ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — There were more than 400 breast cancer patients affected by the testing errors that prompted the Cameron Inquiry.
Many are gone — Eastern Health is unable to provide that number. (It’s not known if a change of treatment would have changed their outcome.)
Here are some of their stories.
'They took my mother away from me’
Sometimes it feels like yesterday Jane Hopkins boarded the plane with her mother Elizabeth Finlayson to travel to the Cameron Inquiry, where Finlayson was the last witness.
“And I can still see her face, her reaction so plain and clear. I don’t think I will ever forget it,” Hopkins said in a phone interview from her home in Cambridge, Ont.
The final witness came from Labrador to testify as the Cameron Inquiry wrapped up in October 2008. Finlayson was diagnosed with breast cancer several years before the Cameron report came out, but never knew she had received a faulty hormone receptor test until June 2008.
She only found out because she had seen the Cameron Inquiry on TV in March 2008 and got her daughter to phone Eastern Health and ask if her breast tissue samples from 2000 had been re-tested.
The specimens hadn't been re-examined and it was then discovered the original test was wrong. Still, she wasn't informed about that for months.
Finlayson died in 2011 at age 71 in Labrador City. The mother of seven had battled cancer for 11 years by that time, as it spread through her bones, lungs and finally into her brain.
“She fought long and hard for 11 years. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live,” said Finlayson’s daughter, Tanya, who lives in Labrador.
Hopkins and Finlayson get regular mammograms.
“I am always skeptical if I were to get a result, I would have to get a second opinion. I am not accepting their word,” Tanya said.
After her testimony Finlayson hugged Hopkins and took a big breath.
“She said to me “Phew I did it. I am so glad I did it.’ She knew she was doing it right,” her daughter recalled.
“I was proud of my mother.”
“She fought long and hard for 11 years. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live." — Tanya Finlayson
Hopkins said out of it all, she questions every medical opinion.
“Doctors are not God,” she said., adding there are lots of people to blame for the mistakes, not just the lab.
“I still look back at it with dread. This should never have happened to the women or their families.
“Every time I hear people having breast cancer or even cancer, it terrifies me.”
Tanya remembers her mother's infectious laugh. Hopkins misses their daily chats.
“She was a remarkable woman, mother and wife. And our family is still a little broken,” Tanya said.
“But we banded together. We all have each other to lean on. That is how she raised us to be close.”
The whole family gathers in Labrador on the anniversary of Finlayson’s death, July 1. They release balloons in the graveyard, have a laugh at a good memory or time spent together, and a cry over the woman who is not with them.
“No, I won’t forgive them. They took my mother away from me,” said Hopkins. “She was only 70-something years old. That’s young nowadays.”
Finlayson’s devoted husband, Frank, has since passed away.
While cleaning out the house Hopkins said they came across her mother’s copies of the Cameron report. She was ready to discard them and changed her mind.
“That’s history. We need to hang onto it,” she said.
‘There is no substitute for a mother’
Peggy Deane remembered by her husband
When Dr. Robert Deane speaks of his late wife Peggy, it’s the depth of her strength that he emphasizes again and again.
“You have no idea how tough and totally brave someone is. … All at once I was absolutely flabbergasted and so totally impressed with how strong she was,” Deane said in an interview in his St. John’s home.
Peggy — diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, was considered the index case in 2005 that triggered the investigation into errors at the immunohistochemistry lab at Eastern Health.
She died in August 2005, leaving him a single father of three young children. She beat the odds by 12 months because of her determination to spend as much time as she could with her family, he said.
In the three years she fought cancer, they had many family trips and adventures, as that was how she wanted it.
Onetime when they were in Corner Brook and Deane, an orthopedic surgeon at the Janeway, heard the sloshing of fluid in her lung, he wanted her to get an X-ray at hospital there, but she refused. She would not get on a plane in Deer Lake to go back home to St. John’s either. She wanted to drive across the province with her family.
Another time on a camping trip to Terra Nova, they made a midnight run to the nearest emergency room. Deane drove the camper into the ambulance dock.
At the height of her sickness, instead of time spent in hospital hooked up to machines, she opted instead for time on the beach with friends and family in Cuba.
“We had the most wonderful holiday,” said Deane, who had been worried about what might happen on the trip.
“I just think of how much she wanted for the children to have as much time with her in her last couple of years as she could. I think she endured a lot of pain.”
The way her case flagged the errors at Eastern Health was happenstance.
The Deanes had gone to New York for a getaway weekend.
On a hotel elevator, he spotted a name and title on a conference badge and pulled aside a renowned breast cancer expert who had 10 minutes before a presentation.
He’s still in awe she took the time to listen and provide some advice.
“Here’s this strange man from this place she might never have heard of,” Deane said.
That tip in relation to Peggy’s hormone receptor test results — markers used to determine breast cancer treatment — would change history in Newfoundland and Labrador’s health care system.
On their return, the Deanes went to their oncologist who took the first action that launched a major review of breast cancer files.
“It just snowballed from there,” said Deane, who told their story in 2008 at the Cameron Inquiry.
The change in test results were too late for Peggy.
Her funeral packed the Basilica, he said. Fellow nurses formed an arch in their white uniforms and caps.
“I just think of how much she wanted for the children to have as much time with her in her last couple of years as she could. I think she endured a lot of pain.” — Dr. Robert Deane
And there was the incredible support from family, friends and co-workers during the horrible illness and its aftermath.
Friends organized a roster to provide the family with meals.
“I was absolutely blown away by how big people’s hearts are,” said Deane.
”It would only happen here in Newfoundland.”
Peggy has been gone almost 14 years now.
Their oldest, Laura is now 25, while her daughter Andrea is 24 and son Richard, 21.
“There is no substitute for a mother,” Deane said.
‘I don’t hold malice or anything’
Norman White considers himself lucky.
“Since then… I have been blessed actually,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Summerside, on the province’s west coast.
Nowadays, he lives a healthy and active life as a retired biomedical technician from Western Health, where he worked for 35 years.
White testified at the 2008 Cameron inquiry, describing how six years prior to that he found a small lump in his breast the size of a cherry pit.
Eventually learning his initial hormone receptor tests were wrong left him with a lot of sleepless nights.
But he’s moved on.
“I don’t hold malice or anything. … Hopefully, anyway, it will not happen again,” he said of the errors.
White didn’t have to receive treatment, as when his lump was removed, there was no cancer left.
“I am very, very fortunate,” he said.
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