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Are You a Patient Advocate?

Writer's picture: Surviving Breast CancerSurviving Breast Cancer

Some people use their vacation days to go to the beach or the mountains. Others go on adventures and explore new countries. I used my vacation days this past week to attend the esteemed San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS),


Why? Because I was diagnosed stage II ER+/HER2+ breast cancer and I want to immerse myself into as much information as possible in order to understand my diagnosis, prognosis, and the latest news and information out there.




First Impressions at SABCS2019

The convention center had the SABCS logos and colors plastered onto every door, the main entrance had what looked like a welcome rug as big as you could imagine adhered to the floor greeting you as you walked into the lobby. Registration signs and tables were equipped with name tags and schedules, and the exhibitors were setting up in the main hall. I was excited. The scope of the symposium is scientific. Thousands of oncologists, scientists, and researchers from all over the world swarmed to San Antonio, TX to present their scholarly and academic work. I knew that there were going to be words, terms, acronyms, and graphs that I wouldn’t be able to understand. But that didn’t matter. I jotted down notes, scribbled down long, hard to pronounce names of pharmaceutical drugs and short-hand reminders to myself to follow up on once I returned to the hotel room that evening. I was eager to learn as much as I could and feel empowered as I prepare for a follow up oncology appointment at my cancer center the following week.


Themes from the Symposium

The opening session set the tone for the following 4 days. Topics focused on:

  • Metastatic breast cancer

  • HER (positive and negative) breast cancer

  • Hormonal receptor positive subtypes.

  • Breast cancer that had metastasized to the brain.

  • Why some people are resistant to certain therapies

(To name a few).


Was I becoming a Patient Advocate?

It’s natural to want to learn as much as you can about your own diagnosis, the specific drugs that you are on, and your particular gene line mutations. After all, it is what we know the most about from our own first-hand experience. But as I was sitting in the audience listening to the names of new drugs the various cancer subtypes, I would lean over to my friends and whisper, “oh, that’s the drug our friend Sarah is on!” …. or “that’s what happened to our other friend Claire.” There was a name, a face, and a person associated with every slide, with every study, with every new discovery. It became tangible. It was no longer a solo cancer adventure, but a collective one within the breast cancer population.


Transitioning from Patient Advocate to a Psycho/Social Economic Activist?

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