Rethink Breast Cancer

Rethink Breast Cancer Rethink Breast Cancer is a bold charity helping young people who are concerned about and affected by breast cancer www.rethinkbreastcancer.com

Rethink Breast Cancer educates, empowers and advocates for system changes to improve the experience and outcomes of those with breast cancer, focusing on historically underserved groups.

Last Sunday was B***y Brunch, a mother-daughter high-tea event in support of Rethink! 💗 🫖🌷 What an incredible, beautiful...
05/29/2026

Last Sunday was B***y Brunch, a mother-daughter high-tea event in support of Rethink! 💗 🫖🌷 What an incredible, beautiful, impactful day! The room was full of 300 mamas and daughters, who, together raised $185K for Rethink. We are truly blown away by the love and support of our mission.

We couldn’t do what we do at Rethink without the support of fundraisers. For a small charity with big impact, they allow us to continue our important work empowering younger women affected by breast cancer through community, support and advocacy. We have big goals and an even greater vision — events like these make it possible to reach them.

We are sending a heartfelt thank you to B***y Brunch co-chairs , and who dreamed up such a beautiful event to bring to life with their committee. There was even a kids committee to get young girls involved in the cause and we are so inspired by their passion to show up and make a difference — thank you! And thank you to for being the presenting sponsor and all other sponsors and supporters who made this day happen.

B***y Brunch is an example of the impact passionate supporters can make when they come together. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for supporting us in rethinking breast cancer. 💗

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📣 UPDATEIn just under two weeks, Rethink Breast Cancer will be meeting with Canada’s federal Minister of Health, the H...
05/28/2026

📣 UPDATE

In just under two weeks, Rethink Breast Cancer will be meeting with Canada’s federal Minister of Health, the Honourable Marjorie Michel, to discuss the urgent need for more coordinated and connected cancer data systems in Canada, including better reporting on metastatic breast cancer (MBC) recurrences.

People affected by breast cancer deserve to be seen, represented, and counted.

Right now, MBC recurrence data is incomplete and fragmented, making it harder to improve care and support for those who need it most.

This conversation builds on recent work in the UK, where Rethink helped advance global conversations on metastatic breast cancer data through our campaign and the Advancing Global Visibility for Metastatic Breast Cancer pledge.

We’re encouraged by growing momentum in Canada, including alignment with the Connected Care for Canadians Act, which aims to strengthen how health data is shared, connected, and used to improve care across the country.

We’re hopeful our meeting with the Minister of Health will help move meaningful change forward in having more complete cancer data.

More to come. In the meantime, learn more about in our profile 🔗.

SUPPORT AND EDUCATION AT RETHINK IN JUNE 2026 💗✨🫂We have some supportive sessions to get you through the busy-ness of Ju...
05/27/2026

SUPPORT AND EDUCATION AT RETHINK IN JUNE 2026 💗✨🫂

We have some supportive sessions to get you through the busy-ness of June and the clear theme is ✨empowerment✨!

Virtual Support sessions (professional support)
• Living with MBC
• S*x + Body Virtual: Reconnecting with Pleasure After Breast Cancer

Mentoring Matters sessions (peer support)
• Having Difficult Conversations

Head to our profile 🔗 to register now, free of charge to the breast cancer community! ⁠💗

.arise recently shared the below and it is so spot on. 🎯 This is a reality of living with metastatic breast cancer that ...
05/26/2026

.arise recently shared the below and it is so spot on. 🎯 This is a reality of living with metastatic breast cancer that most outside of the community don’t realize. If you’re feeling this too, we hear you and we’re here for you. 💗

“Recently I was told by my Psychologist at the Cancer Centre that I need to be phased out of the Psychosocial Oncology Program. Why? There isn’t enough funding to continue to support the mental health of someone with stage 4 cancer who is simply ‘living too long’. As messed up as that sounds, it is the perfect illustration of how our system doesn’t know what to do with people like me.

I came into the program as a postpartum mom who had just been told she had terminal cancer and likely no treatment options. Diagnosed with PTSD from the jarring abruptness of how everything suddenly went from ‘You’re just tired cause you’re a mom’ to ‘Sorry but you need to get your affairs in order.’ Then the depression that comes from having your life completely blown apart while you’re trying to raise your babies through chemo, targeted infusions, radiation, Scanxiety, loss of peers, all of it.

I’ve had an excellent response to treatment and my last round of scans, (which I finally got last night) continue to say I have no evidence of disease. Don’t get me wrong, I am deeply grateful for that. But so f**king lost about what to do now.

There is no cure. I’m never done treatment. No one can tell me how long before cancer progresses. My initial prognosis was 3-5 years but that’s all changing. I’m left living in uncertainty about what to do with my life now.

People say things like ‘anyone can get hit by a bus tomorrow’ but it’s not nearly the same as living this way. I lost my career, my savings, my autonomy, my independence, my goals, my ability to complete my family, because I still have STAGE 4 CANCER written across my file. I have to live in 3 month increments, scan by scan. Sorry, but you don’t lose all those things while waiting to get hit by a bus. …”

CONTINUED IN PINNED COMMENT 👇

You’ve heard us talk about how important tailored breast cancer care is. What if we could have the same for breast scree...
05/25/2026

You’ve heard us talk about how important tailored breast cancer care is. What if we could have the same for breast screening?

👉 Enter, risk stratification.

Right now, our breast screening approach treats every woman the same. But the reality is, we all have different risk factors when it comes to developing breast cancer.

And we know that a one-size-fits-all approach can lead to unnecessary harms for some, while others may miss out on the benefits.

That’s why Rethink Breast Cancer has long pushed for a risk stratified approach to breast screening, where each individual has a personalized assessment on when, how often and with what interventions someone gets screened based on their individual risk.

The goal? Catch cancer earlier in people at higher risk and avoid unnecessary tests for people at lower risk.

Over the past year, , Rethink’s Founder + Executive Director, participated in a multi-stakeholder workshop to gather perspectives and co-design implementation for a risk-stratified breast screening program in Canada, as part of broader efforts to explore how this approach could work in practice.

A risk-stratified approach to breast screening could be hugely beneficial to younger women in their 20s, 30s or 40s.

Current screening guidelines don’t include younger women and simply lowering the start age of these guidelines means putting younger women in a program that wasn’t made for them, nor considers the reality that we need better interventions.

Implementing a risk stratified breast screening program means younger women with family history, genetic risk or other risk factors will no longer fall through the cracks. But there are challenges to implementation that need to be addressed in order for risk-stratification to truly work and close gaps.

While there’s still work to do to make this a reality, the momentum is building and we are really encouraged by the work being dedicated to making this a reality.

To read more about the multi-stakeholder workshop, head to our profile 🔗! 💗

“Like many young women in her shoes, Adrienne suffered miserably with the side effects of the ovarian suppression drugs ...
05/21/2026

“Like many young women in her shoes, Adrienne suffered miserably with the side effects of the ovarian suppression drugs she had to take to reduce the risk of recurrence from her triple positive breast cancer. She told me that at times it felt so awful, she might as well have still been doing chemo. That told me a lot.

Adrienne knew she wanted to try for a second baby, but the study that she and her team used to allow her to come off the ovarian suppression to try for baby number one had followed women who had been on the drugs for two years, come off to conceive and have baby, and gone back on them. The assumption, then, was that she had to be back on the drugs for at least two years before she tried again.

Because Adrienne is all about the science and is a strong advocate for herself in her cancer care experience, she decided to ask her oncology team what evidence there was that staying on ovarian suppression for two years versus one year between pregnancies would keep her safer. Her survivorship oncologist spoke to her medical oncologist who reached out to one of the authors of the Baby Study (POSITIVE trial) the answer was… There is none.

Researchers have not gone forward from studying young women having one pregnancy after pausing ovarian suppression. The challenge in that is that for women as young as Adrienne at diagnosis (she was 27!), they have a lot of potential childbearing years ahead of them and there may be many more, like her, who want to try again.

I have written before of the degree of admiration I feel for the young women who have gone before my daughter and established scientific boundaries that have hugely impacted Adrienne’s cancer experience. The ones who participated in the clinical trials that established Herceptin as a valuable tool for oncologists treating HER2+ cases. The ones who had breast-conserving surgeries instead of mastectomies. The ones who went off ovarian suppression to try to get pregnant two years into treatment, not knowing if it would mean recurrence came along with biological motherhood.

And now I know one of these young women very intimately.“ —

Read Debbie’s latest blog via our profile 🔗! 💗

05/20/2026

“W H E N L I F E C H A N G E D

24th Feb 2014. A date forever etched in my memory.
Not for the reasons I would have chosen.

Today marks exactly 12 years since life as I knew it changed forever. I remember it so vividly: walking into the consultant’s office with Brad, sitting down, & hearing those words.

‘I’m sorry, Laura. It’s breast cancer’

I was 25. Too young for this. Too busy to be ill. Too naive to understand what this meant for my future.
I was told it was aggressive. Fast-growing. No time to hang around. Then came the plan:

Chemotherapy: I would be very sick. I would lose my hair

Mastectomy: My first-ever surgery. I’d be left deformed

Radiotherapy: Skin burns

Hormone Treatment: endless issues

I felt numb. I felt scared. Life flashed before my eyes. ‘Will I die?’ is a question no 25 year old should ever have to ask

The realization hit. I had cancer. Me

The tears were uncontrollable. My life, my femininity, my fertility, my career - all felt lost in an instant. I had to put my life in the hands of the hospital & just... hope. I had to learn to lean into it, to accept that this diagnosis was now part of my identity

For nearly a third of my life, cancer has been along for the ride

Twelve years on, I am still dealing with it every day. Although I thought it was over after that first year, the good news didn’t last. At 28, I was diagnosed again - this time with incurable secondary cancer in my bones

Looking back, I am fortunate to still be here. I often ask, “Why me? Why am I still here when others are not?”

Those are questions that may never be answered.
I have no idea how the next few years will pan out, but I am beyond grateful to be here after everything I’ve been through. Despite hundreds of hours spent in hospital, I am still living & enjoying my life - & I intend to keep doing exactly that. I am so thankful to my medical team for keeping me alive

I’ve chosen the approach: I don’t live with cancer; cancer lives with me. It better buckle up, because this ride has a long way to go before it stops

So today, rather than giving cancer the time of day, I shall be spending it LIVING, LAUGHING AND LOVING LIFE.” —

From fertility decisions made overnight to putting careers on hold to navigating financial stress and more, when you’re ...
05/20/2026

From fertility decisions made overnight to putting careers on hold to navigating financial stress and more, when you’re a younger woman diagnosed with breast cancer, your whole world is turned upside down.

And we know many of you here know that all too well.

That’s why Rethink exists in the first place, to make sure younger women feel supported at all stages of their breast cancer experience — before, during and beyond.

Whether it’s education that’s actually relatable to tailored support to real community spaces you can trust and feel heard in, we get it and we got you.

An example of this in action is the Rethink Real Talk we’re hosting this Thursday on Navigating Finance + the Hidden Costs of Breast Cancer.

Not being able to work or having to dip deep into your savings account because you’re navigating breast cancer is something you may not be able to control. But you’ll walk away from this webinar feeling empowered to focus on what you *can* control. If you haven’t saved your spot yet, the 🔗 is in our profile. 🌟

Want to be the first to know about more happenings at Rethink? Be sure to sign up for our newsletters, 🔗 in bio! 💗

Address

50 Carroll Street
Toronto, ON
M4M3G3

Telephone

+14162200700

Website

https://linkin.bio/rethinkbreastcancer/

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