Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00So I'm Rikki Fairley.
00:08I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.
00:10I've been a water baby my whole life and to be able to live on the water is my peace.
00:15I had two daughters and we have like a Dartmouth family.
00:18My dad went to Dartmouth, I went to Dartmouth.
00:20So I was a crazy person, worked in an agency, I worked in marketing, I was a brand manager
00:26my whole career.
00:27I basically went to the doctor for my annual checkup and my doctor found the lump on my
00:33breast and said, hmm, something's wrong.
00:35Can you come back tomorrow for a mammogram?
00:38And then can you come back tomorrow for a sonogram?
00:40And can you come back tomorrow for a biopsy?
00:43My doctor called on a two-week business trip.
00:45Yes, Rikki, you do have breast cancer.
00:47And I kind of just didn't really think about it because I had to give a speech the next
00:51day to 300 people.
00:52You know, can I call you back when I get done with my speech?
00:56Literally, that's how crazy it was.
00:57My doctor called me back and said, well, Rikki, not only do you have breast cancer,
01:01but you have triple negative breast cancer.
01:02You really need to come home so we can address it.
01:04Triple negative breast cancer, how bad could that be, right?
01:07What does that mean?
01:08And then I started to Google it.
01:09And it says you're going to die, you're going to die.
01:12If you're black, you're really going to die fast.
01:15So I had triple negative stage 3A.
01:17I had a double mastectomy.
01:19I did six rounds of chemo.
01:20I did six weeks of radiation.
01:23My doctor said, OK, you have no evidence of disease, but come back in two months for
01:26a scan.
01:28And so I went back for a scan.
01:29They found five spots on my chest wall.
01:31And my doctor said, OK, Rikki, you're now metastatic.
01:35That you have about two years to get your affairs in order.
01:38But then when Rikki was diagnosed, I think we all were devastated.
01:42I had a lot of faith, and I think I prayed all the time.
01:46But it's devastating.
01:50And I didn't really know how bad it was until I returned home from school and actually saw
01:56her sick in bed after her double mastectomy.
01:58So Haley just came home.
01:59So she was really my caregiver through my first round of chemo.
02:03Amanda, even though she couldn't be there, she was on the phone on a conference call.
02:06So literally by the time we got out of the doctor's office, she would send me an email
02:10with everything the doctor said.
02:12And she had already researched all the stuff by the time we got to the car.
02:15So everybody was involved.
02:16The day Rikki had surgery, her sister and the kids and I spent the night in the hospital
02:22room with her.
02:23We step in chairs.
02:24They step on the floor.
02:25We were all there.
02:26Nobody was moving.
02:28I didn't ever accept that I was going to die.
02:32I knew that there had to be another way.
02:34And I said, well, I can't really die right now.
02:37I have a daughter at Dartmouth.
02:38I got to pay tuition.
02:39So what are we going to do?
02:41I eventually found the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.
02:44And I was able to find this wonderful doctor.
02:47Her name is Ruth O'Regan.
02:48And I said, throw the book at me.
02:49What have you got?
02:50I'll take it.
02:51I've always been pretty fearless.
02:52Breast cancer definitely made me fearless.
02:54I did all the drugs.
02:55I took all the things.
02:56I did all the surgeries.
02:57I did everything to the extreme.
02:59And it wasn't fun, but Dr. Reagan put me on some drugs that were then experimental.
03:04I did a lot more chemo, and I didn't die.
03:07We survived.
03:08And that's the story that we need to tell.
03:10It wasn't her time.
03:12The good Lord had another plan for her.
03:14When Haley graduated from Dartmouth, I was like, okay, I made it this far, so now what?
03:21And that's when I knew I had to be an advocate.
03:23I really have to help women.
03:25I have to help black women, because no one could explain to me why everybody's taking
03:28the same drugs, but the black women are dying at a 41% higher mortality rate.
03:33Something is wrong with the science.
03:35And so the only way we're going to get better science is to get more black women into the
03:39science, into the clinical trials.
03:41I'm a marketing person.
03:42So I'm always like, okay, well, why is this happening, and how do we change people's behavior?
03:46Our mission at Touch is to advance science.
03:49We built this website, whenwetrial.org, and it basically is kind of a Wikipedia on clinical
03:54trials.
03:55We have a video gallery, and we have a bunch of women who explain their experience with
04:01trials in words you can spell from voices of experience.
04:05And then we have a portal on that site where you can actually access a trial and get matched
04:09to a trial.
04:10We created this website, Love of My Girls, G-U-R-L-S, you know, our way of spelling it.
04:15But it's really where we connect with young women, and we have our Her Story worksheet
04:19where you can sit down with your mom and your grandma on both sides to talk about your family
04:23history.
04:24Oh, I'm very proud of her.
04:25I'm very proud of her.
04:27I am a proud mother.
04:29In my ideal world, if I had a lot of money, I would buy a Victorian house in every black
04:34neighborhood.
04:35So you open that wrought iron gate, you walk up on the porch, the beautiful black grandmother
04:39gives you a hug, takes your three kids into the playroom, feeds them spaghetti, takes
04:44you into the treatment room, sits you down.
04:45It's a cushy chair.
04:47She gives you a blanket she crocheted.
04:49She gives you a cup of tea with mint from her garden.
04:51She turns on Luther Vandross, and she gives you the shot.
04:55I celebrate every day.
04:56I dance every day somewhere, somehow, in my car, in my house, on Zoom with my granddaughters.
05:04I did find love again.
05:06I found my soulmate.
05:08Ricky was out on the floor dancing.
05:10I went over and asked her to dance, and we got on the floor dancing and didn't stop dancing.
05:18We got married, and he's my happily ever after person.
05:22I had to learn that my peace is non-negotiable.
05:27So I quit my life, and I started a new one, and I moved to the beach.
05:30I really had to be by the water, and this is my peace.
05:33Hi, I'm Ricky Fairley.
05:35Not only am I a cancer survivor, I'm a thriver.