Article: Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Please read this one. No lumps. Very aggressive cancer. Please read and remember the signs.

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/inflammatory-breast-cancer/

The author passed away yesterday:
http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/goodbye/

I didn't know her. Didn't know her blog until yesterday. But I can't stop the tears. I keep thinking about her little boys, one of them born in 2007, just like my Ari. I keep thinking about her husband. I keep thinking about what she must have gone through, knowing that her time with her family was so limitted.

One of Ari's teachers was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. This horrible disease... It is everywhere. It shows up, out of the blue, and takes over people's lives.

The teacher at Ari's school is receiving lots of drawings from the little ones, cards from the parents, support from the staff. A few of us moms from her classroom are now collecting gift cards so that she can get whatever she needs.

It is beautiful to see all the love, all the families trying to help. But it is so sad. So many thoughts. So many questions. How is she doing? How is it looking, i.e., what stage? Will she come back? I so hope she can. I so wish we could do so much more than send her gift cards.

Pardon my French, but cancer is an asshole and I so wish we were a lot closer to finding cures. I wish people were doing more than talking about the color of their bra. I wish more people knew that some nutrients apparently do manage to help shrink tumors. If it is true that some nutrients are so effective, I wish oncologists were combining chemo and alternative medicine more often.

There is wishing and there is doing. What you can do:

Give blood.

Give platelets.

Donate your hair.

Donate money to a cancer research group.

Donate your time at an oncology unit.