Stacie’s Story

Stacie Smith grew up in Toronto and moved to Collingwood with her husband 10 years ago.   

They first started coming up on the weekends, to enjoy the outdoors. They love cross country skiing, mountain biking and paddling. Eventually, they decided this was the right place to live and raise their family.  

A few years after they moved, Stacie felt a lump in her breast and went to her family doctor to have it looked at. The doctor referred her to Dr. Lisi at CGMH, so she could have all the tests to get a proper diagnosis.  

Stacie had a mammography exam, CT scans, ultrasounds, and nuclear bone tests at CGMH. All of these exams confirmed what Stacie feared the most. She had breast cancer.  

“This was a very scary time for me and my family. But I was so grateful to be at CGMH, where every person I encountered was so comforting and kind. I didn’t want to be a number in a big hospital, away from my family; I knew instantly I wanted to have my surgery here, close to home,” shares Stacie.   

While going through all these exams, Stacie was particularly scared of the nuclear bone test. As a person with claustrophobia, the thought of being stuck in a small dark space was terrifying to her. “My mom, to this day says that the worst I ever looked throughout my cancer treatment journey was when I had to go for the nuclear medicine test. I was panicking,” recalls Stacie.  

But then something happened that changed this experience for her. She shares: “when I went for my exam I told Valerie, the technologist who I was meeting for the first time, that I was very scared and didn’t think I could go through with it. And instead of being annoyed, or frustrated by it, Valerie sat down with me, gave me tea, and started researching different ways to do the exam, to make me more comfortable. Her compassion was really touching.”  

Stacie had been a supporter of the CGMH Foundation for many years before her diagnosis. But now that she is a cancer survivor Stacie is even more committed to putting the right tools in our healthcare team’s hands. “Knowing that the medical staff has access to the best tools to diagnose and treat our community brought me such peace of mind. And at a time when everything got scary, this made all the difference,” says Stacie.  

We are so grateful to Stacie for sharing her story with us, and for all the generous donations she and her husband Martin have made over the years to the CGMH Foundation.