In this episode I speak with my dear friend Reema Doshi who in 2017 was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer called inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).

In this episode we speak about:

  • The importance of noting anything abnormal or strange happening in your body and taking the time to look into it.
  • How life and being ‘busy’ often gets in the way of seeking professional medical help.
  • When you start on a medical journey you’re collecting pieces of data about what’s happening to you in real time, and it’s often confusing.
  • The need for a clinical and medical diagnosis to know if it is in fact IBC - inflammatory breast cancer.
  • Remembering that medical practitioners are human and fallible too and they can make mistakes.
  • How women can empower themselves in medical settings and become an advocate to get what they want and need.
  • Small breadcrumbs of knowledge or random people that you come across in your medical journey, and in hindsight how impactful these moments or people are to your story.
  • The intense and physically exhausting side effects of Reema’s chemo treatment.
  • How the media mis-portrays what it may be like to go through cancer treatment.
  • The realization that you are not broken nor is anything wrong with you for needing rest when going through cancer treatment.
  • Ways Reema clung to normalcy during treatment and how she decided cancer was not going to be the defining theme of her life.
  • How you can support someone or what to say to someone who is going through treatment, and how this can be different for everyone.
  • Reema’s post treatment medical journey, life, chemo brain and being regularly confronted with the possibility of a cancer recurrence and how to manage this fear
  • Listen to your body and take action if something feels wrong; early diagnosis can prevent more significant problems in the future
  • The dozen symptoms and signs of breast cancer
  • The most powerful tool in breast cancer treatment and survival is early diagnosis.
  • When going through a medical journey, being someone with you who can be an extra set of eyes and ears and you may not be in your clearest frame of mind

**Timestamps:

0:15 - How Reema and Leslie met
2:49 - Just an itch
4:38 - Slew of symptoms
5:24 - Reema’s first check-up
10:56 - What is inflammatory breast cancer?
17:37 - Perspectives on cancer treatments
21:36 - Leslie’s medical story
27:05 - Reema’s diagnosis
30:28 - Treatments and side effects
43:19 - Important insights**

**Quotes:

“Women often lose months in getting diagnosed because they get stuck in this loop of not knowing how to advocate for themselves.”- Reema**

“I wasn’t sure if the chemo was going to kill me or the cancer” - Reema

“I am beyond my cancer.”- Reema

Connect with Leslie and Sick and Seeking Community:Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Connect with Reema:Website

Resourceswww.knowyourlemons.orghttps://theibcnetwork.org/https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrylynnarnold

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