<h2>Important Matters</h2>

Hello to all, and thank you for all of your kind words and support throughout the last month. I am now eight months pregnant and still feeling pretty good - although I am feeling more and more eager to deliver this baby. I wouldn't wish it too soon, though. Despite all the discomforts I am now experiencing, every moment will be well worth the healthy beautiful baby we get to hold in the end.

I continue to do some writing - a few press releases and some articles here and there. I have found that at this stage, I am enjoying the slower writing pace. It gives me time to prepare for the baby, but yet keeps me writing here and there, which also helps to pass the time.

But what I want to write about right now, I think is so much more important than how I am feeling, or what I am doing with my time until baby comes. I want to write about Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC).

My good friend, Betsy, has a blog. Perhaps some of you have checked it out, maybe not. Regardless of that, I have found a blog through hers that has moved me to tears. The blog is called Toddler Planet. It is about one woman's struggle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. I have visited Susan's site from time to time, and always leave inspired - inspired by her strength, courage, determination, and her goal to inform others of what IBC is and how to detect it.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer is not the typical breast cancer that we, as women, get educated about at our yearly gynecological visits (if you don't get a yearly exam, then you should seriously make the time to do so!). IBC is the most aggressive form of breast cancer there is and it is not detectable by a mammogram. IBC presents as sheets of cancer (or nests, as doctors refer to it)rather than lumps. What's worse is that doctors often mistake it for bug bites, or infections and try treating it with antibiotics. It is so aggressive that early detection is important for successful treatments. IBC knows no age boundaries. You can be a victim at 16 or at 76.

Here are a couple links that provide wonderful information about what it is, and how to detect it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEP5zY9rRao&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llBNfFaT0mw&feature=related

I am glad I stumbled upon Susan's site because I had never even heard of this condition, which is also known as "The Silent Killer." This lack of information seems to be the recurrent theme of all the victims who have had and are suffering from this disease. If you are reading this post please take a moment to view the videos I linked to. Women, inform yourselves and girlfriends. Men, inform your wives, mothers, and all the women you care about. Maybe you will save a life. Maybe it will be your own.

Hey, and if you have a spare moment, and are in need of some inspiration, stop by Toddler Planet and see what an amazing woman Susan is!