rekindled spirit

photo by katie powell::picked dandelion by her son judah

have you ever heard of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC)?

i personally had not until i got this email from my girlfriend katie. read it below and make sure you watch the video. i did not think i could convey this message better than she did in her email so when i asked her if i could post it on my blog, she simply replied “yes! knowledge is power”.  it is indeed power and her experience,  my friends, is proof:

hi girlfriends, 

i promised a few of you that I would share a video link about inflammatory breast cancer , here it is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmP5QuGc-PE .

last friday, i chaperoned my friend’s mother to chemotherapy at baylor. she has recently been diagnosed with IBC. if i had not seen this video last year, i would never have known this form of breast cancer even existed.

when my friend called me a few months ago to describe the symptoms her mom was having, “rash on her breast”, “looks like a bug bite that has become infected”, “swollen breast”, “inverted nipple” and “itchy” — i told my friend, “i remember seeing a video…”  that simple bit of knowledge has made a difference. her physician had initially misdiagnosed her condition and therefore had lined up a form of treatment counterproductive to IBC.

therefore, i feel compelled to send this video along to each of you. although this form of cancer is rare, the fact that someone so close to me has been diagnosed caused me to pay a lot more attention to it – especially since standard mammograms and ultrasounds do not usually pick this up as it is “sheets” of cancer, rather than a lump.  (note: i just had my annual mammo and i asked the technician to confirm that it would not detect IBC, which she affirmed. she said that an MRI is the best method of detection, but as we all know, it is not the “norm” for annual screening.)

please mark your calendars for monthly self-exams and pay attention to anything out of the ordinary. be healthy and informed!

regards,

katie

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 10:28 pm and is filed under i am grateful too.