More than 200,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. And about six percent of all invasive breast cancer cases involve a condition called inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), the most aggressive and often undiagnosed form of the disease.IBC does not present itself in the form of a lump or mass and is typically not detected by self-examination, mammogram, or ultrasound.
IBC is a misunderstood disease. But if women learn to recognize some of the symptoms, there is a better chance for better diagnosis, treatment, and survival.
Think about this, a list of early symptoms of IBC:
• One breast rapidly becomes larger than the other
• Breast has a rash, redness, or blotchiness
• Breast and/or nipple persistently itches
• Breast tissue thickens or feels lumpy
• Breast becomes sore with sharp pains
• Breast is warm to the touch or feverish
• Lymph nodes under the arm or above the collarbone become swollen
• Breast dimples and may look like the skin of an orange
• Nipple retracts or flattens
• Color of the areola (the dark skin around the nipple) changes
Contact your doctor immediately if you detect any of these symptoms.
On January 14, 2005, my sister drove me to the hospital for my port placement -- a minor surgical procedure to implant an 
And so the countdown begins -- 22 days until my port comes out. On September 15 at 9:00 AM I will report to the basement of Shands Hospital at the University of Florida where I will be doped into a semi-conscious state and wheeled into an operating room. Doctors and nurses will open the skin near my collarbone and while watching their own procedure on a monitor hanging overhead will remove my port and all connected tubing. They will close my skin, leaving an incision that will quickly become a scar -- and a physical reminder of the cancer than once settled into my breast and the drugs that ran through my veins in search of it. It will be my battle scar -- second in importance only to the marks that criss cross my stomach and mark the spot where two big baby boys stretched my skin to unimaginable proportions.
My port -- that thing that pops up from under the skin on my collarbone, that thing that by default stays in place because I can't decide whether or not to remove it -- is now officially in maintenance mode, now that my treatment for breast cancer is complete. My last Herceptin infusion was on June 28. And my first port flush was today. For as long as I keep my port -- and for as long as it has no real use -- I must have it flushed one time each month. So today, I strolled into the cancer infusion center where I've spent many hours and this time spent just a few minutes -- enough time for my usual chemo nurse to puncture the skin on top of my port, push through a rather large needle, and inject a dose of blood thinner into the lines of the port to keep clots away. The whole procedure was harmless, painless, no big deal at all. And I will return one month from today for a repeat performance.
I can't decide what to do about my port now that my breast cancer treatment is over. It's been an on-going internal battle. I don't know whether I should leave it in place -- tunneled underneath the skin on my collarbone where it is available and accessible should I ever need further infusions of cancer-fighting drugs -- or whether I should have it removed since there is no real purpose for it right now. There is the issue of superstition and safety -- leaving it right where it is allows for easy use if cancer returns and prevents another surgery to implant a new one. But there is also the issue of moving on -- and removing it because I don't need it, because I may never need it. One doctor told me recently that it should come out because if it remains in my body, I risk infection. And anything foreign in my body for an extended period of time is not completely safe. But a cancer survivor told me that she had hers removed immediately after treatment and had to get a new one because her cancer recurred three months later.
