Someone's Thinking of You - Suvivor Stories

Margaret, 68, Scarborough — living alone on a fixed income

Margaret was 68 and had been managing on a fixed income for years when she was diagnosed. She lived alone in Scarborough, and getting to her cancer centre downtown meant two buses and almost ninety minutes each way — every single week.

"I didn't tell anyone how hard the transit part was," Margaret says. "I was embarrassed. Everyone talks about the cancer, the chemo, the surgery. Nobody talks about how exhausting it is just to get there."

Some weeks, the transit fare came out of her grocery budget. She started skipping breakfast on treatment days to make the math work. When we first spoke with Margaret, she hadn't told her care team any of this — she didn't want to seem like she was complaining.

How we helped:

• Provided Margaret with a transit credit that covered her appointments for the length of her treatment, so getting downtown stopped being a financial decision every single week.
• Paid for her hospital parking on days she needed to take a taxi instead of the bus, especially after appointments that left her too tired for two buses home.
• Paired her with one of our patient support volunteers, who checked in with her weekly — someone to talk to who understood, without her having to explain everything from the beginning.

Margaret finished treatment last year. She still volunteers with us now, calling other patients who remind her of herself — the ones who won't ask for help until someone asks first.

💖 How you can help someone like Margaret: Your $20 funds a transit credit so a patient like Margaret can get to her appointments without choosing between the bus fare and breakfast. Your $10 covers a day of parking on the days the bus is simply too much to manage.

Aisha's Winter, 34, Montreal— Single monther of two

Aisha was 34, a single mother of two, when she started radiation. Her infusion days blurred together — cold rooms, hard chairs, hours of waiting under fluorescent lights while her body did the hard work of healing.

"Nobody tells you how cold you get," she says. "Not just from the treatment room, but from everything. You're wrapped in a hospital blanket, waiting, and you just feel so far away from your normal life."

What weighed on her most wasn't the treatment itself — it was everything happening at home while she was gone. She'd taken unpaid leave for her appointments, and by the second month, groceries were tight and she'd had to ask a neighbour, again, to watch her kids after school.

How we helped:

• Sent Aisha a Comfort Kit before her first infusion — warm socks, lip balm, and lotion — with a handwritten note reminding her she wasn't doing this alone.
• Subsidized several weeks of after-school childcare so Aisha could get to her appointments without scrambling for coverage.
• Helped bridge a few tight weeks of grocery costs while she was on unpaid leave, so feeding her kids wasn't one more thing to worry about during treatment.

"The socks made me cry in the infusion chair," Aisha says. "It sounds small. But it was the first time in weeks I felt like someone was thinking about me, not just my diagnosis."

Aisha rang the bell at the end of her treatment in March. Her kids were there. So was the pair of socks.

💖 How you can help someone like Aisha: Your $15 sends a Comfort Kit to a patient sitting through hours of treatment in a cold infusion chair. Your $25 helps cover a few hours of childcare or groceries for a parent who's had to take unpaid time off for treatment — giving a family breathing room during an impossibly hard week.

Priya's Drive, 45, rural Ontario

Priya was 45, living just outside a small town three hours from the nearest cancer centre, when she was diagnosed. Every round of chemotherapy meant the same routine: waking up before dawn, bundling up against the cold, and driving through winter roads to make it to her appointment on time.

"I used to sit in the car in the parking lot before my appointments and just cry," Priya says. "Not because of the treatment. Because I was doing the math on gas, and I knew I'd have to do it again in two weeks, and the two weeks after that."

By the third round, she was skipping meals to make the drive work financially. She almost postponed a scan because she didn't have enough gas in the tank to get there and back.

How we helped:

• Provided a gas card through our travel assistance fund so Priya could get to every appointment without the added stress of "can I afford this drive."
• Covered her hospital parking for the full treatment cycle, so the meter was one less thing to think about on the hardest days.
• Connected her with another rural patient through our peer support network, so the long drives didn't feel so isolating.

Priya finished her treatment in the spring. She still drives the same three hours for follow-up scans — but now, she says, she drives without the dread.

💖 How you can help someone like Priya: Your $20 funds a gas card or transit credit for a patient like Priya — making sure the distance between home and a specialized cancer centre never becomes the reason someone misses a life-saving appointment. Your $10 covers a full day of hospital parking, one less cost standing between a patient and their treatment.

                               💖Margaret, Aisha, and Priya are three women💖

 Behind every one of them are thousands of patients across Canada quietly doing this same math — gas versus groceries, parking versus childcare, transit fare versus breakfast — while also fighting for their lives.

At Breast Cancer Lifelong, we believe no one should have to choose between getting to treatment and getting through the week. Every donation, at every tier, goes directly toward removing one of these burdens for a patient going through it right now.

Give a stress-free day. Send comfort and warmth. Fund the ride to recovery. Give a family peace of mind.

💖 Your donation doesn't just cover a cost — it tells a patient someone is thinking about them, today, exactly when they need it most.