergo 5 years of hormone therapy to decrease the chance of the cancer coming back.
“I had already been living with a chronic health condition for 12 years, which has taught me a lot about resilience and prepared me for navigating the health care system after receiving my cancer diagnosis,” Rita shares. “We’re stronger than we give ourselves credit for.”
Travelling for treatment from a remote community
Because many surgeons in Kelowna meet their patients outside of the hospital because of a lack of space, Rita often had to travel between different locations for appointments. For immunocompromised people like Rita, public transportation or commercial air travel come with serious health risks.
“I have taken the bus, but depending on how I feel that day… often, I just can’t. I don’t have the energy to figure out a new bus system or sit in the bus with a lot of different people around me during rush hour,” Rita says.
Fortunately, Rita was able to get transportation support from Wheels of Hope, the Canadian Cancer Society’s (CCS) volunteer driving program. She used the service primarily during her trips to Kelowna to travel between the airport, the cancer centre and other medical appointments.
It’s not safe to drive when you’re so emotionally heightened, especially if I’m driving to a really big surgery. It would have been very difficult without Wheels of Hope.
Rita knew people who were ready to stop treatment because the travel was too much to manage.
“Given how challenging the travel can be, some people might choose to just not do radiation because it’s too far away,” she says. “People literally were just stopping treatment from this part of the province because they couldn’t make that drive.”
Rita’s own diagnosis wasn’t her first encounter with cancer. Her father had gone through nasopharyngeal cancer. She was aware of the Canadian Cancer Society’s general support programs and services – and her family even began donating annually to CCS – but she hadn’t explored cancer.ca in detail until she needed it herself. When she began treatment, the website became her trusted resource, especially for reliable information. This is where she learned about the Kelowna lodge.
CCS lodges are welcoming homes away from home for people who need to travel for treatment. Although Rita’s initial stay was only 2 days, she described the lodge as a deeply supportive environment where she formed strong bonds with other people staying there. Having the shared experience of cancer made it easier to be open and form emotional connections.
“Going to the lodge was really eye-opening to me to feel like I was part of a community. We all had different cancers and we're all going through different parts of our treatment, but it was a really great experience to feel taken care of physically, and also mentally,” Rita shares.
Having the CCS lodge and Wheels of Hope take on some of those financial burdens is just invaluable because there’s already so much to deal with.
Dealing with the cost of cancer care
On top of the mental and physical energy of dealing with cancer, the added burden of managing costs, logistics and care coordination was overwhelming.
To reduce some of the out-of-pocket costs, Rita found support from the Travel Treatment Fund (TTF). The TTF program is provided through the Cancer Travel and Accommodations Services in British Columbia (CTAAS-BC), which was created with funding from the BC Government. In partnership with Hope Air, the Canadian Cancer Society helps reduce travel costs for people with cancer. Together, we make it easier for people to get to and from medical appointments so they can access the care and support they need.
Rita relied on Angel Flight East Kootenay, a volunteer-run service that flies patients to Kelowna three times a week. However, when Angel Flight was fully booked, she turned to Hope Air, a CCS-linked service that provides free flights for medical appointments. The pilot flew her to Kelowna, allowing her to avoid commercial flights that would have required layovers in Vancouver or Calgary. This support was critical, both financially and emotionally. Without it, she would have faced a full day of travel and increased exposure to illness during treatment.
Helping someone stay mentally well enough to take care of themselves by having services to take away that financial burden – especially for rural Canadians who have to do that travel – is life-changing.
Today, Rita is a cancer survivor.
“My diagnosis was a big shock as I thought that I was decades away from being at high risk for cancer. But now, I just want to live a good life and focus on things that are important.”
Help us create a future without breast cancer
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an important time to raise awareness, help fund cancer research and support people affected by the disease. 1 in 8 women in Canada are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. But you can help us create a better future for people like Rita.
CCS provides a national compassionate support system for people with breast cancer and their caregivers, including free wigs and breast accessories, rides to treatment and lodges for those who need to travel for care.
During the month of October, the Canadian Cancer Society invites people from coast-to-coast-to-coast to join together and help transform the future of breast cancer in Canada by fuelling world-leading cancer research and compassionate support services. As a donor, you give hope, support and enable life-saving advancements in treatment to people facing cancer.
You can make a difference today.
Help transform the future of breast cancer for people like Rita.
Help create a future without cancer
With support from readers like you, we can continue to make a meaningful impact for people affected by cancer.
We are determined to increase survival, stop cancer before it starts, and improve lives. But we can’t do it without you.
If everyone reading this gave just $5, we could achieve our goal this month to fund the most promising research, compassionate support and transformative advocacy. Please give today because every contribution counts. Thank you.