EP24 (Replay): Breast Cancer Prevention & Empowerment with Know Your Lemon's founder Dr. Corrine Ellsworth Beaumont

Hi, Corinne. Hi, Spencer. How are you? I'm fantastic. I'm so happy that you're here with us. Thank you so much for your time. I'm excited to be here. Yes. So I'd love to introduce you. This is Corinne Ellsworth Beaumont. She is the founder of the Know Your Lemons Foundation. And it's just such an honor to have you here and your time. I was hoping that perhaps for those listeners that don't know about the Know Your Lemons that you can explain to us a little bit about your foundation.

Yes, so our charity is a global foundation. We're the only one that is solely focused on early detection for breast cancer. So there is a lot of great work happening to find new treatments, new cures for breast cancer. But until then, the best way we can save lives is helping people find it as early as possible. So everything we do is about educating people about breast health.

and making it easy to understand actions people can take to make sure they're taking good care of themselves. was really drawn to your foundation after I experienced being diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. And I was Googling information about breast cancer and your viral 12 signs of breast cancer popped up in Google images. And I was immediately blown away. I'm an artist. I'm a graphic designer. The visual aspect of it was fantastic.

And I really went down a rabbit hole of your whole foundation, your mission, and everything that your foundation does. And I find it so empowering for women to have this education and information at their fingertips Can you tell me a little bit about where your foundation is right now, who it's reaching, your mission?

Yeah, absolutely. So maybe I'll start with talking about how I founded the charity and what led me to this cause in the first place. So I was starting my master's degree in graphic design when I lost my grandmother to breast cancer. And actually she was my second grandmother that I lost to breast cancer. And I realized at the time I didn't know what I should be doing. I didn't know if this meant I had an increased risk. I didn't know.

when I should start getting mammograms, I didn't know how to do a self -exam or what I was looking for. know, people would say look for a lump, but there's a lot of anatomy inside of my breast and it's lumpy. And so there seems to be a lot of confusing messages, a lot of missing information. And so that's when I started to research what is it that I need to know for myself to make sure I'm being proactive about my health.

And as I did that, I realized that there wasn't one resource that answered all those And there really wasn't a resource that was directed at younger women or a resource that could work with a lot of different audiences. So that's when I decided to use my skills as a graphic designer to make this information more accessible and actually engaging. Because for me, it took two family members

dying from breast cancer before I was willing to learn about breast health. And I thought it shouldn't be that way. It should be really easy for people to access and learn about it. So I ended up moving to the UK to get a PhD in graphic design in breast cancer specifically, learning how to design for global audiences. And so I took the campaign that I initially developed as part of my master's project, brought that into my PhD and spent four years.

researching, testing, doing lots of things so could better understand how to best communicate so that people could know the 12 symptoms of breast cancer and overcome the barriers that keep people from learning about it. The first one is taboo. know, people tend to not, you know, look at breasts in public. That's not something that's happening in a lot of cultures.

So people kind of avoid it. So there's a lot of censorship issues around breasts when we try to visualize and show things. And then the other issue is fear. People don't like talking about cancer. I don't think we ever get together with our girlfriends and say, let's talk about cancer today. I'm really interested in that topic, right? So when you combine the taboos associated with breasts and the fear surrounding cancer,

then that makes it a really difficult message to communicate, particularly globally. And then the last one is time. We have so many demands on our time, different messages that we're bombarded with every day, and we have to be captured quite quickly to decide whether or not we're going to pay attention to those messages. In Meta did a study where they found out that people decide within 0 .7 seconds whether or not.

they're going to engage with something that they see as they're scrolling. So being able to find something that really grabs people's attention quickly, educates them, overcomes taboo, looks really friendly so you can avoid the fear issues were all the things I learned about in my PhD to really come up with a campaign that worked well. So I was a professor in London teaching entrepreneurship, branding, marketing in the business school.

⁓ after I finished my PhD and I just had know your lemons as like a website. It was just a project I was doing on the side, cause I knew it needed to get out there somehow. you know, and, and as I'm teaching students different things, you know, I'm realizing. If I really want know your lemons to be out there and doing things, I need to put a business behind that. need to have an organized way of, you know, getting funding and.

distribution and all those things so it can really make an impact. And then one of my best friends growing up died from breast cancer. So after that happened, I decided to quit my job as a university lecturer and start the charity with my savings and really put everything I could into that. So about seven months after I made that decision,

A patient saw my 12 signs of breast cancer image. There was a game going around Facebook at the time that said, put a heart on someone's wall and don't tell them what it's for. But when they ask you what it's about, tell them it's for breast cancer awareness. And so she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. A lot of friends and family were putting hearts on her wall and she wasn't doing it back. And so she felt like she needed to

write a post to explain why she wasn't returning the heart. And she says, hearts don't do anything for breast cancer awareness, but this picture does. And she shared my picture of the 12 signs of breast cancer. And I know in a podcast, it's a little hard to explain this. So I'll just say, go to knowyourlimits .org. It is. I'm going to show the picture here for the visuals that we have, but this is the magnet. It's you have posters, there's tons of things that you can print out. I give these magnets out to people because

We all have fridges that are normally magnetic. And I look at this daily to kind of keep it in the forefront of my mind, but it's a fabulous image. Yeah. So that picture was shared and it quickly went viral. She got like 65 ,000 shares and it was just a public post that was directed at family and friends. And it started a really big conversation of people saying,

I had this symptom and no one told me about it or I had no idea that there were this many symptoms. Is this really a symptom? You know, are we sure? And that started what we have today, which is the campaign is now in over 40 languages. We've reached one point eight five billion people online. We have trained almost.

1 ,000 lemonistas like you and we'll show my my little tag. I am we can talk about It's phenomenal. And we're in 65 countries and we've just launched the Know Your Lemons World Breast Alliance, which is our partnership program where we are bringing in organizations from around the world and giving them our educational tools and resources and training so that they can be able to go out to communities and educate more effectively.

So we're really excited about things. It started off as just my savings and this project and this passion, and now we have grown really quickly. it's exciting to see everyone that it helps and just how we're changing it one lemon at a time. Well, and I think that's right. One lemon at a time, takes...

You know, I think you are a very empowering example of one person making a huge impact that just continues to ripple and go outward. And that's what I find also very inspiring about Know Your Limits is that with the Lemanista program that we just mentioned, it's a volunteer program that educates. go through some training to be educated to then become your breast health educator for your community, for your friends, for your family. it's just a way to

it forward and really the sharing of education and knowledge. So Spencer, I'd love to know what your experience was like when you took the online course. Was there anything that you learned that was new to you or just like the overall kind of vision? Like what made you really interested to become a lemonista?

Last year I had my first mammogram at 40 years old. It was a routine check just to start screening at 40 and it came back irregular. I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, is stage zero. It was a ductal carcinoma in situ. I had surgery and I did three weeks of radiation and I followed up with some hormone treatment. I didn't know.

really anything about breast cancer. I have no history of breast cancer in my family. And I was very overwhelmed at what was happening in kind of the next stages. And I also felt at 40 years old, I didn't know anybody else that was going through this at that age. And I thought we were just all too young. Me and my friends, thought people don't really, it's not common. When I was kind of Googling for information,

I found your 12 signs of breast cancer image. as a creative, as a designer, seeing the images, I just went down the rabbit hole of your website and I found out that you offer the Lamanista program for volunteering. And I loved the idea that I could learn and share and educate so that women can find these types of breast cancers early. Because it's like you say on your website, the earlier the better.

because for stage zero breast cancer treatment, it's 99 % effective. So it's really important to stay on top of all of this knowledge to know what's going on in your body. think for the training was very interesting for me. I do come from a medical family. have some doctors and surgeons in my family. And so it was kind of right at my alley. I love science, I love medicine, and I loved the training. sessions that I've done have been

really wonderful and fulfilling. I think when you spoke about people being afraid, I did find that that was one of the topics that I talked about in my sessions was some people didn't want to come to the session. My close friends said, I'm here because of you, but not because I want to be educated because I'm scared to be educated. And the The difference between having them at the beginning of the session and at the end was huge because at the end they were so excited about doing their

self -breast exam that we learned about in the session and they felt very empowered about knowing more about their bodies. And that to me has just propelled me to move forward with your foundation and wanting to just shout it from the rooftops. know? That's amazing. And I love how you talk about, you know, sometimes we want to avoid the topics that we don't want to interact with. Right. And, you know, because

you're someone who's known to them and they care about you and they want to support you, then that was an easier way to kind of open up that conversation. And by the end, you know, they had some knowledge that gave them more confidence. And that's something that we, you know, I've really learned as I've done this work is that when there is an information gap, fear is what fills that space. And the more information we can get, the less fear we have because

there's not this unknown thing because there's so many things people can do that are just really simple to be proactive. But we're just not educated about this at school, right? Like we learn about every part of the body except our breasts in school. so we building a school's program right now called Know Your Lemons at School. And we've been testing it with students and teachers and it's

it's had a really good response. You know, there's a quiz, there's videos. We could teach it with boys and girls present in the room. And really it's just to bring up that conversation so that they know the facts, that they understand things. like a couple of misconceptions that people have, something people will say to me is, ⁓ actually I don't have to worry about a mammogram because breast cancer doesn't run in my family, right?

And that seems logical, right? You think, this doesn't run in my family, so this really isn't a priority. And if I went to get a mammogram, then that's just me being like above and beyond. But actually, the statistics are that 85 % of those diagnosed with breast cancer are the first in their family. So they have no family history of it. And when people hear that, they go, ⁓ so this does apply to me. And the thing is, it applies to you if you're a woman and you're getting older.

Right. So if you're if you've figured out how to stop aging, good. Then sure. OK. Right. So that's that's one of the big the big facts that we help students understand is that like this can impact anyone. It can also impact men. Right. So one percent of those with breast cancer are are men. So a famous example of this is Beyonce's dad. He was diagnosed with breast cancer because he has a

breast cancer gene in his family. And so there are a lot of different, you know, and people can get diagnosed young. As you've said, we include a video of somebody who reached out to us after we helped her get diagnosed at age 24. By seeing something on Instagram that her boyfriend shared with her. So he saw the message, he shared it with her, and it helped save her So with the students, it's about

understanding what they need to do for themselves, but also just educating on these things, you know, because men will have access to breasts at some point in their life, probably. And it's for them to know the symptoms of breast cancer is good for them to know, hey, at age 40, you should be getting mammograms. Have you booked your appointment yet this month? Yes. And then their assignment is to go home and start the conversation with family. Find out what your family history is.

talk about this 85 % figure, see if people are doing their mammograms. Do they have hesitancies? Have they heard it's painful or were the rumor that it causes cancer, things like that. Because again, when there's lack of information, fear fills the gap and that's how rumors spread so quickly.

So there's so much we can do, so much education that needs to be done out there. So we're really looking forward to embedding this lesson into schools so that people can learn this from an early time and also start this conversation with their families and help people get screened. And it's so important. for education, think that there's also, when you don't have the full picture, maybe sometimes fill in the gaps. People can fill in the gaps themselves.

So for me, one of the biggest statistics that shocks people in my sessions has been that around 8 to 10 % of women with breast cancer are BRCA positive. So I think that there's this perception that if you don't have BRCA, then you don't need to worry about breast cancer. If you don't, you if you perhaps get the genetic testing and, you know, it's like you said, as you age as a woman, chances of breast cancer increase.

So whether you have BRCA or not, you need to continue screening. And so I think that even if people make an effort to get the genetic testing to find out about their BRCA status, there's still more education to learn outside of just the testing. Yeah, absolutely. And there are a lot of genes that have been discovered that play a part in breast cancer development. So there's the BRCA1 and the BRCA2 genes that are the most prevalent.

there are many, many others. to share a story with you, my friend Suzanne, that was my childhood friend, she was diagnosed at age 28. And so we thought, for sure, this has got to be genetic. And so they did the genetic test and said, no, it's not genetic. About 10 years later, her sister is diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age.

And then that's when they did testing again and said, now we know about the PALB2 gene. then so it was like, so now it is genetic. what they say now is that there's no known genetic factors, but there's so much more research that's being done in genetics. And I think that 8 to 10 % figure is going to change over time as we learn more about.

roles that genetics play and testing becomes more specified. So, but it's true. There's a lot of kind of magic wands that we want to wave, right? So like, I'm not BRCA positive, so I won't get it. Ta -da! Or it's not in my family, so I won't get it. Like, ta -da! Or like, I just

I just don't like cancer, so it won't happen to me. So that's definitely not true. Nobody likes cancer. So so it's it's kind of recognizing that something can happen to you. But instead of being afraid of it, saying, OK, so what are some ways that I can do that? And Spencer is so great that you got that mammogram at age 40, because what if you had waited till 45 or 50? Right. So

you know, being able to screen when you feel healthy, you don't notice any symptoms, have no family history, like doing that anyway can really make all the difference in saving your life. And when you're diagnosed early, you know, like Stage 0 then the treatment is much less intense than if it's, you know, Stage 3 Stage 4 being able to, to

you if you notice a change in your breast, being able to talk to a doctor about that, ⁓ insist on getting testing to investigate it. We've had a lot of women that have said they brought a concern to their doctor and their doctor said, ⁓ this, this doesn't concern me. Okay, great. So you won't get the mammogram, but I would like one, right? Right. And so, so this image of the, the 12 signs of breast cancer,

has helped them have that confidence to say, no, I know something is different. And I know this is something that's worthy of investigation and not to be dismissed through a hunch. And then people have been diagnosed early, people have had their minds put at ease because they go and they get the testing and they find out it's fine. And that is also a really big benefit of just being mindful of your body, knowing what tests to advocate for.

And so all of that information is in our app. So we have a free Know Your Lemons app. Right now it's in four languages. So we have English, we have Spanish, German and French. Yes, it's a great app. And there are three main tools that will be incredibly helpful. The first one is to do a risk and screening assessment.

It asks you a series of questions to understand like your particular health factors. And then after all of that, it will tell you what the recommended screening plan is for someone with your risk factors and in the area that you live in. like screening recommendations are different in Spain, for example, than they are in the UK or in the US. The US just updated their recommendations. And so the app helps you understand

that information. If someone is at a higher risk for breast cancer, then it's recommended to start mammograms sometimes at an earlier age or to add additional testing such as ultrasound or breast MRI. And then if you flag up some questions for family history, it talks about how genetic testing can be helpful. for example, if you're found to have a genetic mutation, then that will open up the pathway for additional

testing to make sure that you're monitored more comprehensively. the average risk population is going to be monitored not as much or screened as much versus somebody who has that. So that's the first tool. The second one is a really comprehensive self -exam guide. And we have two characters in the app that talk you through how to do a self -exam.

One of them is Mona Lisa. She's been doing self -exam for 500 years. It was kind of like your breast grandma. She'll tell you what each part of the breast typically feels like, the different positions to use for a self -exam, et cetera. The other character is Napoleon. So Napoleon is for men, people who have had top surgery or have had

he's very confident that he knows how to do this. And so he can also guide you through it's kind of a shorter exam with Napoleon. But at the end of the exam, it will ask you, do you notice any changes? And this is the third tool, which is if you notice a change, it'll take you to the symptom section where you can look over the symptom that you think you may have. And it will explain what the harmless reasons are for it.

for something looking like that, as well as like what can be more concerning and then a guide on how to talk to your doctor about so that way you can know what testing to get and all the testing is explained in the app, how to prepare for your first mammogram, how to prepare for a biopsy, the different kinds of biopsies that are available, those sorts of things. So the app really like takes care of everything and it sends you monthly reminders.

of when it's time to self -exam. So for people who menstruate, it will remind you a couple of days after your period ends, because that is the best time to do a self -exam where hormone levels are more normal, I guess you could say, in the body, because the last half of a menstrual cycle, there's estrogen and particularly progesterone that can cause temporary tenderness, temporary lumpiness.

And that's because your body is preparing for possible pregnancy. And so it's like, okay, breasts, let's, let's, let's prepare just in case, right? And it tends to be during that time when we do a self -exam, cause we notice our breasts are more - Changes. Exactly. And then we go, what's this? And then it's gone a week or two later and then it becomes really confusing. so being able to know that there's a normal breast cycle.

and that's just part of normal hormonal changes, that things are temporary, they go away, can really help, again, fill that knowledge gap of like, why do my breasts seem to change and then kind of like go back to normal and then like change again? Like, is this cancer coming and going? You'd be like, no, actually, this is hormones. This is what hormones do. Right? Exactly. And I never knew until I did my training education that there was a breast cycle. I'd never been taught that by any OB -GYN.

And so I thought that that was so amazing. And the other thing I learned is I had seen the feel it on the first hashtag through Instagram and I had seen pictures of feel it on the first and I never understood what it meant. I always thought, I guess you're supposed to do your breast exams on the first of the month. as you've mentioned, people, every individual has their own breast cycle that's determined by their menstruation. But for those who no longer menstruate or who don't menstruate, feeling it on the first is a great way to stay

proactive of remembering every the first of the month to do your breast exam. Yeah, exactly. So for people who don't menstruate, the app will send a reminder on the first of each month to do a self -exam. For people who do menstruate, there's actually a period tracker built in the app and the lemon moves from day to day and you can move the lemon around as know, cycles change.

And then a few days before your period starts, it send you a reminder to get chocolate. Yeah. I love it. I love it. It's a great app. The website's fantastic. One of the resources on the app that I found very helpful was there's some questions that it can recommend for you to ask your physicians if you're going through, if you have a biopsy, if you have a lumpectomy. mean, there's a lot of information because

this can be very overwhelming. And if you're not, if you don't have any medical background or if just in general, it's helpful to have some guidance. And I think this app really holds your hand through a lot of kind of scary things. Yeah, absolutely. And then something new that I've developed and I just realized I don't have it here next to my desk is a new toolkit for newly diagnosed breast cancer patients called the Dandelion Toolkit.

And it uses the visuals of a dandelion to explain staging, options, as well as how the cancer is growing. And so these visuals make it really easy for the healthcare team to communicate with patients and for patients to communicate with family and friends what's happening with their diagnosis to make that a little bit easier to understand and help patients feel more in control of what's going on.

Mm -hmm. I have, I don't have them near me either, but I do have the little lemons that I use as an educator. And they're these fantastic little lemons, and they have a seed inside, and so you can pass them around to the students, and they can feel the lemon to feel what it's like to feel a lump, which everybody just goes wild about. They really love learning that feeling, because that's what it is. It's kind of learning.

And your visuals also show this of what is a milk duct, what is a lymph node, what could be a possible lump such as the feeling of a lemon seed. So it's really amazing in terms of the education that it shares. Yeah, yeah. And so a A cancerous lump is usually hard. And the longer it's there, the more immovable it becomes. And so being able to understand the difference between something is squishy.

you know, and more movable, that tends to mean that's just a normal part of breast anatomy. But anything that doesn't feel like the rest of your breast is something that should be checked out regardless of how it feels. But it's good to have kind of that general rule of thumb is that typically a cancerous lump will feel hard. Right. And I just want to read through these 12 signs that are on this image, which I will have on my website. I'll have it in the

show notes, a link to your website. So a thick area of the breast, a dimple, which I had never heard of, especially if you raise your arm and there's dimples in the skin, nipple crust, a red or a hot breast, any new fluid, skin sores, a bump, a growing vein, a sunken nipple, a new shape or size, orange peel skin, and then the hard lump, which can feel like a lemon seed.

These are incredibly educational and helpful for everybody to know about. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to know the details of each of these symptoms, you can come to our website. And even more easy would be to get the Know Your Lemons app, and then it has detailed information about each symptom so you can learn more about it. That's right. That's right. Well, one of the questions I was going to ask you was...

What's next with Know Your Lemons? But I think you've kind of answered that with the D &D Nigh In and that you're now working in schools, which I think is so wonderful to teach this to at a younger age. actually have two more programs that I haven't mentioned. Okay, please share. Fantastic. our Know Your Lemons at Work program. And so we have a workplace education program.

But you know, because we educate without using breasts, it makes it really accessible to a mixed group or professional setting. And in it, we have ways of incentivizing employees to get screened and encourage their partners to get screened, family members to get screened. And it brings it as like a big company wide effort. So, you know, we're always looking for

companies that we can bring our education program to, not only to educate their employees so that way they can have healthier outcomes, but it also saves the company money with insurance because if you get diagnosed earlier, that can save on costs and lost time at work. And then our other program is Know Your Lemons for Health Pros.

So we have a version of our educator training course that is available for continuing education credit. So we are helping to educate nurses, mammography technicians, other healthcare workers about ways that they can better educate in the healthcare setting and also make sure patients are referred appropriately so that we can be able to get more people.

diagnosed to earlier stages and reduced delays and referrals and things like that. Of course, that's amazing. One question I've been curious to ask you is what is something surprising that you've learned kind of throughout your process of building and growing this foundation? What is something that really shocked you along the way? I think it was, you know, I was hoping that I designed this in a way that was universal.

And Jumatil has taught nearly: 3000

he has gone into like Muslim boarding schools where he's teaching boys and girls together. You know, he's gone out to community events. And because of the way we educate makes it, you know, so easy to discuss openly. That's really been a successful way. We've had people in Saudi Arabia say this is the only way we can bring up breast cancer. And just to realize that there's

so much power in being able to together good communication that it can really impact lives. And so for me, know, hearing that someone has been diagnosed because of something I designed, you know, is really humbling. And it's really exciting to know that, you know, if we can just get this picture out there to everybody, we can get the app out there to everyone that gives them like the steps to take, then we can save so many lives because people will have found it earlier.

at more treatable, curable stages. And that's how we're going to change the picture of breast cancer is by making this accessible, making it easier to start that conversation, making it easy to know what to do for ourselves because this information has been hidden from women far too long. And we need to put this out there and make it available to everyone. Yes.

I've been a writer and an artist in different things. And one thing I really love is learning and knowledge. there's the old quote of knowledge is power. But I really think that knowledge is empowering because I think it gives you this ability to kind of understand you and yourself and who you are and your connection to your body. I really think that this app...

It's life -saving. This information is life -saving. I'm just such a fan. I'm a full -on limonista. I'm so excited. That's wonderful. Yeah. And the app is free. the data stays on your phone. We don't collect anything. So if you delete the app, all of your data goes with it. It's never sent to us. anything that...

that can help spread the word is great. As a charity, we don't have a big marketing budget for something like the app. We win a lot of awards for our app. We've had people give us five -star ratings because it saved their life. This should be an app that's on everybody's phone. So that would be fantastic if the one thing people do after hearing this is say, OK, fine, I'll go download this app. Right. I'll take that first step in.

you know, being proactive about my breast health and sharing it with the people that I love. That's right. That's wonderful. one of those takeaways that I'd love to

to reinforce is that your app is for free. You can download it in the Apple Store on iOS. It's also available for Android. Is it available on the iPad or is it only a mobile app? It's optimized for mobile. I think you can use it on the iPad, but it's going to look a little bit different. Yes, yes. And then your website is knowyourlemmons .org, correct?

And that is also a wealth of knowledge. Now, on your website, you talk about ways that your audience can teach, promote, fundraise, and create a corporate impact. And I think that's all very important because as you mentioned, it's a charity. You're doing this for the better good of the world. So there are opportunities to find all of that information on your website.

Yeah, absolutely. People can volunteer like you. Sometimes people, it's easier to give money. And that helps fund our app to make it free for people, helps us translate our campaign into more languages. You can't do a lot of good in the world without funding. Yes.

We're always welcoming donations and just know that every donation goes directly to our programs and helping us to reach more women. And then recommend us to your HR manager with our work program and we could do it. I know your lemons.

initiative with your workplace for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Companies are always looking at ways that they can get involved with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. instead of, you know, just showing a couple of pink ribbons around the office, they can actually make sure people are getting screened and know their risk and are knowing the 12 signs of breast cancer and how they can be proactive to help prevent late detection.

Well, Corinne, thank you so much. I'm so appreciative of your time.

And is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up? don't be afraid. Be proactive and educate yourself. That's something really simple that you can do. And we've made it really easy for you. You don't have to search the internet looking up all of these different things. It's all in one place for you. And it's personalized and tailored exactly to your health. we just want to make it easy for you.

That's fantastic. Well, I really believe you have. And I just I love this campaign. I think it is really like I said, you are such a shining example of one person making a lasting impact. And if everybody just takes one step together and doing this, we can really spread this awareness and prevention and save lives. Yes, absolutely. It's already happening. We just need everyone to join us. That's right. And we're yellow. Yeah, and we're yellow. That's right.

Fantastic. Well, Corrine again, thank you so much. I'm just so appreciative. Thank you. Thank you, Spencer. Thanks for having me.