| The days when I am not busy cleaning or writing | | | | accelerated rate and their strength is taxed |
| my mind seems to snap back to the reality that | | | | incredibly soon. Older people don't have such |
| my little girl might die. Die! I can't seem to | | | | active hormones to move the disease so fast, |
| comprehend that word and my little girl in the | | | | and have a better chance the chemotherapy can |
| same sentence. All the reading to make sure I | | | | stop the disease in its tracks." |
| understand what lies ahead for her just brings it | | | | My 37-year-old daughter has made up her mind |
| home to sit in my mind like a vulture and conjure | | | | that this is not going to change her life. She is |
| up the idea without her. Her, she, my beautiful | | | | continuing to work, and do the things she always |
| child who is so full of loving and caring for other | | | | has done. "Mom, these drugs are either going to |
| people, and now worrying that her family and | | | | kill this thing, or I am going to die. That is the |
| friends need consoling. My God, the pain in my | | | | reality of it all." With her chin in the air, a smile on |
| breast is like a sympathy pain, if there really is | | | | her face and a determination I have never seen, |
| such a thing. My eyes burn from the crying. My | | | | my baby has conjured up all the will, anger and |
| mind reels at the thought of her having to go | | | | stubbornness she has to keep going forward with |
| through all the treatments, and then the great | | | | the knowledge that the drugs will kill these |
| possibility of losing her after such an ordeal. | | | | obscene little marauders and she will come out of |
| I find my self staring at the pictures of young | | | | this cancer free. |
| women on the internet that have poured their | | | | The song Wind beneath my wings replays in my |
| stories out in hopes it might help someone else | | | | brain until I can't shut it out. Tina is the wind |
| understand this awful disease. These women, and | | | | beneath my wings, because through this ordeal |
| some men, have come together through the | | | | she is going through, she is holding everyone up. I |
| Internet and met and consoled and learned from | | | | just want to hold her tight and cry and rock her |
| each other. | | | | as I did when she was a baby. But I know I can't. |
| These people come from France, Germany, | | | | She needs my strength right now. I can't break |
| Denmark, England, Australia, New Zealand and | | | | down, but it is so hard to hold the tears back. |
| yes, the United States. There is no trade zone | | | | Yesterday I put my arms around her and stroked |
| barrier to abide by when we are all talking about | | | | her very think short hair. Soon it will be gone, that |
| one thing. Inflammatory Breast Cancer, and why | | | | hair she has always hated. That hair that has |
| did I not know about this form of breast cancer | | | | always had a mind of it's own. "I bought a blonde |
| a long time ago. We all pretty much say the | | | | wig Mom", she said. "I'm ready to be bald, that |
| same thing. Why Were We Not Armed With | | | | doesn't bother me." Loosing her hair doesn't |
| Knowledge Before Now? | | | | bother me either, but loosing her life is |
| We have a Doctor in the family that actually | | | | uncontainable. |
| understands this form of cancer. He has been | | | | My hope in writing, is that through the knowledge |
| gentle and kind in his words to me, but honest at | | | | that even one person reading this might one day |
| the same time. "When young women in their | | | | shed light into the black hole of misdiagnosis and |
| childbearing years get Inflammatory breast | | | | misinformation about Inflammatory Breast Cancer |
| cancer, the prognosis is not good. Because they | | | | we can be armed for the conflict instead of being |
| are active and young, their system moves the | | | | confused. |
| dreaded cancer cells through their bodies at an | | | | |