The Merits of the Case

I have written before about the people that breast cancer has brought into my life, and today I want to tell you about two more.

One is a young mother of two very young children who was diagnosed with breast cancer within days of me. I discovered her blog through mutual readers and have marveled at how closely our paths mirror one another’s. I’m not sure that I ever would have found her blog if I hadn’t been diagnosed with breast cancer. And I know I would not have known about IBC.

WhyMommy was diagnosed with the most deadly kind of breast cancer, called inflammatory breast cancer, or IBC. She was nursing her second baby when she came down with what the doctors diagnosed as mastitis, or a breast infection relatively common to nursing women. But it wasn’t mastitis at all, and thanks to her insistence that something was just not right she caught it and is being treated.

Another person you should know is Stella. I’m not certain anymore how we discovered one another’s blogs, but she has been incredibly supportive of me recently. She has taken the time to tell me about her chemotherapy experience and to offer words of encouragement and wisdom as I have struggled this week. I knew that Stella was a young mother and a breast cancer survivor, but I was astounded to learn just yesterday that Stella, like WhyMommy, also had IBC. She was also diagnosed with a breast infection which turned out to be cancer.

I think that it is important for all of us to know that breast cancer is not always simply an unexplained lump in the breast and that there are many different kinds of breast cancer. I have written before about the importance of self-exams and mammograms, but I think perhaps breast awareness is the most important idea of all. IBC doesn’t present itself as a lump and doesn’t show up on a mammogram, so awareness is by far the best prevention.

WhyMommy recently posted about IBC on her blog. With her permission, I am copying her post here so that you can read her words for yourself.

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.