00:00three days went by my doctor called me again and said okay ricky not only do you have breast cancer
00:04but you have triple negative breast cancer and i said what does that mean that doesn't sound so bad
00:08like what does that mean and then i went to dr google and dr google said you're gonna die you're
00:13gonna die you're gonna die you're gonna die fast and so i said i guess i better go home and um
00:18i really just didn't want to accept it i kept saying are you sure you have the right person
00:22are you sure it's me um because i'm really too busy for this and it was more about
00:28the impact on my life and what i would have to do like can't i just take a pill and be done with it
00:32and we realized i was pretty sick
00:39my name is ricky fairly i'm the ceo and co-founder of touch the black breast cancer alliance and
00:44i started touch to eradicate black breast cancer i was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer
00:51stage 3a and um i did a double mastectomy i did six rounds of chemo and six weeks of radiation
00:59and i was told i was okay and then a month later i did a pet scan and the doctor found five spots on
01:06my chest wall um and told me okay ricky you are now metastatic you have two years to live get your
01:11affairs in order we have nothing for you and i said i can't really die right now but because i have a
01:16daughter at dartmouth and i have to pay for tuition so me you and god and some drugs need to work this
01:20out and um i took some experimental drugs and now it's been 11 years and i know that god left me here
01:27to do this work i've been an advocate ever since and over the years i've identified that breast cancer
01:34is a different disease for black women and a few years ago i kind of coined the name black breast cancer
01:40we have a 41 percent higher mortality rate than white women we have a 39 percent higher recurrence
01:46rate than white women black women under 30 get breast cancer at four times the rate of white women
01:52it's only in the last two years that the fda has approved one drug for for early stage triple
01:58negative for stage one two or three and then two drugs for metastatic triple negative but we really
02:04don't have targeted therapies for our disease and black women are getting it at three times the rate
02:10i also changed a lot of you know just the physical things about my life i changed where i lived and i
02:16and um i try to find peace every day i have a dance party every day and um i really just try to figure
02:24out how to take care of myself better and clearly your peace is non-negotiable everybody's is you
02:29shouldn't have to get breast cancer or get some crazy illness to know that um i do eat a little
02:35bit differently i mean i do eat ice cream but but you know you know what to eat we know what to eat we
02:39know what we shouldn't eat the fried chicken and the mac and cheese every day so i eat a lot of
02:43vegetables i eat a lot of chicken and fish one of the things that um has been proven to be not good
02:48for breast cancer survivors is beef so i don't need a lot of beef i eat that you know filling me down
02:52with bernet sauce maybe once a month or so because it's my favorite food but um just be healthy move your
02:58body walk and when new patients come to me the first thing i say to them is go take a walk go take
03:04a walk you'll see god all around you you know like look at things that are bigger than you and bigger
03:09than your disease
03:18you can raise up your arm like this and then start over here under your arm because this is where some
03:22of your lymph nodes are and then you're going to want to circle around and you're going to want to
03:26press like a medium amount of pressure here and kind of go around the outside and then i like to
03:33kind of spiral in as i go through here and so you'll get to the middle eventually and then be able to like
03:39get to your nipple so you're looking for a couple of things here you're actually looking to
03:44obviously feel any lumps you're also looking to um any skin differences that's why it's good to be
03:51naked in this space so you can actually like notice and check everything the mirror is also good for
03:55checking the skin like that um and then you're also going to want to squeeze your nipple to see
04:00if there's any discharge because it's something that could be normal or not normal depending on
04:05your normal again so just the whole point here is to know exactly what your boobs feel like
04:11inside and out what they look like and that way you'd be able to see if you found something different
04:16moving forward this can be done in the shower this can be done in front of a mirror this can be done
04:20lying down you can put a pillow under your arm and kind of let your boobs spread out and go in it like
04:25that for women doing sub breast exams i also recommend that you don't do it around your
04:30period we know that periods sometimes lead to all kinds of things so i would stay away from you know
04:35the week to um before or after that um and yeah i guess start building it into your routine make it
04:41normal to check your boobs and then none of us have to worry because breast cancer as we know is not
04:46something that we can prevent but it's early detected it's not something you have to die from it can be completely
04:51treatable
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