On Oct. 13, 2014, I received the news that I had inflammatory breast cancer. Everything my local doctor said right after that sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher in a Peanuts cartoon. I just went numb for about 10 seconds.

Once I got past the numbness, I felt angry and calm all at once. Unlike many women with inflammatory breast cancer, my cancer was discovered during a routine mammogram. I was almost 57 at the time, but I had...