When I saw that the IBC Network Foundation was looking for volunteers to attend the San Antonio Breast Care Symposium (SABCS) this last December, I decided I had to apply. (See my previous piece if you want to know why I reached that decision.)

Even though the sheer number of resources occasionally felt overwhelming as a newbie, my fellow volunteers – including Staci Strand Roe and Executive Director Terry Arnold – helped me navigate. As did the Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation, who presents programs to assist patient advocates.

I hoped to accomplish three things while I was there to help IBC patients and survivors and to help The IBC Network Foundation.

First and foremost, exhibiting at SABCS is a great opportunity to help educate clinicians, scientists, and patients – both about the signs of IBC and about how the IBC Network helps scientists by funding IBC research. This in turn encourages desperately-needed research on IBC. The stress balls in the shape of oranges we handed out were especially eye-catching and provided a great opportunity to start a conversation.

Second, I learned more about oncology myself. Attending the poster sessions, I met some of the researchers who do IBC research, many of whom were funded at least in part by the IBC Network Foundation. (We even had dinner and listened to a mariachi band with some of them!) In fact, one of the poster sessions talked about the rates of successful Stage III IBC treatment – higher than ever before.

But perhaps the most hopeful educational session I attended was on antibody-conjugate drugs (“ADCs”). This class includes targeted chemotherapy agents like Enhertu and Kadcyla, which can be game changers for some breast cancer patients in terms of increased effectiveness and decreased side effects. I can’t claim to have understood every word in the presentation, but I understood more than I thought I would. And the best slides were the ones showing explosive growth: 8 of the 10 ADCs out there were approved by the FDA in the last five years, and in 2004 alone, there were 70 ADCs “in the clinic” (I’m assuming clinical studies). In fact, since attending SABCS, one ADC (Datroway) just got approved in the US for metastatic breast cancer that is hormone positive but HER2-negative.

Finally, I met some incredible people who are looking to help. We really enjoyed being right next to The Young Survivor Coalition (YSC) at the Expo. What a great group! After working side-by-side, they generously invited the IBC Network Foundation to exhibit at their upcoming conference in Atlanta.

Moreover, because of a Q&A with FDA oncologists presented by the afore-mentioned Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation, I ended up meeting an FDA oncologist/professor. She generously spent 45 minutes talking to me about how we can work towards making sure IBC patients get included, not excluded, in general breast cancer drug trials and giving me tips on effective patient advocacy.

In short, I highly recommend going. You don’t need to have a science degree (English major here) or to be an extrovert to have a positive, valuable, and meaningful experience.