MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

Sherryc

Gail Ann Dr. Rosenthal did my first lumpectomy in 1997.  He is such a sweet man.  I was young and had  B9 ADH.  He said we could watch and see or take it out.  When I asked him if I was his wife what would he do he said take it, and you are young.  So glad I did,  still took 14 years to become cancer but would have turned cancer much sooner had I left it in.  I was living in Boerne at the time.  Since moving I chose a Dr. in New Braunfels at first but ultimialty ended up with my PS Dr. Peter Ledoux with PRMA  He has been wonderful and has told me he will be my BS as well from now on.  If you every need reconstruction I would highly, highly recommend him. 

marlegal

Jlynn, our daughter lives in Washington, Nj, even farther north. She's a Belmar beach girl! I only did one cruise and it was Norwegian which I loved. Great advice given by others above too. I vote for one with hub and another with kids.



Eli, great job at avoiding(or just not posting??) a picture where we can see your face. Great hair though Congrats on winning the trivia contest, I can imagine the fun and bragging rights!



Happy almost Friday a/k/a Mary's hands down favorite day of the week ☺

macatacmv

eli, love the travelogue and the pics. You deserved a good time! cool bag!

I am trying to plan a trip with my 25 y/o DD. I'm having trouble committing to anything. Of course now I have a cold (or something) so that makes me cranky. 

I just sent my DS to visit his sister in CO for his graduation present. He is learning to snow board, they are having a blast. That makes me happy. 

heartnsoul76

Momine - I think I started thinking like a man after my BC diagnosis.  Even though I had been divorced a few years by then, all of a sudden I had to handle everything while being scared out of my wits.  Now I compartmentalize instantly and I'm a duct tape pro.  Seriously, they were right about that stuff!

Eli - I had a feeling you would win that trivia game!  I just know everyone was envious of that green bag - it is most def cool.  You should have let the girls braid your hair - I bet it would have looked like Bo Derek in "10".  Very island-y!  My guess is that the peacock lays one egg per year.  Isn't it funny how when you guess, you actually end up 50-50?

Yes Mar, I am sooo glad tomorrow is Friday.  It has been a terrible week.

My son was robbed at gunpoint last night - very scary.  It took 3 hours for the police to be finished with him and now tomorrow he has to go look at some security tapes.  My son was very lucky to have just lost his iPhone.  The man was in his 30's so I guess he was wise enough not to shoot him, thank God.  He was apparently satisfied with the new iPhone 5 - he asked for my son's wallet and my son said he didn't have any money.  He asked again and my son repeated himself.  Then the man said, "Get in your car and drive away before I shoot you."  So my son got in the car and the man started running.  Of course my son should have just given him his wallet - the guy was shaking the gun at him.  Fortunately he didn't notice the bookbag which had his expensive laptop in it with irreplacable data on it as my son is a computer science major.  My fibromyalgia has been flared up ever since.  I'm still very upset and stressed out about this.

Ugh! Hurry up Friday night!  I have some delicious Bloody Mary mix in the fridge with my name on it!

elimar86861

OMG!!!!!  Robbed at gunpoint?  HnS76, as the mom of two similarly aged young men, that has me in a fit of terror.  Regardless of how he has reacted so far, this is shocking and I hope this doesn't give your son PTSD.

heartnsoul76

You should have seen me during the 3-hour wait for him to get home. I was alternating between crying and screaming. Last night his eyes filled with tears but today he's already turned it into a joke. He'll ask for something like a Coke and I'll say no and he'll say "But I got robbed last night." Or take out the trash - but I got robbed last night. Today I asked him what he thinks about it, and he said "I try not to think about it." I thought "Oh no, he's already burying it." I'm worried about PTSD, too. I've already checked into a PTSD counselor for another thing that's happened to him, but you ladies don't want to hear about that, trust me. (It's about Pepsi)

Momine

"Now I compartmentalize instantly and I'm a duct tape pro.  Seriously, they were right about that stuff!"

LOL

Lily55

Where do you get travel insurance from please as people with cancer?

barsco1963

hns - How scary that must have been for your son - and you as well. I do hope that he is able to work through everything without too much after effects. Very lucky indeed - someone is definitely watching over him. Hoping that today is a bit brighter for you.

And yes, duct tape is a wonderous thing. Available in so many different colours too!

As for the number of eggs a peacock lays in a year? I would guess 20

Meece

Okay a peacock would not lay any eggs, right?

elimar86861

Lily55, The online travel agent did offer me travel insurance, but I was not feeling too vulnerable so passed on it.  I would think you could just take out the regular travel ins. on airline tickets as well.  I always do ask about cancellation policies on various bookings, but this started way back when I had small kids.  You know how they can surprise you by waking up vomiting or somthing.

Meecie, Meecie, Meecie, you are one smart cookie.  Up until that point the trivia contest had not thrown in any trick questions, but this one was just that.  The peacock lays NO eggs because that is the job of the peaHEN.  I'd like to take credit on that answer, but the other woman teammate beat me to it. 

Care to try these three other animal related ones, also from the cruise:  1)  What is a baby zebra called?  2)  What is a baby whale called?  3) What kind of baby animal is an elver?   (No Googling.)

If that is too easy, here are some that stumped me (and the rest of the team as well):  1)  What country is made up of over one thousand islands?  2)  What it the study of fruit called?  3)  What is the largest chocolate bar company in the world?

JoyE1947

I believe the Philippines is the answer to the country of over 1,000 islands.

Joy

Meece

Hmm Zebra colt? Whale calf.  An elver.....a squirrel?

Now you see I am not such a smart cookie.

Meece

My parents took out trip insuraqnce last summer when they traveled to  Canada.  My father has a series of strokes and the whole party (mom, dad, uncle and aunt) had to cut trip short.  The insurance paid for the unscheduled plane trips, hotel lay over between flights, dr. visit in Canada, and a refund of the unused paortion of the tour.  It was well worth the $100 they paid for the insurance.  The trip was origianlly round trip from Phoenix but the insurance pd for DM and DD to fly back to CA!

elimar86861

I'll give the trivia a few hours in case some other smarty-pantses want to show off.    There's always the prestige of knowing.  I'll give the answers later today.

maryah930

Going to see my onc today to see what the next 5 years will be. I am post-menopausal, but it seems that she really likes to treat with Tamoxifen. My DEXA was "beautiful" (their words), had stress tests and a cardiac work-up and my heart is healthy, etc.  I keep reading about SEs for Tamoxifen and I am getting concerned, not for the major one like blood clots, but for the fatigue, joint pain, and weight gain. My onc said if we saw I was having to many SEs or SEs that were not tolerable, there were other options.  Any advice or input on how you dealt with the SEs?

Also, handled my dx, my surgery and chemo quite well, but now I have these fears of recurrence and mets that do not seem to be normal (for me anyway).  I keep fearing we missed something and I should have done chemo longer. Somehow, having a BMX and chemo does not seem to be enough to fight this disease.  I discussed this with both my onc and her nurse.  They both assure me I took an aggressive approach to the BC, but I feel it's not enough.  Again, any advice or input?  Does/did anyone else have these fears?

barsco1963

Oh Meece you smarty pants you - lol



I'll take a guess that the largest chocolate bar company is Hershey's

iatigger

Jlynn welcome.  We have used Royal Caribbean twice and had a great experience both.  The second time we brought our 10yr old along. They have a great kids program that she spent a lot of time at and seemed to enjoy it. We did western caribbean and they had a lot of different excursions you could take in port. Looking forward to planning another one in the future, seems to be every 10yrs for our anniversaries. -Aimee

elimar86861

maryah930, Considering that you are post-menopausal, and had a great Dexa scan, I am surprisd that they are not going with an AI (aromatase inhibitor.)   They still give you the same hot flashes and I've heard the joint pain can be worse than Tamox., but they don't have the same clotting risk or risk of endometrial cancer.  As far as the hot flashes, might sweats, etc., women do the best they can with chill-o pillows, having a bedside fan, avoiding foods that set them off, using supplrments, and even using prescription meds.  Don't be too worried, because you might get lucky and not have to much trouble with S/Es; sometimes they are more noticable at first and then back off after a month of two.  It something you give a try and see for yourself.  If you end up too miserable, yes, they can switch to something else.

As far as the fear of not doing enough...well, no one really knows just what enough is.  Some do everything and get a recurrance, some do the minimum and stay cancer-free for life.  There are lifestyle changes that you can make that can lower your future risk factors somewhat, so that would be worthwhile to look into.  BCO has a number of articles on this site about that.  Will that work?  Maybe yes, maybe no, but it can't hurt and it does give you something to do if you still want to be DOING something.

-----------

And now for those trivia question answers:

Answers for the first part were:  A colt, a calf, and an eel.  (Not bad Meece!)

Answers for the second part were:

1) The Philippines (correct JoyE.)  That was the official answer when I played, and although we got no points, we had the equally correct answer of Indonesia.

2) The study of fruit is Pomology.  (Who knew?)  Now don't say you never learned anything from this thread.

3) Largest chocolate bar company in the world is Mars, Inc.  This question never clarified if it was "chocolate bars" only, or if it meant "candy bars" and other associated items.  I was thinking it was either Hershey or M&M/Mars, but I got thrown off thinking M&Ms are not actually a "bar."  My Brit teammate thought it could be Cadbury.  We ended up going with Hershey's (honest mistake, eh barsco?.)  Embarassing that I don't know my chocolate better than that.

barsco1963

Well, I guess I won't be joining any trivia teams soon. lol

 I will be sharing some of these with my team at work though. We have a white board in the middle of our department that we use for fun stuff such as this. I love to write riddles, trivia etc on the board and listen to all of the discussion and guesses that come from it.

heartnsoul76

Oh, I love trivia!  Now I know a few more obscure facts, haha.  You never know when they will come in handy.

The robbery is starting to affect both of us more and more.  Last night my son started talking about not going to school today, he said he felt safe at home.  I've been so stressed about it that I'm worn out.  He said walking around on campus today, he would overhear conversations and they just sounded like noise.  And a girl asked him about it and he said his voice started shaking.  He has to go look at surveillance video on Sunday.  I told my ex I didn't want our son to get all caught up in this, and he said, "Yeah, but you don't want someone running around with a gun either."  This has been such a nightmare.  I told my son he was going to talk to a counselor about it and I said I think I need to, too.  I feel the fear of it in the pit of my stomach like it just happened to me.

One thing for sure is that I'm going with him to look at the surveillance tapes.  He can't find something sitting right in front of him!  I can at least point out men I see in black hoodies.

maryah930 - I was barely post-menopausal and I chose Tamoxifen because the AI side effects seem worse to me.  I guess we have to choose our demons - they both have side effects that nobody wants but Tamoxifen hasn't been a problem for me.  My MO is talking about putting me on an AI after my 5 years of Tamoxifen are up.  How I wish I didn't even have to consider it but yes, the fear of recurrence/mets keeps me conforming.

maryah930

Thank you all for your input.  After looking at all of the facts and discussing my concerns we chose to go with Femara.  Like my onc said, there are other options if this doesn't work and it's not like we're stuck once we choose which one to go with.

Emotionally, I also felt better when I picked up the prescription.  I know it doesn't make sense, but I think this month off of not having any appointments, tests, or medications to take threw me off balance.  I felt like my safety net was taken away.

jocanuck1951

Wow hns! We fight so hard to cling to an itsy bitsy sense of security and in a nana second its taken from us, big hugs to you and your family, you will get through this just....pile it up and keep yakking as it lessens the impact, but forever the memory! Thinking of you kid!



As long as the onc has more options the longer you get to live. Xoxoxoxo

Jlynn0807

Elimar....

What a great attitude you have, and thank you so much for all the great pics!!  Am starting to research cruise lines, destinations, etc.  Decided to take the kiddies first time out (I've promised them for so many years...now is the time, and the heck with the money I say) so thank you all for the information/experiences.  Actually, they're not kiddies, they're kinda almost all grown men, but this will make it easier for them to disappear for a bit on the cruise ship....just for a little while anyway.

I have finally, so it seems for now, snapped out of my pity party.  I am incredibly tired though, as I did take Ambien ER last night, and I think ER part is still working.  Lying on the couch, and could EASILY fall to sleep, were it not for my 14 yo who keeps coming down the steps and the 3 dogs who keep sticking their cold snouts in my face because they want breakfast.....NOW!!

So, went to onc last night.  Ready for my Tamoxiflen (Whatever, still cannot spell it).  The nurse hands me the Medline paper for Perceta/Tax/and something else I forget....papers in purse and I'm not getting up. Apparently, after consulting with his cronies, and some of the top cancer docs in the country (thankfully, my onc doesn't have an ego that prohibits him from reaching out, and picking his buddies' brains).  I am getting chemo starting Friday.  After everything I read that Stage IV doesn't typically warrant it, I am.  I was tickled pink (yea, lame).  Who'd of thunk I'd be so happy to hear "we're waiting for insurance approval, but you should be starting chemo Friday after your port is flushed".  I guess I feel it to be more aggressive, and that it will lessen my chances of having the cancer continue to spread.  Could I be wrong? Uh-huh...but I am ready to get really sick in order to get a little better...not cured, just a little better.  I have a lot of crap left to do, and this really threw a wrench into my plans.  Also didn't go through the torture of having the port put it for nothing either.....so happy about that part too.

So.  That said, I am lucky to have the sweetest oncologist I could have asked for, who is thinking and trying his best to help me!  Told me last night "don't start giving your stuff away just yet".  His attitude is good.  My husband loves him too!  It's not time to give up....time to fight it.  Told me I am sorry you are Stage IV, but happy I am sitting here now talking about it as oppopsed to five years ago....so much has changed.

There is hope.  Hope for what, I am not sure just yet.  While I realize they only started chemo because of the fact that my cancer is so aggressive, that's ok.  Wanna see some results, and I am more than ready deal with what's coming.  Let's see what I type after the chemo starts, and I feel like death!!  I'm not being naive....I know it's not going to be fun!

To all of you wonderful ladies, have as good a day as you can.  It's funny, I don't know how to say certain things, as I find people saying the DUMBEST stuff to me, and I wanna shake 'em....and say "Uh, no...it's not going to be alright"....but thanks for that.  Readiing here helps, very much, in terms of inspiration, chuckles, knowledge, and to make that feeling that you're totally alone in this....go away.  Sadly, I am not. 

Lynn

elimar86861

Jlynn, Although having an aggressive cancer is a big negative, it is usually the agressive type that is affected most by chemo, and that is a positive.  I am an "optimistic realist."  I read and find out about the range of outcomes, but then I go and think well, why can't *I* be in the top 5% that gets the very best response?  Someone has to fall into that group, so why not me?  In the case of Stage IV ladies, a certain number to get to the point of NED (no evidence of disease) and who's to say that you won'tbe one of them?  IT IS WORTH DOING THE TREATMENT just to find out, isn't it? 

Speaking of treatments, I found out a little more about my surgery.  Remember that I made a fuss about my lumpectomy, that my blood vessels got clamped off with about 7 titanium clips that are now mine to keep forever?  Well, in my upcoming surgery, my franken-colon will be held together by any number (and folks, we will be having a betting pool about this, closer to the 12th) of titanium staples, and those will be mine to keep as well.  That's weird and I don't like it, but my reading tells me that the staples (rather than regular suturing) cuts down on blood loss, infection and leakage (eeew!) and it is now standard for the procedure.  I have to keep reminding myself that having a machine breathe for me for four hours and having a surgeon maneuver a robot scissorhands dangerously close to some main arteries is way more stress-worthy than a few little staples left behind, but that just creeps me out that stuff gets left behind in my body.  It will make for more picturesque xrays in the future, that's for sure.

Momine

Eli, I am with you. Somehow I take a lot of the big stuff in stride, only to get totally freaked by the details. I wouldn't like the idea of staples left behind in my belly, but it does sound as if it the best way to go.

That reminds me of my grandma. When she was in her 70s she got knocked down by a car running a red light. She was badly injured - lost a piece of her liver and got a big screw put in her knee. A few days later a perky young doctor came to check on her, held her foot and asked her to push as hard as she could. She hurled the whippersnapper straight out of the door and into the hallway. She felt bad about it, but, as she pointed out, he DID ask.

Jlynn0807

E...

Will respond more later, but one question to you, or to anyone.  Your comment re the aggressive cancer responding better to treatment.  Someone, forget who or where, said that very same thing to me yesterday.  When it was said then, I told my husband.  He said "Hmmph".  This time, I repeated it again (that you'd said it), and he said what I was thinking.....so my question to you is this (or to anyone else who knows the answer):

Why? 

Lynn

luvmygoats

Jlynn - I am by no means any kind of expert on chemo.  But as I understand it more aggressive cancers have higher cell turnover rates and chemo by its very nature targets cells with high turnover rates.  One reason GI tract (from beginning to end) and hair are so easily affected by chemo along with bone marrow.

Eli - I think anyone with recent surgery prob. has staples.  Wikipedia (now admittedly not the most reliable source) says widely used in bowel and lung surgeries.  Good discussion of its use there but be forewarned there are pictures.  I googled "staples used in surgery".  I wonder if at some point the body breaks them down.

marlegal

HNS, I cannot even let my brain go there withregard to that happening to one of my kids. My heart goes out to you and your son. I hope you both gain something from meeting with a counsellor. I'll keep you both in my prayers.

Jlynn, I think a good relationship with our oncologists is huge. I'm so glad you have that I'm right there with Eli in thinking "why shouldn't you benefit from chemo?" This room has some powerful karma behind it, and we'll all be in your pockets on treatment days doing our part to keep the creepy side effects from taking over.

Maryah, I remember very well the time gap between when radiation ended and Tamoxifen began - I hated it! I truly felt naked, exposed and scared that I wasn't doing anything. I welcomed picking up that prescription and taking that pill every day. By the time five years were up, during which I changed over to Aromasin after 3.5 yrs on the Tamox, I had graduated to feeling that I had done all I possibly could both to rid my body of cancer and try to prevent it coming back in the future. It was kind of weird to stop it, but not panic. That was over a year ago, almost two years actually, and I'm okay with just trying to eat sensibly, move a little more (I hate the word exercise), and try to keep stress to a minimum. Good luck with the Femera.

Momine

Lynn, because aggressive cancer cells proliferate more quickly, and chemo attacks the proliferating cells.