As a journalist, Mi-Jung Lee, an anchor with CTV News in Vancouver, is used to telling other people’s stories.
But as the keynote speaker for the 17th annual Nite of Hope Gala Evening April 16 at the River Rock Show Theatre, she told her personal tale of surviving breast cancer.
It was 2013, just before going to air on the afternoon news program she is known by many viewers for, when her cellphone rang.
“It was my doctor,” Lee told the sold out audience. “And he was confirming my biopsy results. A lump that I had found was cancer.”
Lee said reporters usually love breaking news for its immediacy and urgency. This time, though, was not one of those occasions.
“I felt like saying to God, ‘Hey, I report the news. I’m not supposed to be the source of it.’ That’s not what I signed up for in journalism school.”
Used to crafting two-minute long stories for broadcast, Lee said she had no idea what her own story would involve, only that it was likely to last longer than 120 seconds and be challenging.
Lee managed to complete her responsibilities with the evening show without “becoming a heap of tears” and soon embarked on the journey that eventually resulted in a mastectomy.
Along the way, she recounted how she felt she’d done everything right — from a healthy diet to exercise, and not smoking to getting regular mammograms.
Why then did she have breast cancer?
The answer lay in a matter of density — breast tissue density, which is harder to scan for cancer than regular breast tissue.
And that presents a greater risk for the disease in women when a diagnosis cannot be readily made.
“Forty per cent of women over 40 have dense breasts,” Lee said, adding that in 22 U.S. states there are now laws that require women with dense breast tissue to be informed of their status.
Lee asked what is happening in Canada on the issue?
Ontario MP Patrick Brown introduced a private members bill to increase awareness of the health risk. Its future as a law remains uncertain, but the discussion has made it a talking point on a subject that still has many unanswered questions and requires increased research efforts.
“It’s research that saves lives. Many of us in this room would not be here without the research that’s gone before us,” Lee said, adding B.C.’s survival rates of breast cancer are the best in Canada. “Nearly 92 per cent of women are surviving after five years of their diagnosis.”
Lee said that’s a good number, but one that can be improved on so that women not only survive, but thrive, a hope inspired by an unexpected meeting with her surgeon outside St. Paul’s Hospital where Lee was doing a live TV report recently.
Her doctor told Lee it was great to see her back doing what she does.
“That’s what we want for all women,” Lee said.
—Philip Raphael
CTV News anchor Mi-Jung Lee said women with dense breast tissue run a higher risk of developing breast cancer since diagnosis can be more difficult. Photo by Lisa King/Special to the News
