My mother was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer in April 2010 after being treated for mastitis for 11 days. She started chemo right away, and it was a tough fight from the beginning. She started off the fight very ill from massive doses of antibiotics that killed her stomach. She got through 5 months of chemo, and was able to have a bilateral mastectomy. Then after she healed from the surgery she started several weeks of radiation every day. After she finished the radiation she started chemo again for another 5 moths. In April 2012 she was cancer free. The after math of all the treatments took a toll on her. She had horrible swelling in her left arm that made it impossible for her to do every day things like laundry. She struggled with that badly, and was tired all of the time. She was very weak, and it made her very depressed. She was blessed with another grandbaby in Dec. 2012, and she was very excited. She wanted to be able to so many things with him, but was limited because of swelling and weakness. She traveled a far distance in March 2013 to undergo a surgery to minimize the swelling in her left arm. At the same time she got breast reconstruction, and a tummy tuck. She was so excited about going on with life. When she came home she was still very tired. She spent the summer babysitting her new grandbaby as well as her other grandchildren. She struggled with fatigue the whole time. Then she ended up with an infection in her left breast that scared us, but turned out not to be cancer. Just when we thought she was on the mend she got sick, again. She ended up in the hospital with a diagnoses of ALL leukemia. Almost 3 weeks later died from an infection Sept. 12, 2013. My mother was a fighter until the very end. She is truly my hero. Some of her last words (she sat up in bed to look at her grandchildren), "Grandma is so very blessed!"

Anonymous
Clinton, MO