Less than two weeks after getting a hysterectomy last May, Sara Gillooly was back in the hospital with bleeding and a new complaint: she had a large lump in her breast.
She was immediately sent to get a mammogram and scheduled for an ultrasound and biopsy. Things moved slowly, and she got the ultrasound a few weeks later.
“During my ultrasound, I looked at the screen, which I probably shouldn’t have done because I could see the network of veins coming to the tumour,” she said. “It was a very scary moment.”
The ultrasound tech told her she shouldn’t go to these things alone.
On July 2, she got the call: it was cancer. She was scheduled for surgery on July 28.
But Gillooly, 40-years-old and mother to a 10-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son, wanted more information. She said her family “hit the panic button.”
She considered flying to Turkey to get a full battery of tests and into surgery sooner. And because of her age, she also wanted to ensure she didn’t have an aggressive form of breast cancer, which is more common in younger women. In the end, she opted to stay in B.C., to get care close to home and near her family.
So, she asked her doctor in B.C. for a test common in other countries that looks for how aggressive a case of breast cancer is, called a Ki-67 proliferation index test. She was told this wasn’t done in Canada, despite being common in the U.S. and Europe.
On July 28, a tumour was removed. But that’s when things really slowed down even more. Still unsure of how aggressive the cancer was, she wanted immediate imaging and Oncotype score tests done, which helps determine the chances of cancer recurring.
But doctors said she had to wait for an appointment with an oncologist first. And she was told the prognosis was good: the area around her tumour that was removed didn’t show any spread. So she waited.
“I am all for advocating for myself, and I’m quite good at it, but it is a full-time job, and it feels exhausting when you’re already emotionally drained,” Gillooly said.
It wasn’t until Sept. 29 that she saw an oncologist, who immediately ordered the Oncotype test. Because her sample needed to be sent to California for this test, she had to wait a few more weeks to get the score.
The test returned a score of 45 out of 100. That is high; any score above 26 means a high chance of the cancer recurring. Another round of tests was ordered, including the imaging she wanted over the summer.
On Nov. 10, she was told the cancer had metastasized and was in both her bones and lungs.
Gillooly is now speaking out about delays in care. She was at the B.C. legislature on Wed., Jan. 21, alongside her longtime friend, Independent MLA Amelia Boultbee, to tell her story.
Gillooly still does not know how much time she has. Her treatment could hold off the cancer for years.
She’s still hoping for 10 more years, or even to eventually be declared to have no evidence of disease, though that is rare in cases such as hers. The reality is, she was told, that people with this type of metastatic breast cancer have a 25 per cent chance of surviving for another five years.
But she can’t help but wonder if she would have been better off if the tests had been done sooner.
Advocating for shorter wait times
Boultbee called the delays in her friend’s care “unreasonable.”
She said this is indicative of broader challenges facing people seeking care in B.C.
Boultbee cited statistics from a recent SecondStreet.org freedom of information request that show more than 4,600 people died on waitlists in B.C. in the past year (up to March 31, 2025).
“Unfortunately, Sara’s story is incredibly common,” Boultbee said.
Gillooly does not blame her doctor — she says she was treated kindly and with compassion. But with hundreds of patients, her oncologist can’t always respond quickly.
“I felt like our system was just letting me down,” she said. “Even though the doctors and surgeons have been amazing, it was the wait time that really, really bugged me.”
And Gillooly says most other jurisdictions seem to value more information when it comes to treating cancer, and act more quickly to figure out how aggressive it is when cancer is found.
B.C. launched a 10-year cancer care action plan in 2023 to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment timelines. That plan involves recruiting more staff and improving access to care for people living in rural and remote communities.
At one point, the province was paying to send patients to travel to Bellingham, Wash., for radiation treatment. This scheme ended in April, when the Health Ministry said in-province wait times had decreased to within national benchmarks.
Premier David Eby said on Wednesday that there is still a “huge strain” on the system because of an aging population and people remaining in treatment longer because treatments are more successful.
“We’re going to continue to work to drive down those testing times, treatment times to ensure that people get the cancer care that they need when they get that horrific diagnosis — it’s what they and their families deserve,” he said. “And if this woman did not receive that from our cancer system, we’ll have a look at that and identify the gaps to make sure that it’s addressed.”
Black Press Media has reached out to the Ministry of Health, the Provincial Health Service Authority, and BC Cancer for more information about cancer care delays, but did not receive a response by publication deadline.