Darlene Graczyk always called her "girls" Thelma and Louise. And by the time they "went over the cliff, I was OK with it," the 59-year-old said.

In July, Graczyk had a bilateral mastectomy and 15 lymph nodes removed. She'd had time to prepare emotionally for the surgery because her type of rare breast cancer required months of chemo before the actual surgery.

"With chemo, I had time to think about that loss and do a little grieving for that loss," Graczyk said. "I think that makes a huge difference."

At the beginning of the year, Graczyk was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, a type that did not show up on mammograms. IBC constitutes less than 5 percent of diagnosed breast cancers.

"They describe it like a net or a spider web between the layer of skin and the breast tissue," Graczyk said. "By the time I had the biopsy, it had grown lumps."

In January, Graczyk noticed her left breast was inflamed and pink. Thinking it was winter dermatitis, she treated it with ointment. When it didn't go away, she hit the Internet. The results came up as mastitis or IBC. She visited her internist.

"Within less than a month, I'd had the mammogram, the ultrasound, a breast MRI, a biopsy, a mediport installed - kind of like human USB, so I don't have to be poked every time - and chemo, all within three weeks," said Graczyk, who lives in Bloomington.

Because of the spiderlike nature of IBC, she had to have chemotherapy before the mastectomy.

"They do chemo first because there's no way a surgeon can get this net - or the spider web's little fingers, so they try to shrink it," she said.

From February to June, every three weeks Graczyk would show up for chemotherapy. She has four radiation treatments left.

"Chemo is the pits. Even with the wonderful drugs they have, you're tired, you're nauseous. … You feel crummy."

The worst part of her treatments for Graczyk was the isolation. As chemotherapy diminished her immune system, she had to avoid going out in public.

"My white blood count has tanked, so the exposure to germy people and large groups of people is really high risk, so I end up spending a lot of time by myself," Graczyk said. "Particularly this winter, I felt like a caged animal going from window to window." Graczyk's husband died nine years ago, leaving her with her sister's family, friends and co-workers for support.

"Somebody would call and say, 'hey, I have to run some errand, would you like ride along?' The first few times I felt like a dog trying not to stick my head outside. It felt so good to be outside, even though I wasn't going into stores or inside."

To help her cope with her ordeal, her nephew set up a blog for her the night she was diagnosed, http://darsnowimpsallowed.com.

"That was my thing from the very beginning. I need supportive people around me. If you were going to be a wimp about it, keep your distance," Graczyk said.

The blog has been a great way for Graczyk to keep friends all over the country updated, and at the same time it's a good source of therapy.

"It's made me realize the life lessons that are out there that you get with cancer, whether you signed up for it or not," Graczyk said.

Throughout her 10-month ordeal, Graczyk has learned a thing or two.

"Cancer forced me to be patient," she said. "You're going to have to wait to see a doctor, you have to wait for results, you have to wait for the next treatment. Well, you can either drive yourself nuts with the impatience or you can learn patience.

"You also learn to appreciate all the little things. Just the littlest things in nature, you drive downtown and you see a building's been painted and you notice architecture you've never seen before."

She encourages those who have just been diagnosed to do the research and make sure they trust their doctors. She talks about how she would have two browser windows open on the computer, one with an article and the other a medical dictionary.

"I was able to have three pages of questions for my oncologists." As they talked, she started recognizing what he was saying from reports she'd read. "The more we talked, the higher my respect was for him, the higher my trust was for him."

Be prepared during the research to find out information you may not be ready to deal with.

"It's really hard to stay really clinical with the research and not read it and go, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die,'" she said. "You have to step away from it. You have to be knowledgeable."

Graczyk is planning to retire from State Farm's Creative Services department next year. She isn't completely sure what she'll do, but the cancer has helped her solidify some of her plans.

"All you can do is pay it forward. Now I know I'll be there for the next person. And now I want to volunteer at the Cancer Center," Graczyk said. "There are things that I know I want to do for the greater good, but I would never have followed before the cancer."