First West Credit Union Puts Family First When Facing Cancer: Lisa Paulson’s Story

Of all the emotions that surfaced after Lisa Paulson was diagnosed with breast cancer, the one that most surprised her was guilt.

“Between 2015 and 2018 we got hit really hard,” she says of the three-year span between her husband Mike’s colon cancer journey (in which he had eight inches of his colon removed, endured six months of gruelling chemotherapy, and lost 50 pounds) and her own diagnosis and mastectomy.

During this time, Lisa also lost her father and two other important women in her life; a close friend and colleague and her sister-in-law, who both passed away from lung cancer.

Despite all this, Lisa’s inner critic told her that her own cancer was inconsequential as it didn’t require chemo or radiation. “For the most part, my journey seemed easy, and I felt a little bit guilty,” she admits.

And so, she hesitated at first when First West Credit Union (where Lisa is a Supervisor of the Commercial Lending Administration team) put a call out to employees living a full and healthy ‘life beyond cancer’ to share their story, as part of First West’s partnership with the BC Cancer Foundation.

But then she realized that while no two cancer journeys look the same, the burden that comes with hearing the words “You have cancer,” is similar for everyone who is diagnosed, and lives with the worry of recurrence. And for Lisa and Mike, it’s what comes after facing cancer that counts.

“Going through cancer with each other we learned some new lessons in life. We live life for today and try to do as much as we can together,” she says, which includes all the things we love — “golf, our garden, our dogs, and, of course, time spent with our children and grandkids.”

After living in Surrey for more than two decades, they moved to Kamloops for a slower lifestyle and to be more central to their five daughters who are scattered across the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, Alberta and the U.S.

Lisa is grateful to have continued working at First West Credit Union, where she’s just celebrated 23 years. The credit union feels like a family that supported her through an incredibly difficult few years.

Since 2022, First West Credit Union and its regional brands Valley First, Envision Financial, Island Savings and Enderby & District Financial, has partnered with the BC Cancer Foundation, investing a total of $300,000 between 2022-2024 to increase access to cancer care across the province, including the development of a new BC Cancer centre in Kamloops.

With cancer cases in Kamloops and the surrounding region expected to increase by a third over the next 20 years, the new cancer centre will save patients from having to travel to Kelowna for treatment — including life-saving radiation therapy, which half of all people diagnosed with cancer will require.