When Cancer Calls, Love Answers

"You have breast cancer," are words no woman wants to hear. Cancer conjures up horrific images and overwhelming feelings of fear and hopelessness. A diagnosis of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) sends Leslie Reilly on a terrifying yet inspirational & transformative healing journey. All cancer should be taken seriously. However, TNBC is an extremely aggressive breast cancer with a poorer prognosis for survival than hormone-positive breast cancer. As a former criminal investigator, she quickly leaped into investigative mode to research everything she could about "her" cancer. What makes it different than hormone-positive breast cancer, what could she do to promote her healing, and how would she manage it during and after treatments. There has been very little written about TNBC so it was a complicated and massive undertaking.

When Cancer Calls, Love Answers is a personal journey and memoir that contains practical information regarding the nature of TNBC as compared with other breast cancers. It provides a clear view of TNBCs biology and histology, who is at risk, nutritional and supplement guidelines, and a myriad of strategies for the best hope of survival during treatments and the years following; Leslie outlines survival strategies that will strengthen the mind and promote physical health no matter what kind of cancer you or a loved one has been diagnosed with.

You will travel with Leslie as she and her husband co-create InTo Spirit Whale and Dolphin Encounters in Kona, Hawaii. Here, they took visitors from all over the world out to view whales up-close-and-personal, and swim with Hawaiian spinner dolphins in the wild. Hawaii, a place where Magic happens, not cancer. From dolphins to the diagnosis of breast cancer, how does she cope with the overwhelming fear and the transformative inner journey that she is forced to take? How does she deal with the diagnosis, doctors' appointments, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and, lifestyle changes, while still showing up each day to help provide a living? How does she cope with the massive amounts of information and opinions that she must wade through to determine the treatment plan for her best outcome for survival with TNBC? Love was there to show her the way. Love is soft and kind, but it's also intelligent, firm, decisive, fearless, and full of empowerment and HOPE.

Leslie has been cancer-free for 21 years. She was diagnosed with aggressive ovarian cancer in 2006, six years after her breast cancer diagnosis. She met this cancer with the same raw courage and determination as she did with TNBC.

Stories are medicine. Leslie's story is an honest journey through difficult and terrifying times, but it will educate, inspire, strengthen and invoke courage, make you smile, provoke you to tears, and give you massive doses of hope for survival.