MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

marlegal

She's posted on FB but not here!

Momine

Jo, I couldn't deal with the wig either. I bought one, but wore it exactly one time. I wore those turban thingies, like what you have, hats (over a thin turban) and scarves. This was my favorite scarf:

jocanuck1951

I love your scarf as well Momine! You have to go with what you're comfortable with....I'm a plain Jane and it is what is...... Xoxoxox

Momine

I like how the turban looks on you, Jo. 

raehyg

Wait so now that I am 40 I am middle-aged????Wow I don't know whats worse hearing that or my new diagnoses.....just kidding.

barsco1963

Welcome raehyg. Sorry that you have landed here but you have found a wonderful group for support, encouragement, friendship and fun. And being just 40, you are one of the young middies! Lol



Jo - I sent you a pm. Just let me know what you think. Thx

AnnieLane

Hi Gals, I'm glad to have found this thread! I'm nearer the opposite end of this spectrum from raehyg: I'm 57. I'm married with three grown kids, five grandchildren plus a sixth on the way, and I work fulltime. My diagnosis wasn't the happiest way to start the new year, but I'm doing fine so far. My lumpectomy was a little over three weeks ago. This Friday, I'll have my Mediport inserted and March 7, I'll have my first chemo.

Momine

Raehyg, that was my first reaction too, lol, although I am now really, really close to 50, so way older than you.

barsco1963

Welcome GailAnn - it is really hard to be welcoming newbies to the site. However, it is good that you have found a place for support, encouragement, knowledge and friendship. Come by often and let us know how you are doing.

AnnieLane

Thank you! Oh and Raehyg, you can't possibly be middle-aged, because my oldest daughter is 40 and there's no way I'm old enough to have a middle-aged daughter

Eph3_12

Welcome to raehyg & GailAnn-going on your theory GailAnn, I can't be middle-aged (turning 59 this year) since my daughter is only 18!

E-you should be back on solid ground today, if our supposing is correct.  Can't wait to hear all about it.

marlegal

Rae N Gail, welcome. Age truly has little bearing in this room as you will soon come to learn. Humor and compassion are way more important I look forward to getting to know you both.

macatacmv

welcome ladies.

It says on the topper that this is "home of the hot flash" so  I definitely know I fit in no matter where I am in the ish range. 

I was just noticing in some of the decriptions of the threads that they are mentioning age more. I, for one, am more interested in what we have to say than how old we are. This thread makes me laugh and feel love, can't get much better than that. 

jocanuck1951

Welcome Rae & Gail, omg..my daughter will be 41 this April....ancient over here! Lol

maryah930

Welcome Rae and Gail! 

Jo, I go bald-headed, but if I could get one of your I Love Lucy scarves, or learn how to tie it, I might consider it my new look. 

Momine, I wore my wig once as well, but only for about a 1/2 hour, about the same amount of time I spent wearing my prosthetics. Now I don't even know where it is.  I love the bald look and time cut on getting ready in the morning. Not sure how I'm going to feel when it grows out and I'm back to coloring and cutting.

jocanuck1951

Hi maryah, I feel the same as you, it's a breeze and even if it grows I'll be keeping it very very short. Pm me your address and I'll send you one! Xoxox

Dianarose

I haven't been here in awhile. I have really been in a deep, dark place. In the past 13 months I have lost my dad, my boobs, and 3 weeks ago today I lost my best friend to a sudden heart attack. Well I needed to pull my self up and move on. This song by Cher hit me just right and I am going to figure out a way to open my own bakery. Like Cher says, you haven't seen the last of me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FM5Akcjraw

My friend dying made me realize even if you don't have cancer none of us know how much time we have left and not to waste any of it. I thank God for every day I have, even when it's a bad day.

I hope this song can relate to a lot of you and pick you up when you are feeling down.

http://www.nancysnotions.com/text/content/pages/GailsCKBeret.html

The above link is for a really easy beret pattern for those who are going through chemo. It's my favorite hat.

Hope everyone has a great day. Love you all, Diana

elimar86861

(Sheepishly)  Uh, hi guys!  I apologise heartily because I thought I had slipped a "Bon Voyage" day in there somewhere, but it must have been something I mentioned only in a PM.  Yes, I was aboard ship the whole past week.  I wasn't planning to journal about this trip (since we so recently had Joni's tale of a Caribbean cruise) but now (since there were a few requests) I feel I owe at least a little travelogue with a pic or two SO I'll get into that in the next day or two. 

ruehyg & GailAnn, I'll add my welcome to the ones you have already gotten here!   Since we are all planning to live from 80-120 years, yes, these are our middle years.

JoC, I have caught up reading about your tribulation.  What a story!   They had you running all around, as if you were a person with tons of energy to spare.  What were they thinking?  Hope the antibiotics will take care of the infection without causing more woe.  I also get worried taking antibiotics (for the C. diff. reason) and they have given me the drug Flagyl (metronidazole) to take along with the antibiotic before.  It will keep the C. diff. in check and not let it take over. 

HnS76, Sorry to hear you had a PET scan hangover, especially after I told you that it was not a difficult scan.  I will give you a tip right now.  Eat your oatmenl for the next week.  You would be surprised how long that barium can stick around in your intestines.  (I had to drink some for my "lower rads" and the residue was still showing up in the imaging a week later so scrub it outta there with some high fiber foods.)

I like the scarf look more than the wigs look for chemo-bald coverage, but a friend of mine had a chemo wig when I first met her and it looked so natural that I just thought she had great hair.  My mom's fave cover up was a super soft chenille cap (Winter mos.) that was brown and had the volume of a head of hair too.

p.s.  Cute beret, D-rose!

MameMe

Love the beret pattern! I am glad you shared that with us, DR. As an experienced visitor to the darker places, I can relate to the feelings you described. When new energy comes along and new ideas, it's a good sign.
I am interested in FMLA and short term disability funds, if anyone has tapped into those during treatment.
I am a month-plus out of surgery now, and will start rads for a total of four weeks soon. I am trying to get some short term disability funds to cover 60% of my lost wages when I have to leave work early for rads. The cancer center is an hour from my work, and in snow it will be more than that. I figure I will get a 3:00 appointment and leave work about 1:30. I loathe phones and trying to work with large companies, but am hoping I can get this benefit working for me. My boss said I should clarify how to use FMLA also, but I am hoping I will not need to tap into that. I work in a community mental health agency and am on salary, so if I go one month at 2/3 my usual hours.... I guess I had better check into that. I do ramble on, and think out loud!

Warm regards to all, Mame

barsco1963

Dianarose - That is a beautiful song. I have always liked and admired Cher. I hope that you are starting to climb back up to feeling better again. ((hugs)) Love the beret - different than the regular scarves, hats etc that you see.

Eli - WELCOME BACK! You may have to face a number of inquisitions after leaving without notice. lol  Looking forward to reading all about it and seeing some pics.

Dianarose

I made one of the beret's today. It was really easy. If anyone is going to make one I would suggest to make the circle parts one inch smaller as it just looked too big and I had to alter it.

Sherryc

Eli welcome home.

Welcome to the newbies this is a great place to hand.  Gail Ann I live a little over an hour from you.  My PS is in SA had my BMX at Methodist.  Since march of last year I was a regular in SA but glad to say at my last appt I don't have to go back until Nov.  My MO is in New Braunfels so I frequent there a lot.  Who is your MO in SA?

Diana Rose I am so sorry that you have been in such a dark place.  My Dad died at 49 of a massive heart attach so I have always been aware the curve balls life can bring.  And some just don't seem fair at all.  Hope you will hang around here more and let us love on you.

elimar86861

I have been fighting with United Healthcare since Nov. when they verbally cleared me (over the phone) for in-network benefits when I went to an out-of-network group for a second opinion, then after the appt. they came up with some crap story and only wanted to pay the customary out-of-network rate.

Well, three months, three phone calls, and five emails later, I have prevailed.  UHC had to suck it up and pay.  I had to get my state's Consumer Affairs Division for insurance involved along the way.  Naturally, I am happy.  Yay me!  But, you know, so many are not able to stand up for themselves in situations like these.  That really disturbs me; and it made me doubly determined and gave me the patience to see it through just on principle alone.  The money was ~$350...but the satisfaction = PRICELESS!!!!!!!

marlegal

Diana, I hope you are coming to the thread often for the laughs, even if you're not posting as much. Hugs hon ... give yourself time.

Mame, I used short term disability during rads. It was an AFLAC policy (sorry for putting that quack into all of your heads now!!!) I had to fight with them in the beginning about something or other, I forget now since it was 7 yrs ago, but like Eli, I fought and prevailed and after that I had no problem for the 6-9 weeks I was home. I worked from home during that time period and even when I was done rads, for another couple weeks till the managing partner finally wrote and said that I could take my time, but he looked forward to my coming back!

Eli, glad you're home safe and sound and I too am looking forward to tales and pics

NativeMainer

Get anything about disabilty or FMLA in writing.  I couldn't get short term disability during rads 'cause they said that it doesn't interfere with work, and has no significant side effects. I was asking for it cause the entire breast had a 3rd degree burn and I had to change the dressing every couple of hours and was taking pain meds, so I really couldn't work with sick patients, too much infection risk and can't caluclate med doses while on narcs.   This was after I got a verbal OK.  I gave up on that fight.  But one must be very active and inolved and advocating for themselves during this journey. 

 

Meece

Welcome ruehyg & GailAnn. This is such a great place and I know you will find a lot of support here.

Welcome home, Eli~.  Hope you had a nice trip.

elimar86861

Here it is.  Caribbean Cruise - Part One:

Like for Alaska, I again booked on Norwegian Cruise Lines, being a fan of the "freestyle dining," (which is 70% open seating for any dinner time you want, compared to other lines that use two main dinner seating times.)   This time it was the Norwegian Star, sailing out of New Orleans.  Right off the bat, I knew I would be starting cruise day down in Jackson Square Park (pic #1,) with some coffee and beinets from the Cafe du Monde.  I took this time to phone my son and during the call the bells in Cathedral St. Louis started to ring out, so he got some authentic N.O audio on that call.  We had some time to stroll around the French Quarter, check out Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo on Bourbon St.  With Mardi Gras just five days past, we saw lots of decorations still up (pic #2, opposite corner from Marie's.)

    

We set sail around 4 p.m., down the Mississippi.  You think of N.O. as being right on the gulf, but it's not.  We were still slowly making our way down the delta by the time it got dark.  That night was the best meal, because it was surf and turf with lobster.  I'm not going to mention all of the overall good and plentiful food, but I mention this meal because after having had a reaction to the CT contrast dye, I had been told to avoid all shellfish (as if I would listen) so this lobster was a major test and I passed it. 

The next day was at sea and with the sea breeze it was not yet swimsuit weather on the deck (for me) but nice enough to be out playing shuffleboard.  I found out I was pretty good at cruise ship trivia games last time, so besides the individual games, my husband and I signed on to do "progressive" trivia on a team with three others that we would have to play for all six of the days and the score would be cumulative.  We did o.k.  the first night.

Our first port was Costa Maya, Mexico.  For me, terrible.  It is a "village" made specifically for cruise ships to stop at, and there are little shops but it is just shopping at the company store because they all kick back money to the cruise lines.  It was a walled in compound (pics #4 & 5) that you could not stroll past on the beach; although you could see nice sand on the other side of the wall you could not get to it.  If you did walk out of the compound at the back, you would need a machete to hack your way to the sandy shore.  Try going thru' security with one of those in your luggage.  In front of the compound were the large rocks, and it looked risky to go out on them, and that's why no one is in the water.  Many people take $ide excursion$ from here, but my shoestring budget did not allow this. 

     

If I could have afforded it, it would have been a good place to zipline.  Instead, with some folks being off the ship on this first warm day, we took advantage to use the less crowded pool area.  Below (the Google pic I had at the top all last week) is the actual pool on the Star.  By the time the trip was over, I had been down both slides and in all four hot tubs on this deck.  With my white blood cells still on the low side, this could have been more perilous than those rocks at Costa Maya, I don't know.

                                           

Eph3_12

How high up are those slides E?

fmakj

Welcome back Elimar!!

Great Pics and glad you had a good time on the ship!  Glad the 'rebel' in you did not get you into trouble!! (ie; lobster, hot tubs etc.)

barsco1963

You really like to live on the edge huh Eli? Lobster... hottub... Sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for sharing with us.