IBC moves so fast and is so aggressive
that it has moved up and around my breast
taking over more and more skin
making it angry, thick, red, and tough
and painful
just in the last week
and the two weeks since diagnosis
and i can’t decide whether to look away or to simply scream
STOP.
Toddler Planet is written by Susan Niebur, four time cancer survivor, astrophysicist, and mom of two happy little 4 & 6 year old boys. Susan is now fighting metastatic breast cancer in her spine, neck, ribs, and hips, with chemo and pain meds, still looking for that "new normal."
Susan also pins and writes blogs about inspiring women in planetary science and the challenges and joys of mothering through cancer.
Susan's work as been featured by Pinterest, Parents, Health, CNN.com, Fox 5 News, Today's Mom Blog, BlogHer, Bloganthropy, Edwards (CA), Notebook (AU), Washington Post Story Lab, and over 400 blogs helping raise awareness of inflammatory breast cancer -- cancer that kills without a lump. Contact: email, comment, or tweet @WhyMommy or @WomenPlanetSci. Please subscribe to posts, add to your reader, or "Like" Toddler Planet on Facebook for updates! Thank you for your support as I fight the biggest battle of my life.
Twittering….
© 2006-2011. All material is the work of the author of this blog, known publicly as WhyMommy. This copyrighted material may not be reproduced without the author's permission.
| Blog: |
| Toddler Planet |
Topics: |
| science, cancer, motherhood |
Toddler Planet 
but….little does it know YOU are all over it and about to give it a one-two punch!
Don’t look away.
STARE IT DOWN. Tell it, over and over and over again, “I am going to get you!”
And if it dares to say, “oh yeah, you and what army?”, you have the answer. Your army of medicine and science and your army of friends and support!
You start soon! The first battle of the war is won. The second begins now. And it is going down!
that fast…jeebus.
i am so glad your chemo begins this morning. stare that IBC straight in the face, and give it hell.
i know this will be tough, this process…but it is a road to healing. and we are all holding you in the light, sending you strength.
It’s almost 8:30 now. Your cancer starts to lose its battle right now. I am thinking of you.
It’s 8:45 and you’re already delivering the first jack to cancer’s chin. Take that, you bastard! Oh, and if you want to scream, go ahead – make it a war cry.
Look down at it and tell it I said to “piss off.”
Now, look up at that infusion nurse and tell her I said, “I love you.”
I never thought I would be so excited to have my bff pumped full of chemicals. But I am. Happy chemo day! This is the first punch. Give it to ’em good.
Our thoughts are with you!
Love ya!
Scream at it. Tell it to get the hell out of there.
Do whatever it takes! You can do it!
Love,
M^2L^2
We will scream with you. Real loud.
Don’t show it any mercy! You must stay strong and kick its ass…If you do scream, scream loudly and proudly that you will KICK ASS!!!!!
I’ll join you!
Yeah, well you are fighting back just a quickly. In two weeks, you have developed a battle plan and you are going to kick this cancer’s butt….
I’m thinking of you this morning. You are stronger than any cancer.
Wow YM…you have some violent female friends. I actually kinda like that! Anybody here single? Okay, nevermind.
Serious here YM…this fight is so already a W. Don’t even worry about it. And remember that you have the holy hand grenade still to be used. (be sure and count to five. or three, sir, three.)
Good luck today – thinking of you.
Go ahead. Yell “Stop” right at the cancer. Tell it who is boss… YOU!
Just don’t do that while the kids are napping. If there is one thing I’ve learned since becoming a mom it is to let a sleeping child go on sleeping. 😉
Stare it in the face! And know that lots of people are praying.
That is your breast, your skin. The redness is but a temporary stain that your strength and courage, backed by our ocassionally violent support, will scrub the hell out. Good luck mama.
It’s 11:30. Thinking of you kicking cancer’s ass here in Massachusetts.
You will beat this. It was caught early. It stops now.
I can’t imagine how frightening that would be, to watch.
But the chemo? It’ll stop that damn interloper right in its tracks. Right. in. its. tracks.
And then it will turn and run away, as fast as its little interloper legs can carry it.
You know, I just wrote about how my husband handled the thunder that was scaring our 2 year old last night. He told him to scare thunder back and tell it who’s the boss. Hollis growled back at the thunder and, even though everything was still stormy, it helped. I know a suggestion to growl at your cancer sounds silly, but it might help. Just a bit.
You’re already yelling at it, and attacking it. Just silently. Feel free to talk to it, yell at it, and growl at it. It helps. I talk to my herniated disc and tell it to crawl back through into it’s blasted hole already. And it helps. It’s something smaller, but then you’re someone stronger. 🙂
Congrats on beginning chemo today, even though you started fighting back at it weeks ago.
Stare it down, mama. Tell it you don’t take crap from anybody, least of all some cancer.
Congrats on your first day of chemo. I’m sure it will deliver a hard punch and back up your staredown!
I’m not quite sure how I found your blog, but once I saw it I had to tell you about my family.
My mom and dad found out they both had cancer within 1 week of each other. They had 4 children. I was the oldest at 12 and my brother was the youngest at 11 months.
My dad had melanoma that, luckily, was easy to treat with surgery. He is great today (after 4 bouts with melanoma).
My mom, however, had non-hodgkins lymphoma. She had to stop breastfeeding immediately just as you have had to. She was devastated. But, she had to start chemo right away. Luckily it worked. The cancer was gone. However, preventatively, she decided to have a bone marrow transplant (with her own stem cells). 14 years later, she is still healthy.
Last year, a month before my husband and I were married, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy the following week and began chemo 3 days after our wedding. After several months of chemo and several months of radiation, the cancer is gone. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow to remove her remaining breast (as a preventative measure).
I hope that you find hope in these stories. Your children won’t remember (I don’t remember much and I was 12). My mom stills tells us often that it was because of us (her 4 kids) that she was able to fight so hard (she was out of the hospital the fastest of anybody they had treated). Stay strong. Even people who don’t know you are behind you 110%.
Shit! That would make me want to take a knife to it myself.
Sounds very scary. But I’m sending a hairy eyeball in its direction.
Thinking of you today. Hang in there strong woman. We’re with you in spirit. And I’ve looked out over the city from my office view casting healing thoughts in your direction. You should have seen how the window washers took that.
I’m with everyone else…stare it down.
You’ll definitely win this stare down contest.
Thinking of you today from Florida. Today you took a huge step forward towards your goal. You’ll get there.
Back again. You’re going to lick this with strength, grace and an audience/pit crew behind, beside and beneath you every step of the way.
Thinking of you today, as you take this HUGE step forward!! I hope you FEEL all the love and power being sent to you by all of your Team Members. Every time you look down at your skin, Whymommy, you just think of US, okay? Because there’s NO WAY we’re all going to let that cancer get away with this… Together, we are all going to help you WIN. Go, Girl– We’re so proud of you. xoxo
I came over after reading Spacemom’s post. My mother was diagnose with breast cancer over ten years ago. She fought it whole-heartedly and aggressively and is now a SURVIVOR!! Keep fighting.
Thinking of you and your precious boys today. Today is the first day of your successful battle!
Hmmm. I’m voting for STOP.
Get mad! It’s one way to let the cancer know it’s not welcome in your body. Keep fighting.
Have been thinking of you all day. Congrats on getting through your first day of chemo.
You are, without a doubt, going to beat this. You are stronger than the cancer. You listened to your body and caught it early. Beat the crap out of it!
I loved Susan K’s comment, and all the rest. Just adding my voice to the chorus of ‘give ‘er!’
Cancer picked the wrong mama, brave, beautiful mama. Kudos and love to you as you begin this healing path, and cheers to the day you’ll be able to look back on all this as a mere episode in your long and lustrous life.
Well if only that cancer had know the fight it was going to get from WhyMommy and Team WhyMommy.
[…] first, I was freaked out by its progress as it marched over my breast, turning everything red and […]
[…] no better yet, but the spread of the cancer since diagnosis has been stopped (whoo-hoo!), and the inflammation is on the […]
[…] on HOW my ribs got out of place: here’s the theory. The cancer in the right breast grew so fast and so strong that the weight increased faster than any muscles could compensate. The heavy […]