What happened, in summary

Trish Vickery learned in 2013 that she had inflammatory breast cancer, a diagnosis that carried particular weight because her mother had died from the same disease. At age 58, Trish described coming to Dana-Farber as one of the luckiest decisions of her life because her care team explained the treatment plan step by step. Her cancer was HER2-positive. She received chemotherapy, underwent a mastectomy, completed radiation, and was treated with Herceptin. After treatment, Trish continued to live an energetic life. She worked, traveled, exercised, rowed on the Charles River in Boston, and spent time with her husband and young adult daughter and son. Her experience became a message of both urgency and hope: inflammatory breast cancer can develop quickly, but specialized treatment allowed her to keep pursuing the activities and relationships that mattered to her.