BY
TRACEY DUGUAY
Greg Baiden is internationally known for his pioneering work in
the field of mining and automation systems. It may come as a
surprise he is also a breast cancer survivor.
Baiden was diagnosed in 1987 when he was in his late-20s. He
and his wife, Sharon, had just moved from Kitchener to Sudbury
and he was working at Inco.
"I was feeling absolutely fine, then one night my nipple
rubbed across the pillow, and it went very hard and stayed like
it was cold for a day or two which was very odd," he says.
After being examined by a doctor, Baiden was scheduled for
exploratory surgery the next week, a procedure he now
recognizes as a lumpectomy.  While he was still groggy
following the surgery, his doctor gave him the news that
changed his life. He had breast cancer.
"It was more upsetting for Sharon than for me because as the person in the middle, I went into a very reactionary mode. What do I do next? What do I have to do to deal with this? All Sharon could do really was sit around and wait.
 "I think that's much, much harder on somebody than being
in the middle of fighting something."
Baiden's doctor suggested he undergo a radical mastectomy
because as a man he wouldn't face the same kind of emotional
turmoil a woman experiences at the thought of losing her
breasts.
Baiden's mastectomy took place the next day, but he wasn't out of the woods. While his tumour was only nine millimetres in size-anything over 10 millimetres requires chemotherapy and radiation-he received a second scare a few weeks later when he went in for bone and liver scans.
"When I went in for my first scan, we found three dots on my
skull and one on my pelvis with metastasis of breast cancer
being to the bone," he explains. "They inject you with
radioactive dye and the dye goes to where most of the blood is
being consumed. Cancer cells consume more blood than normal
cells. So you get concentrations of blood, which show up as
dots on a radiation scan."
The appearances of these "dots" meant for the next five
years, Baiden had to have tests every three months. The test
monitored the rate of change in the growth of the dots. If the
cancer spreads into the bones, the dots will grow.
"At 28, you're supposed to be immortal," Baiden says.
He tried to come to terms with the fact he had a potential
time bomb ticking away inside his body.
 "I decided I needed to do something else to take my
mind off what was going on and I started working on my PhD [in
mining robotics and automation]."
About three years after the dots had been detected, he
decided to shake off the shadow he'd been living under for so
long.
"I don't want to do this anymore. I've just had enough of
this, I'm not going to worry about it anymore," he said to his
wife over dinner one night. "If I am gonna die, I'm gonna die
and we'll worry about it then."
In 1991, Baiden's first son, Scott, was born, he graduated
from McGill University, and he was given a clear bill of
health.  Baiden's second son, Derek, was born, a few years
later.
"It's a very difficult experience that's totally
liberating," he says. "... You really have to live every day
like you were dying."
Baiden's translated that thirst for life into his career. He is the director of the School of Engineering at Laurentian University and serves as the Canadian Research Chair in Robotics and Mine Automation, an appointment that acknowledges Baiden's status as one of the leading authorities in this field.
He also formed Penguin Automated Systems Inc., a company
dedicated to providing automated mining services to mining
companies, and in the process, improving the safety of mines
for those who work there.
"You start to realize you're only here for a short, finite
period of time and so you can't say "I'm going to get to that
when I have the time."
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The annual Northern Cancer Research Foundation's Luncheon for Hope, with proceeds going directly to local breast cancer research, will take place Sept.  29. The event, which features television personality and breast cancer survivor, Marla Shapiro, is sold out.
