Some people call it intuition. I call it instinct. It’s that feeling you have deep inside when you know something isn’t right or at least it’s about to go terribly wrong. I can remember a few of those moments over the past few years that have hallowed a pit in my stomach.

The first being the day of my car accident. It’s not something I can explain, but upon preparing for the day and packing up the car, I had this feeling of uncertainty. I’m not superstitious by any means, but something made me feel as if things were not going to go as planned. Ethan and I went about our business of course, packed up the car, visited a friend and her new baby, then headed to Wal-Mart.

I stood in an aisle at the store and debated buying a set of 3 lined baskets for about 10 minutes. My first thought was they would make a great birthday present for my cousin Stephanie. They were her style. My second thought was her birthday was still a few weeks away, maybe I should wait. My last thought was that I may not get them to her. I can’t remember why that last concern crossed my mind as I debated, but I know it did.

Those 10 minutes affected the rest of my life and the lives of those around me. Since that day I have relived the accident and what-if’s in my mind so many times. Ten minutes. Ten minutes would have placed me at my mom’s house for lunch when the accident was happening to someone else. I bought the baskets and even though I was in ICU during her birthday, she did get them.

The next memory I have was the night before Stephanie passed away. I had called her house and there was no answer. I knew she should be home, as she had been the past few days since she wasn’t feeling well. For some reason I knew something just wasn’t right. By the next morning my mother entered our back sliding glass door to tell me she was gone and in some ways I was not surprised. It was a very sad moment, but a peaceful one.

The last one I experienced was today. My arm has been unusually swollen since they removed the PICC line over a month ago. Finally, the doctor decided to have an ultrasound and check it out. As I was laying on a cold table in my bra and jeans and a technician ran the wand up and down my arm and chest, that familiar feeling was returning. Before she even said there is a problem, I knew. My thoughts revolved around a memory of Stephanie that I hold close to my heart and I was concentrating on it, rather than the technician’s words.

Turns out I have a serious blood clot in my shoulder area. The hospital staff and my doctor (who met me there) were rushing around making phone calls, running additional tests and I remained calm. If you know me, you know I am known for my excited nature.

By late morning I was sitting in my family doctor’s office listening to him explain the seriousness of this clot. He told me that the concern is it breaking off and traveling to my heart and lungs causing death. Instead of feeling like life was suddenly spinning out of control, I remembered Stephanie. A similar blood clot took her life before the cancer had time to full ravage her body.

In so many ways these feelings I have keep me protected from the unknown and living life in a state of fear. Instinct is our God-given natural protection. I don’t think it’s coincidence that Stephanie has been the center of these three instances and I wouldn’t be surprised for her to be there for more.

My son and I were sitting in a CVS parking lot last Friday afternoon waiting on my husband, when I started asking him about his day at school. He responded with his usual ramblings…Garrett did this…Owen did that…we ate pizza for lunch…oh, and we talked about why God takes people from us.

I asked more about the last statement he revealed. Ethan talked about how God decides when it’s time to die and that as people get older it’s just their time to go to Heaven. I agreed with him and then came a question that I was not prepared for.

“Stephanie was young, so why did God want her in Heaven right now?”

It’s hard to know what to tell a 5 year old when it comes to death. I’ve struggled with that immensely. He’s so young and impressionable, that I certainly don’t want to scare him. Afterall, it is my job to protect him.

My earliest memory of death was in second grade when my grandfather passed away. I’m not sure I totally understood it then, but I accepted the fact he was gone from our daily lives. My exposure to loss after that was minimal and in a way naive. I was shielded from grief until I was much older.

Ethan has already been faced with more trauma than any child should be exposed to. After all, he still recites vivid details from the car accident when he wasn’t quite 2 years old. I often forget that the tragic ordeal didn’t just happen to me, because sometimes memories can be more hurtful than injuries. From the backseat he saw more than I did.

Nine months after that accident, we buried my cousin (his God-mother) and my grandmother. He doesn’t talk about their funerals or any specific details, but there are moments when he’ll ask a question or make a statement that leads me to believe he does remember.

I explained as best I could, with tears forming in my eyes, that sometimes people get sick and they get so sick that God can’t even help them get better. So, instead of letting them suffer and be in pain, He brings them to be with Him. And although it’s hard for us because we miss them, we know they are watching over us and we’ll see them again.

Then came something I will never forget. Ever.

“Mom, I’m glad that when that lady hit our car and it spun around and you were hurt so bad, that God didn’t decide you needed to go to Heaven then. I’m sorry you miss Stephanie, but I’m glad we have an angel looking over us. She won’t let you get hurt again.”

I wasn’t even able to respond. There are times when Ethan has such an insightful heart, that I know he will go on to serve this world in a capacity beyond my expectations. (Even if he does pick his nose and eat it.)

As I was writing a post for Props & Pans on the Black Friday sales today, I remembered an after Thanksgiving shopping experience I had about 7 years ago.

My cousin, Stephanie, and I would spend time at our Thanksgiving family lunch going through the sale ad’s and mapping out a plan of attack. The next morning we’d meet up insanely early and get in line, ready to shop.

Our most memorable trip was to ShopKo. I can’t remember what the big sale was we were after, but it was a department store similar to Target. We arrived 30 minutes before it opened and stood out in a dark, cold parking lot about 100 people back from the door at 4:30 a.m. shivering.

Once the store opened and we reached the inside there were no shopping carts left. We went started shopping and within minutes had an arm full. The more we looked around, the more we found. I had her stay put and hold our stuff while I went in search of something to carry our items in.

At first I looked for a laundry basket, but then realized how awkward it would be to carry. My next thought was a miniature toy shopping cart, but I had no luck in finding one. Finally, a light bulb went off!

I came running down the aisle yelling for Stephanie, “I’ve got it!” I will never forget how hard she laughed as I came towards her with a trash can on wheels. (Hell, it even had a lid!)

It was the perfect solution. I brought two, one for each of us. As we wheeled our items through the store, other customers stared and I’m sure they wondered if we were actually out at 5 a.m. to purchase trash cans.

One of the many things I miss about Stephanie is the great memories we would create in any situation. There wasn’t much I could do to embarrass her free spirit.

This morning I’m headed out to fight the crowds alone in search of some half-price Transformers at Toys-R-Us. As far as I know they don’t sell trash cans, but they do sell wagons. I may need to cause a scene just for her.

Edited: I left the house at 4:30 a.m. this morning thinking I’d at least get a decent parking spot at Toys-R-Us when they opened at 5 a.m. I was SOOO wrong! I parked behind the store in a mall parking lot across the street. There was a line from the front of the store around the back of the building and into the mall parking lot. Stunned, I opened my car door, stood up, felt the chilly 30 degree air and decided no Transformer was worth this madness. Even at half-price. So I headed back home to my warm bed.

This month when the e-mail came into my inbox for “July’s Perfect Post Awards” (thanks to Petroville & Surburban Turmoil) I didn’t even have to go back and look for something to nominate. A post was still very fresh in my mind.

WHYMOMMY @ Toddler Planet was recently diagnosed with IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer). She’s begun chemotherapy and dealing with the new daily issues that arise, such as explaining to a toddler why mommy’s hair is falling out.

She has two young children and now in what seems like a nightmare, she is living out her title answering questions from her little one who wants to know “why mommy?”

When I first started reading her initial post in which she described her symptoms I knew before I read the three letter word what it was. How would I know? Stephanie. My cousin. Who had IBC. And died….9 months later.

Stephanie didn’t have a lump. And doctors kept telling her it was an infection. Then they said she’s too young (30 years old) to have cancer. Turns out she did have it. And despite how hard she fought, no drug or treatment could stop it.

It’s that aggressive. It’s that serious. It’s that important to spread the word. Because Stephanie is the FIRST person I’d ever heard of having IBC and now I hear of a second person. Two people in my lifetime is too many!

WHYMOMMY had asked that this post explaining IBC be spread around. So I’m posting it here for you to read and pass along. It’s my nomination for “July’s Perfect Post.”

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.

P.S. Feel free to steal this post too. I’d be happy for anyone in the blog-o-sphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked. Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care. But I want the word to get out. I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis? Is it a rash? Am I overreacting? This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.

Thank you.

For more information visit: http://www.ibcresearch.org

Last night as I was driving home from work I passed by a cancer center which is located on the campus of the hospital that shares the same street as we do. It doesn’t seem like very long ago that my cousin, Stephanie, spent many Monday’s there receiving chemotherapy. If you’ve never been inside a chemo treatment room, it feels like death. Seeing all these balding people looking weak, scared and fragile sitting in recliners with IV’s hooked up to the port in their chest or arm.

Visiting her on treatment days was difficult. I always had this sinking feeling where my heart felt like it was falling. A wave of numbness comes over you and suddenly you feel guilty walking past these people who are fighting for their lives when your biggest problem is deciding where to eat lunch that day. But we did visit her. She would ask us to come because sitting there for hours on end while toxins are poured into your body leaves your mind to wander and the distraction was welcome.

There are good memories from being with her and my aunt; playing cards to pass the time, picking up Olive Garden to eat lunch with her, and my mom bringing her the biggest chocolate bar I’ve ever seen and Stephanie finding it hilarious.

And with the good come the bad; remembering what she looked like with no hair, how her skin would turn red and react to the chemo, and watching her rest her eyes and praying it wouldn’t be forever.

As I drove by tonight the building was lit up and so was the treatment room where we spent several Monday’s. In the shadows I could see the metal IV poles lingering, all waiting for patients to be hooked up to them the next day.

I wonder how many of the cancer patients that have sat in that same recliner are alive today. In some ways the recliner mimics an electric chair. So many people know what is coming. And for those who do make it, they live in fear for the rest of their lives of what might return.

It was 2 years ago today that Stephanie left this Earth for a more peaceful place where she could be healed. A large pink ribbon is hanging from the brick exterior of the cancer center building. It just happens to sit directly above the window of the room we sat with Stephanie in.

My heart is heavy tonight.