Angela’s Story: Putting on your oxygen mask

In 2022, Angela had more on her plate than the average person. As an Acting Detachment Commander in North Bay, Ontario, and a police officer by profession, she provided investigative expertise in the area of abuse – related crimes. Angela poured her heart and soul into supporting her community, with hopes of being promoted to the next rank in a short period of time. At home, she was married to her husband for over 30 years, was raising two sons and staying present for her adult stepdaughter, and served as the primary caregiver for her father who was dealing with recurring health issues (in 2025 he was diagnosed with metastatic bladder cancer).

The one constant in Angela’s life was stress. “I was policing at that point for over 20 years. It’s a high stress, physically demanding job,” she recalled. Because of the demands of her career and family responsibilities, Angela put off her routine mammogram for an entire year.

When she finally went for the test, Angela received a call from the hospital just days later, asking her to come back for further imaging. At the time, Angela was rushing out the door for her sister’s wedding and tried to compartmentalize the news. “It was all I could think about, but I was trying to smile for pictures,” she said. “I could feel myself getting short and agitated. The anxiety was definitely there, but I did not want to ruin my sister’s big day.” Deep down, she knew something wasn’t right.

After further imaging came the biopsy, and then came the diagnosis. Breast cancer.  “I felt anxious and scared,” she recalled. “Financially, how were we going to do this? My eldest son was in university, and even though our house was nearly paid off, I needed to replace my car, as ongoing repairs were costing more than a regular car payment. My life was about to change at a time I was doing so well professionally.”

When Angela got the call, she was in Toronto with her brother, who was undergoing a double valve transplant. The news could not have come at a more chaotic time. “Every time I turned, I was putting someone else’s needs before mine,” Angela shared. “But this was serious. I had to start focusing on me and spending more time with my family.”

The first step in Angela’s treatment plan was surgery, which meant deciding whether to step away from her work – knowing that doing so could jeopardize her chances of promotion. “I always put my job before myself,” she said. “But at that point, it was either chase my career or fight cancer. I chose to fight it.”

Although her initial mammogram showed a small tumour, surgery revealed that it had grown aggressively in just a few weeks and had spread into two lymph nodes. Even then, Angela was thinking about when she could get back to work. Chemotherapy followed. “It took months for me to change my priorities,” she admitted. “I kept striving for professional opportunities while going through chemo. Eventually, I realized how traumatic this was and I needed to heal my body first.”

By chance, Angela met another woman with breast cancer at an event. The woman shared her journey and told her about the support she found from Wellspring. “Living in a small community, I had never heard of it – there were no physical centres near me,” Angela said. “I started asking her a lot of questions, learned about their online programs, and decided to check it out for myself.”

During chemotherapy, Angela experienced significant side effects, including nausea, mouth sores, brain fog, fatigue, aches, neurological pain, bone and joint aches, sleep issues, and what she described as a constant flu. She decided to register for both Wellspring’s Cancer Related Fatigue and Brain Fog workshops. “I learned a lot of great tips that really helped my fatigue and brain fog, like the importance of writing everything down, and understanding tasks are going to take longer. It was wonderful to be able to get all the help I needed in one place,” she shared.

Angela also participated in Wellspring’s Yoga, Cancer Exercise, and Nourish programs, which helped her tackle many of the physical symptoms she was experiencing. “I even took Wellspring’s Return to Work Program,” she shared, laughing. “You gotta love that I was still thinking about getting back to work, but it was so informative. I learned a lot about task management, how treatment side effects may impact me at work, and what limitations and accommodations I may require.”

Angela’s favourite Wellspring program by far was Healing Journey. So much so that she’s taken all 6 levels. “It was in this program that I met the most beautiful men and women,” she said. “I had a hard time expressing what was going on inside of me, even at 53 years old. That’s one of the things I liked so much about Healing Journey, I learned how to be more authentic.” Through the program, Angela also got to explore difficult topics she had been avoiding, including conversations about death and palliative care planning. She made friends in the program that she grew very close to, staying in touch outside of Wellspring and even taking a road trip to Toronto in May 2025.

Today, Angela continues endocrine therapy and continues to explore her passion for photography. “Before cancer, I thought I practiced self-care,” she admitted. “But when you’re driven and career-focused, you don’t realize the toll it takes on your body. It was through Wellspring’s programs that I realized I was doing the bare minimum of self-care.”

Angela is immensely grateful for Wellspring’s virtual program offerings, noting she would not be in the place she is today without the virtual access. And while she stills thinks about returning to work one day when she’s strong enough, Angela now leans on the self-compassion and forgiveness she learned through Wellspring’s Healing Journey. “I would always say I’m a work in progress,” she reflects. “But then I realized I am making progress. I have made progress, and that’s something to be grateful for.”