MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

Dianarose

nfranklin- I did the math and I am at 34.5, 35, and 32.5. I can't wait to call once their office is opened. Five hours seems to be the magic number for a lot of us with sleep.

Sherry- how long did it take to get the path report back. I am assuming it will take longer than the lx one.

madpeacock

Sherry - hope you're feeling better today. 

Dianarose - GREAT news on the Oncotype! When I had mine, the Oncotype office called me to tell me my ins would cover it 100%. They were very nice. Wonder if your path will take a little longer since it is a complicated diagnosis...

LovesChristmas - that is so sad...

nfranklin & sissyvon - Thinking of you...healing vibes coming your way!

Hope everyone has a great day! Off to the Onc for me this morning. I'm always the youngest person in the room and the pts look at me like I'm out of place. Yeah, I feel that way too. 

Dianarose

Madpeacock- how long did it take to get your oncotype results? I had IDC and ILC, I am wondering if they do the test on both or how they will do it. How are you doing on the Tamoxifen?

What is a low score and what is considered a high score?

madpeacock

Dianarose - Mine was back when I went for my postsurgery follow up a week later. 

Tamoxifen - heh. I fired it about six weeks ago.

You can go to the Oncotype website and read about the scoring. Mine was 8, which is considered very low. I'm not sure of the exact ranges, but below 17 (ish) is considered low to borderline, from there to low 20s is borderline to high, and anything above there is considered high risk.  Score goes up to 100. Highest score I've ever seen on BCO was in the upper 40s, but I'm sure there are others. 

Dianarose

http://medicdebate.org/?q=node/765

Have you thought about taking metformin? You can check out the link above. My MO suggested it. He doesn't like to prescribe Tamoxifen. He also thinks my score will be in the middle. We will see if he's right.

Doc just called and the DAM TUBES ARE COMING OUT AT 3:30!!!!!!! I can't wait.

justmejanis

dianarose...congrats on getting the tubes removed!  That is wonderful.  I know what a relief that must be.

Loves Christmas.....I am so so sorry about your friend.  Cancer at any age is bad, but so unfair to somethat that young.  My heart goes out to her and her family. 

Sherry I sure hope you get to feeling perkier soon.  For now just take it a day at a time and attend all the pocket parties going on.

Jo...I am getting a great seat in your pocket tomorrow.  You will do great and probably be mopping the floors of your hospital room tomorrow night! 

I hope everyone else is doing well!

nfranklin

Dianarose:  So glad those tubes are coming out.  You seem to be just a little bit happy.

Jo...In your pocket, girl there are a lot of people here, we are here for you.

My path reports were back one in 7 days and one in 9 days, my doctor had told me it would be 10 days.  These were the path reports after each surgery.

I guess I will take a shower and get ready for hospital appointments today.  My DH works nights so I am trying to be quiet around the house until he wakes up, he got in around 5 so he will probably be getting up around 10 or 11, he usually doesn't sleep pass 5 hours.  Then he lays down an hour or so before getting up and getting ready for work, has to be there at 7:30 PM and usually some overtime everynight.  He will be taking me to the hospital today, got to be there for 12:45 fasting blood specimen appt., then bone density at 1:30 PM appt, and see my MO at 4 PM.  It will be a long afternoon for me, because I am very tired this morning. 

Thanks everyone for your support.

elimar86861

Morning, all!  Was thinking about a few we have not heard from in a while...cmblastic, OG56, suzwes, the lurking fmakj, leisaparis, 3jays, and where's Barbe?  Hope all are well and being newly normal.

Dianarose,  Yahoo!  And so long, drains!  I know you will be working with a PT, and I think you can do that during radiation, but there may come a point where it won't feel good to have someone massaging that area.  I don't know, I had some PT after rads were finished.  I will tell you this:  No matter how stretched out your arm and chest feel going into rads, they will come out tight all over again.  I call it "microscarring" but I made that word up. The rads seem to do damage that makes the tissues less elastic, like scar tissue is.  A PT definitely helps, as does stretching on your own.  I still stretch every day, but if I don't than that side wants to be a little tighter than the other, even now.

nfranklin, That is a long day!  Good Luck and I hope you can squeeze in a nice lunch with your husband.  (Otherwise you will be driven crazy by all the munching of your pocket people.)

Sherryc

Dianarose woohoo on getting your drains out today.  My Dr got my path report back at about a week but read it at the hospital.  I go next week for my first fills and I will get my copy then as I have not see it yet.

LovesChristmas-Barb

Yay for getting the drains out Dianarose!

I hope your day goes well nfranklin....that is a long day!

Thank you everyone who commented on my friend's daughter. Right now they're waiting for surgery. The doctors here recommended a doctor who has done this type of surgery before but he is in Israel right now and won't be back until next week. It's such a rare cancer that not many doctors have experience in doing it and everything we read recommends that you find someone who has. Thank you again for your prayers for Julia...

I'll be in your pocket tomorrow Jo!

lisamarie68

How can you edit your diagnosis , in your own words without picking from the questions and answers ?

Sherryc

Lisa maria if you want to add more than the checked boxes ad it to your signature line.

nfranklin

This morning was good full of energy no other apparent SE's. Could not eat or drink anything before fasting blood specimen at 12:45 today at the hospital. Took fruit, nuts, and oat bar and juice to eat after blood is taken. Had bone density test no pain at all 1:30 pm, one of the easiest test. Visited with my MO at 4pm, discussed the port. I really have only one good vein and they have had to stick me twice each time to put the IV in, he said that was not good so we are talking about the port sooner than later. Came home sneezing and with a runny nose, around 4:30 pm after sitting in a cold waiting room, and oh so tired again, all my energy is GONE, used up in the waiting room of the hospital. I am hoping for energy in the morning, I want to go grocery shopping, so my DH will not have to, even though he doesn't mind at all, but I like to grocery shop sometimes, it's been almost 2 months since I got to grocery shop all on my own.

I am ready for bed can hardly keep my eyes open, don't want to go to bed too early, because I will probably wake up in the wee wee hours of the morning and can't go back to sleep.

Have a good night every one.

madpeacock

Hang in there nfranklin! Here's hoping for a good night's rest and you'll be ready to do things tomorrow. I know I like to do the shopping, as I come up with meals while I'm looking over stuff. I can't really say to DH, "Get the stuff that I MIGHT want to use..." I can see the look now.

elimar86861

LC-Barb,  It makes me so sad to hear and see young cancer victims.  I can hardly sit thru' the St. Jude commercials on t.v.  They are not giving Julia very good odds, so I hope she does well with her surgery and treatments and surprises them all.

madpeacock,  I don't think we've ever established whether the peacock is angry or crazy????

Raj20

I was having difficulties in walking due severe pain in my feet. Having doubt of  high uric acid , I got tested, done X-ray but  .. report says  normal uric acid, joints are in intact but  there  is a calaneal posterior spur in my feet which needs to be  remove through operation.  After that I have not gone to the doctor .. as I am scared of another  operation. The anasthesia injection  in the hip bone was very painful  as I experienced during my BC operation. If any one knows about possible  alternative treatment for reducing    the deposition  of calcium in my feet, please  tell me  and  post here.

Dianarose

Getting my tubes out yesterday was very exciting. My BF came with me and I asked him to stand by me so I could squeeze his hand which he did. The first tube was totally wrapped down and around my boob and out close to the arm pit, about 14 inches of tube under the skin. It hurt as the doc really had to pull hard for the first 4 inches to come out. After that I asked him to move to the other side, but he never made it. He passed out. A big thud and there was my 6'4" BF on the floor. I had to give up the examine table for him and the nurse took care of him while the doc took the other two tubes out from the chair. Needless to say, I had to drive most of the way home ready or not. I didn't sleep much better without the tubes because the expanders are like rocks and still hurt.

My path results sucked. From what I read she took a total of 12 nodes and all positive with dam lobular. It also invaded the barrier between the breast tissue and the muscle. Now the odds of it being somewhere else, but just undetectable at this time is much higer. I accepted loosing my breast, radiation, removal of the ovaries, hormone drugs, but I am not dealing well with the thought of chemo and possible dying from this.

Momine

Diana, congrats on getting those blasted drains out. How I hated those and I only had them for 5 days, so I really shouldn't whine. Your big man couldn't take it though, huh?  My uncle wrote me that I was taking it all like a man, but then he added that this was probably a dumb thing to say since men tended to be way more wussy than women when it came down to the wire.

I am so sorry about the path results, that sucks. I have quit smoking, but I bought a pack the day I got mine. All the docs had been convinced that I would not have lymph involvement and then it turned out that I did after all. it threw me for a loop, but then a few weeks pass and you realize you ain't dead yet and it gets better.

Chemo sucks big-time, but it still did not suck anywhere near as much as I had imagined in my fevered imagination. Focus on feeling well. I am not a shopper, but during chemo I would buy myself treats and generally do whatever I decided made me feel better. It worked well, and I had a surprisingly good time during chemo. Towards the very end (I had 8 treatments all in all, so quite a lot), it did get kinda old, but I recovered fairly quickly. 

Dianarose

momine- thanks for the encouragement. I am not there mentally yet, but I hope I can do this. I meet with the MO next week. One good thing I read is that lobular is the slower one to spread to other parts of the body. Ovarian Cysts showed up on my pet scan. Now I am a little nervouse about that because with lobular that is one place it likes to go. I guess it likes to go right to it's dam food source.

Momine

Diana, for sure you can do this, but I know it isn't exactly a good time right now. I had my ovaries and uterus taken out once I finished chemo. I had some uterine fibroids and although they were benign, I was leary of anything growing more than it is supposed to and the ovaries were taken to cut off estrogen to the ILC and prevent future cancer. it turned out that there were some funky, pre-cancerous cells down there, so I am glad to have it gone. They let me keep my cervix and did the surgery with a few tiny incisions, pretty much a piece of cake.

Dianarose

Momine- I had intended to take just the ovaries, but they also said the uterus looked enlarged, so they can have that too.

I bought a bra at a store called A Special Place, that sells bra's bathing suits, etc... for women with breast cancer. It has a much bigger cup than I am right now but it has a place to insert padding and decrease it as you expand. I look like I have a great set of boobs right now. It is really comfortable too. I didn't even know that my insurance pays for more than half and up to 6 bra's a yr until the clerk told me and had me fill out some paperwork. The bra was 53.00 and the insurance paid 28.00 of it. I just have to get a prescription from the doc and she said it will pay for them the rest of my life as long as I have the insurance.

madpeacock

Dianarose - whew, you have had a lot dumped on you all at once, but we're here for you. 

Once I got the Mammosite tubing out, healed up, and the swelling/soreness had pretty much gone away, I went to Victoria's Secret. I wanted something pretty! Still can't/won't wear underwire as it pokes too much on the bad side, but they have a really great wireless that supports well and fits nicely. No pushup either, as that made the poor bad side feel completely squashed.  

elimar86861

Dianarose,  With all that happening, I will just hope that the chemo (and rads & hormonals too) tracks down any beastly bits that might remain and wipes them out.  I think what is hard, at this point, is looking ahead down that long road of treatment, but just start walking.  Momine is so right, "you ain't dead yet," so focus on the other, happier things in your life that will be coming up in the next months too...birthdays, graduations, lunch with a girlfriend, weekend plans, any occasion where you can retell the story of your BF passing out during the drain removal.  Haha, the bigger they are, the bigger lump on the floor when they fall.  Yes!  Do give yourself some treats along the way.  You will deserve them and anything that keeps your spirits up will make the time pass quicker. 

Momine,  Your uncle sounds very insightful. 

Momine

Elimar, he has his moments, lol, and good point about how Diana should seek out occasions for telling the fainting story.

sissyvonvon

Dianarose, I know your anxiety as well as all the other ladies here on this forum. I, too, had 8 rounds of chem, the radiation, and am now taking Arimidex as I am post-menopausal.  They never mentioned taking my ovaries out, I am going to ask my dr. about that when I see him again.  My scans were good for my uterus and ovaries though.  One thing I will tell you to expect from the chemo is:  You will taste it, smell it, and it is what I call "whanky".  It just tastes whanky for a few days, also, you will feel fatigued at times, but just rest and it gets better, the steriods they give you will make you hungry!!  So eat.  And also, ....you may experience constipation, BUT once you eliminate good, you feel sooo much better.  This is just the way it is.  I went and got my hair cut short and it never completely fell out, but got very thin.  I got two baseball caps, put different little pins on there for pretty and wore that to work and everywhere I went.  Now, one more thing, for nfranklin too, if you go grocery shopping, be sure and wear gloves because of the germs on the buggies etc.  My dr. said wash your hands, wash your hands, that is a good defense from catching something.  Just a few little tips to help out.  Hang in there, it really goes by fast.

sissyvonvon

Oh, and one more thing, drink LOTS of water.

justmejanis

He everyone,

 I just got off the phone with JO.  She sounded really good. Tired and sore , but she will do

well.  She gets to go home tomorrow as long as she continiues to improve.  Despite going

through major surgery  she sounded great.  Hurray to our Jo!   Please feel much better!!

lisamarie68

Yeah thanks so much Justmejanis  .. I am so happy to hear my Jo is doing well .. Hugs to u and to her xoxox

Sherryc

Diana rose yeah for getting your drains outs.  But I am so sorry to hear your news about the lymphnodes.  I don't know what chemo is like as I choose not to do it but from what everyone says it is doable just take one day at a time.

Sue-61

Elimar! doi doi doi double doi..........................U ARE MISSING SOME FOLKS ON YOUR THREADS

LAST TIME I SAW YOU POST WAS THAT BARBE 1958 WAS BANNED FOR DIPPING HER PONYTAILS IN AN INK WELL VS BEING ABUSING AND, BASICALLY, NASTY.

YOU WONDER WHERE SHE IS............GAWD YOU MUST BE KIDDING

FONDLY SUE