MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

cookiegal

Sorry 'bout the double post.

Does anyone live in Atlanta? If you do and want to participate in a hair-brained scheme PM me!

carollynn79

CNB, FNB I do not like either but at times they are a necessary evil.  I had the CNB on my BC and the FNB on my thyroid.  I had 5 done on my thyroid and the freeze meds did not work well, finally told them to get it done!!!

NativeMainer

Yes, my mom, stepfather and I are going to Boston the day before.  I have to be at the hospital at 6 am, and it's a 5 to 6 hour drive to Boston from home, so overnight stay lets Mom & Dick get some sleep the night before.  I don't expect I'll sleep any, going to read the night away, I'll get plenty of sleep duirng the day! 

As far as I'm concerned, FNB/CNB all involve needles, therefore are to be avoided at all costs, and will require large amounts of pain medication/sedation/restraints to ever be done on me again!  I cannot imagin having to go through any of that again!  I can barely get through a "routine" blood test!  Show me a needle and watch the panic attack start. I'm actually going to ask the anesthesiologist to put me to sleep with gas and start the IV after I'm asleep.  They do that with kids all the time, no reason they can't do it for me! 

suzwes

I'll be thinking and praying for you NM - especially on Monday morning.  Isn't it funny but I'm horrid with needles on myself - I always say I can give them but I sure can't take them.  I'm starting to send the positive vibes your way!

NativeMainer

Thanks--if they can't put me out before the IV, pray that they get the IV started in the first few tries--last time it was 6 sticks to get one started and I was totally freaked. The more people praying and sending good vibes my way the better off I'll be, I am totally sure!  Thank you ALL!

squidwitch42

done!  remember to breathe....did you have the anesthesiologist do your IV last time? they should be the most experienced...sending you good vibes!!!

elimar86861

Seems like only yesterday...but we are up to 4,000 posts now! 

Keep 'em coming...        

Raj20

Hi, I am 51. I would love to join the middled age woman group. I feel satisfaction when I go through each and everyone"s feeling expressed  in the posts. I wish If I can join the group  personally and meeting  all the members. I set my mind to keep always smiling and happy

Meece

NM last time I had surgery, the pre-op staff tried to get a blood draw on me, and couldn't find a vein.  One nurse was trying to stick me, and another was hoding a flashlight trying to locate a vein.  They tried heating my arm with towels, but I get tense and my veins constrict when they start poking and missing, which makes it more difficult.

PauldingMom

CNB here and I didn't have any problem. Yes, it was no picnic but it wasn't any worse than getting a tooth filled. Luckily my tumor was up high and right in front, 12:00 ish. I remember sitting in the waiting room with my DD and the lady in front of me was in horrible pain. She asked me what I was having done and when she told me she just had the same thing I started to freak out a bit. I think it has allot to do with location.

I'm taking a break for a while, so please feel free to carry on without me. I'll report all the details when I get back. XXXOOO 

elimar86861

Hello to new posters squidwitch42 (Triple Neg.) and rajkumari (Triple Pos.) ... if only your cancers could have cencelled each other out.  You are more than welcome to join us here as we deal with our breast cancer past, present, and the looming question marks of the future. 

faithandfifty

Hi Middies.

I am just back from my l-o-n-g awaited "second opinion" appointment and I am dancing on the rooftop!! Literally.

It took 7 weeks to get onto her docket, but I LOVE her!!!! Talk about an answer to prayers.

For 3 months I have had a "hard as a brick" (the term used by my PCP in April) protrusion from my incision line. As big as an egg. It made things difficult, like breathing and other little operations the body likes to undergo.

Long story short, this surgeon drained it of 60 ccs of fluid in a heartbeat. NM I won't describe the syringe, but I will tell you that I 'welcomed' it into my body.

In any case in less than a minute I could actually, factually breathe again for the first time in months and months. Another minute later and the pain just disappeared.

HALLELUJAH. I'm probably not completely outta the woods yet, because it's likely to refill and will need periodic visits till I win & it looses.

I think the take-away message here relates to Elimar's recent post about doctors. We are indeed our first and best advocates. At the last visit with my surgeon (who had removed each of my DCIS on ocasions 1 & 2 -- who I held in pretty high esteem) I knew that he & I had parted ways over trust and professionalism and in retrospect, I have "fired" him & sought a new person to take the helm.

My PCP urged me to go elsewhere & I owe her a great debt of gratitude for being the first person to listen to me.

So here's to breathing and all of the other assorted goodies that come with a Wednesday HUMP day. Welcome to the newbies in the land of the middies.

Native, twill be praying & thinking good thoughts for you all next week and beyond. The time is at hand and that's a good thing!! May your medical team be stellar in every possible way.

xx00xx00xx00xx

barbe1958

So a simple seroma couldn't have been diagnosed by your other docs????? It's almost a given once you've had lymphs removed and drains and chest surgery...

You poor thing you! You're probably like me and don't bitch too much to the docs, just want to be their most likeable patient..

Meece

Isn't that funny, we think that if we sit and melt into the background our doctors will like us more, but will they do more for us? 

I do get quite a sense of humor when stressed i.e. before surgery, and can be quite the conversationalist at that time.

Eph3_12

Faith, after my lumpectomy last year, my operated on boob got hard as a rock & globe-like.  Ultimately, after a some messing around with pills for a couple weeks because the doctor thought it was possibly infected, she stuck a needle in and drained off TONS of fluid (blood tinged)  Made it all better!  Why do doctors have mental block re: seroma/hemotomas?  I think they don't think their surgical prowess would cause such things to happen or something.

faithandfifty

Actually girlfriends, I think it was just the opposite with me.

I was being anything but compliant. I think my years here had filled me w confidence, information and opinion on how I wanted things to proceed. I think he knew that. 

When I asked for a compression sleeve & gauntlet to have for flying he said "No, you don't need that." I told him I wasn't leaving his office till he wrote me the script. Seriously. 

He couldn't believe my tenancity. He realized I wasn't kidding and wrote it out -- in such a way that said something about 'patient DEMANDS sleeve' to express his not being on board. He probably wanted my insurance co to dismiss the claim. LOL. 

Well I won't bore you with the rest of our final show-down, but I found someone to take me seriously and someone to listen. 

The sleeve came to a head, because when I asked him for a script for PT he said no (at an earlier visit & I left w/o it. Ultimately my PCP wrote it out for me.) After reflection on that episode I was furious with myself for backing down when I clearly needed PT. 

So when the compression sleeve thing started down the same road, I dug my heals in. Well, the rest is history.

Meece

That's what we have heels for, digging in.  (I can talk tough, but I cower at authority).

3jaysmom

i am/ will be praying..i understand , the iv is the thing that gets me, also. i have "collapsible " veins, its bad, and i hear you.. i grew up near  Boston in Natick, and was very familiar with Deaconess.. a great womans hospital for many, many years. i know yo9u will be in the best of hands there.  my nana was a brittle diebetic, spent some time there , on and off, and it was always wonderful. i will be praying for your drs. hand to be in the Great Physicians hands while u r there. and for one exceptional nurse to find a nice, juicy available vein!!  am here with you, honey..i know u can do it, because i, and many women here have         light and love,     3jaysmom

deborye

Awesome news Debbie, I am soooo happy for you.  I am so happy with my doctor's.  I just had my mammo after waiting a year, I told the technician I was nervous as hell, but she came in the waiting room with a slight skip to her step and said, "You're all clear, they say it looks good."  PHEW!

NativeMainer

Debbie--Hooray for clear mammos!

Thanks for the prayers, 3jaysmom, I'm actually feeling less nervous as the day gets closer.  The anesthesia people already know that I'm serously needle phobic and a hard stick, so they should be prepared. 

Faith--digging in your heels was the right thing to do, and it sounds like your doc needed to be "fired" for being an a$$hole.  Meece--I have a hard time with authority, too, but I've learned to figure out ahead of time what I want/need from an appointment and sticking with it until I get exactly that. 

squidwich--here in the boonies of Maine the anethesiologists do not start IV's, the nurses do. You don't see an anethesiologist until you are being wheeled into the OR,  I've actually signed anethesia consents in the OR after moving onto the OR table.  I've already signed all the consents for Monday's surgery, so I'm pretty sure things will go better this time.  I've already got clearance to take an extra xanax the morning of surgery, and that will help. 

barbe1958

Faith, I wish I knew that's what was hurting you. I had a lump that was truly the size of my DH's thumb and just as hard, just below my incision line. Hard as a rock! I went to a walk-in clinic and told the doc to drain it. He said it was too hard so it certainly wasn't fluid. I was only about 4 weeks out of surgery and still pretty tough at that point, and demanded. He said I was sooooooo wrong and took a syringe and then another and another and another! He was stunned! My DH cringed because the doc just stuck it right into the incision line but I was still numb anyway...

Anyway, that area never seemed to "stick" to my chest wall and has been my droopy boob ever since...sigh. When I had my reexcision I was rougher on it, massaging so it wouldn't build up fluid again (and it didn't) but still never really stuck.

shannon56

WOW I just found this thread.  I participate in the "older women" because when I was last visiting the site that was all there was (prior to July 2009).

I have an area on the surgical site that filled with fluid.  Scarred the heck out of me as I thought it was a new tumor (felt it Feb. this year).  Onc felt it and said it was just a sack with fluid which relieved me.  About 2 weeks later I had a mammogram (yearly) and the results were clear, they did an ultrasound to make sure and the sack was actually smaller than it had been in Sept 09 when I couldn't feel it. So when I had my PET/CT I thought no problem I'll be NED.  Wrong of me to assume as there is - and I quote as best as I can remember - "an area adjacent to the scar tissue of lumpechtomy that had an uptake of (the radio active sugar) and the cells in that area are asymetrical".  So Tuesday is ultrasound w/ biopsy once again and who knows what after that.

On the other prevelent topic -- I love my surgeon (he said I was the first patient to ever request chemo), my m-onc who will answer any question I ask sincerely and completely, and my rad onc who goes into more detail than any dr I've ever known.  My sureon was a PS at one time so my scar for the lumpechtomy doesn't show and it's only been a year plus a little since the surgery.  The incision for the lymphnodes is fading too.

elimar86861

Howdy shannon56!  It seems pretty normal to want chemo for Grade 3, HER2+ B/C.  After all, hormonal therapy is not going to be of help.  Are you getting core-needle biopsy?  Let us know how that goes (hope not a lot of pain or bruising for you) and what the results are.  Remember, sometimes areas of healing can show up on a PET scan.  It displays any area where cells are more active  Best of luck on Tuesday!!!

I feel very fortunate not to have had a seroma problem.  The tumor cavity did feel hard for some months, but not troublesome.  Now, the whole surgerized boob is almost back to it's former pliability.  (Pliable is my euphemism for mid-age sag.) 

elimar86861

suzwes, I had to hear about your birthday on another thread, and you know I can't show up with my baked goods over there, undermining all that weight loss.  So, I had to whip these up real quick today in between World Cup soccer matches.  (Can't miss all that eye-candy running around on the pitch.)

      Happy Belated!

3jaysmom

happy birthday belated suzewes, here, too. i have a hard seroma under my port..bs says dont worry, itll absorb, but it hasnt at all in 6 mos..should i be concerned? let me know guys.. theyre already lookinf for cancer of stomach, colon, so ill follow this if i need to. thanks ladies...light and love,     3jaysmom

cookiegal

Hey all, interesting day. I went to the LE therapist who is ordering some sort of new swollen boobie squeezing garment for me. It's a tube top which means I could actually wear it with a lot of outfits! You can even choose colors.

I said does this mean you are sure I have LE and she said, not really, I could still be swelling from rads. She even taped my scars with some sort of scar-wiggling tape to help loosen them up.

Have a great evening! 

Eph3_12

Hey Elimar, I was wondering what day everyone posed for the group shot, cause I must not have got the memo.  There isn't a short, fat, curlyheaded, white-haired grumpy mother of a teenager in that photo, so obviously I'm not there!!!!!

gillyone

Very funny Joni!!

OG56

Hello Everyone, and welcome to the newbies! I had the pleasure (heavy sarcasm) Friday of visiting my Oncologist. I gave him a study to read regarding Aromasin, which I switched to about 6 months ago..it looks like its not as good for me as my previous drug Arimidex and I told him I wanted to switch back. He did at least read it and he expounded on it for a minute and then wrote me a script for Arimidex. He also told me because of my PLCIS I was probably looking at 10 vs 5 years.Yippee

I have to chime in and say that I have had all the above types of biopsies and the Stereotactic was by far the worst for me, the positioning alone was enough to cripple me for day's.

Native, I can't believe your re-con date is here already, I will be keeping you wrapped up in positive thoughts and your surgeons too! Just ask for your IV to be started in surgery I insist upon it because I am a difficult stick!  Of course I have let them do it in pre-op before because I wanted anti-anxiety meds while waiting LOL  I have always been difficult (to stick) and I think that phlebotomy jobs should be given to recovering IV drug users!!!

Hope everyone has a pleasant weekend

Linda

Kleenex

The mothers of the teenagers are NOT in there. We're just not raising our hands gleefully at the moment. We do raise them in exasperation, but that's not a "smiling" sort of emotion...

Although if I were in the photo, I'd probably be the one in the peach ensemble off to the left. Not because I have red hair or look like that woman, but because the outfit is ever so slightly inappropriate and not flattering, and that appears to be my "look" lately...