Wow, Bobert, I had no idea. I'm deeply sorry for your loss.

Crystal's initial post exemplifies the lack of awareness out there. Crystal, I'm glad you put your researching skills to work here; thanks for the info. It's scary to know that part of the problem is a confusion over nomenclature of the condition. If Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) is an Americanism, what is it called where you are?

Crystal's statements about lumps are correct; according to what little I've found, IBC does not present as a palpable lump but as a "sheet" of cells, difficult or impossible to detect by self-exam or even with the standard mammogram. Apparently the inflammation of the skin of the breast can look like an infected spider bite or like mastitis, and that symptom can fool some doctors (check out the pic on the 2nd page ["Signs and Symptoms"] of the Mayo Clinic site that I linked in my first post -- it's graphic so I didn't link directly to that page -- let the kids be warned). But when it's IBC, there's no fever, and of course it won't clear up with antibiotics.

Sins, the annual check is great advice, but in the case of IBC symptoms one should never wait that long; in fact, it's so aggressive that one shouldn't wait at all.

Here's some more useful info, edited from the Mayo Clinic site:

"Despite its name, inflammatory breast cancer isn't caused by an inflammation or infection. Inflammatory breast cancer occurs when cancer cells clog the lymphatic vessels in the skin overlying the breast. The blockage in the lymphatic vessels causes the red, swollen and dimpled skin that's a classic sign of inflammatory breast cancer.

"Because inflammatory breast cancer progresses rapidly, by the time most women seek medical advice, the cancer is already quite advanced. If you notice any of the signs and symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer, see your doctor right away.

"If you're being treated for a breast infection (mastitis), but your signs and symptoms last longer than a week after starting antibiotics, ask your doctor to do some imaging studies of the breast or to perform a breast biopsy. If these test results show no signs of cancer, but your signs and symptoms appear to be getting worse, talk with your doctor about performing another biopsy or ask for a referral to a breast specialist... [A]dditional tests [include] a chest X-ray, computerized tomography (CT) scan of your chest and abdomen, and bone scan, to check for the presence of cancer cells in other parts of your body (metastasis).

"Historically, inflammatory breast cancer was treated by surgery and was associated with a 100 percent mortality rate. However, significant progress has been made in recent years using a combination of treatments, including chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy. The combined-treatment approach has vastly improved the prognosis for a woman with inflammatory breast cancer. What was once universally fatal is now a disease that results in half of women diagnosed being alive in five years and one-third of women diagnosed surviving 10 or more years."

Yikes, these survival rates are still way too low for the state of the art of medical technology to tolerate. Wonder how long it will take for the health-care industry to replace routine mammograms with routine MRI's and/or CT's.