You know you're a cancer patient when....

Anonymous

Leah: Man, that team sure has a bum name, doesn't it!

Jan: You must have had a partial. It would take ten nursing pads all stacked together to fill out my missing B-cup. (I'm flat as a pancake over there.)

jankc

Windlass, yes, it was a partial, and it's only about 2 sizes smaller than the other one (1 pad per lost size so close enough with a padded bra ; ))...I'm sure you came up with something more stable than maternity pads, not that my solution is so great even for me;  they can slide!  Truth be known, I try to avoid a bra if I can.

beth1965

When you do all your birthday gift buying at the hospital gift shop. It seems like the only place i ever get to lately is the hospital. I have bought 3 birthday presents there in the last month and a half. At least my regular hospital has a beautiful assortment of things.

barbe1958

Beth, I've bought some of my best"stuff" from the gift shops in hospitals too!! In fact, I'm sitting here wearing a top that I got when I had to get my thyroid out! I try to treat myself with something...

beth1965

Barbie i agree i definately have found lots of great stuff so far at the hospitals. Its nice to treat yourself you need it sometimes.

Joanne_53

YKYACPW the alarm goes off at 6:30 and you are excited to get out of bed .....

 stole this from a baseball cap I saw ...

Iz_and_Lys_Mum

...you spend the evening sitting listening to your friends complaining about things that might have bothered you too, pre dx, and walk away with a kind of knowing, rueful smile (soz, feeling slightly fed up tonight...). Especially the, yet again, comparision of mx and bc surgeries / pain / treatment to augmentation from a slightly drunk friend

gardengumby

YKYACPW - you get to sleep 1/2 the night (or a few hours...  ) and then spend the next few hours visiting your "friends" on breastcancer.org.

Wish I could really meet some of you. 

sas-schatzi

Badger,  I ditto Barbe's comment and Windlasses concern about "mets" on previous page on exercise machine.. Thank goodness you came up with such a good explanation.

sas-schatzi

Gardengumby-------yes-------then you sleep half the day away and felt like shit. Hope you get some sleep tonite.----sheila

badger

yep, SAS, that's an odd fitness term.  And Leah, right on about the NY Mets. 

Anonymous

Joanne: YES! I totally get that!! For the first time in my life, I wait and wait and wait until it's finally LATE enough to get out of bed.

"Is it time yet?" (hopefully checks watch) "No, shoot, it's only 3:30." 

Falll asleep, wake back up.

"Is it time yet?" (checks again) "No, crap, it's only 3:52."

Falll asleep, wake back up.  

"How about now?" (hopeful check) "Urggh, 4:08."

And so it goes, all night long. Will it NEVER be 6:00 AM? Will the sun just never rise? I am sure I must do this dozens of times a night. I'm surprised the battery that powers the little light on my watch hasn't burnt out yet.

Lately I am fudging it and getting up in the 5:00's. It's a good day for willpower if I can make myself stay in bed til 7:00.

*sigh*

sas-schatzi

Windlass. We meet over insomnia, remember. I have since taken Melatonin as Chrissy suggested. My dose had to be higer than hers,  and I take it with Ativan/lorazapam(sometimes not). Melatonin dose is quite individual. I take melatonin 10 mg and Ativan 2 mg. When I finely, found my individual dose combination and amount it was Nirvana. The first few nights of completely uninterrupted sleep were the first in several years. Lots of my fibromyalgia pain started to settle down and improve. I still have my nights. But it's so much more tolerable. When I have my nights 95% is b/c I want to stay up. That small amount of 5% where my meds don't work, I either take one more melatonin or one more Ativan. If I take that bump dose too early in the am towards morning,  then the morning is hard to get up and I feel hung over.  Hope this was on topic and helps L&H's sheila

newksmom100

OMG Windlass I am sitting here with tears rolling down my face.  Boyfriend is asking what is so funny and I tell him "breast cancer humor".  Of course I got a "look".  hahaha

Wish more people had a sense of humor about this, it's so much better than a pity party. 

CharlotteMe

...You go to the neurologist for your lingering periphrial neuropathy and the nurse begins to take your blood pressure as she checks you in.

As she is working to get the cuff on your forearm (no bps on upper arms due to bilateral mast) she tells you a story about her doctor friend who found a pea-sized turmor that mammography missed and was dead one year to the date later.

Nurse is then surprised to find that your blood pressure is sky high!

Um, not exactly words of comfort!

Ladies, I have laughed until I've cried tears running down my face while reading some of these posts! There is not much funny about breast cancer, but we find humor in some things that only another person who has been through all that we have been through would understand. Most people wouldn't "get" these stories or find them to be funny, BUT WE DO.

Thanks a million!

Charlotte

gardengumby

YKYACPW- you are in the docs office, see a table with a hole in the middle of it and know what it's for

lvtwoqlt

Charlotte, I was told no bp on the arms period after my bilat mast, I get my bp on my legs. the compression from the bp cuff anywhere on the affected limb can cause lymphedema. Please check out the Lymphedema forum for more information on precautions to prevent LE. I now have LE in my left hand. 

I have had to discuss (argue) with my health care professionals about taking my bp on my leg, the last dr office I was at (for colonoscopy) insisted doing my bp on my arm because it was high on my leg - probably because of me arguing with them.  

Sheila 

Faith316

They don't have the right to insist on anything.  It is your body. 

badger

YKYACP when many of your closest friends have numbers in their names. 

Anonymous

Badger, that's a good one.

NativeMainer

CharlotteMe--DO NOT let them do any more blood pressures on your arms AT ALL!  Have them do it on your legs.  Nurses are taught how to do that in nursing school, I know this because I used to teach it!  Any compression on your arms increases the risk of developing lymphedema.  Do not allow any blood work or IVs to be put in your arms, either.  Those can also be done on the legs or feet.  It's really sad that we have to be so insistent on health care providers following the precautions that should be automatic. 

PS.  Blood pressure in the legs is NOT higher than in the arms when done correctly.  This means having the person lie down for 5 minutes before taking the blood pressure, and not argueing with the patient about it.  

Charles_Pelkey

YKYACPW:
You describe to the oncologist an array of symptoms - any one of which would have sent you running to the emergency room before chemo - and your doctor simply responds "normal." "Yup, that happens." "Nothing to worry about." to each of them.

Leah_S

YKYACPW while you're going through chemo your DH is listening to a radio program where the symptoms of snake bite poisoning are being described and he says, "That sounds like your SEs from chemo. But they also said that "X" is a symptom". Um, "X" is another of the SEs. "And they also said that "Y" is a symptom". Yep, got "Y" as an SE. This went on until we couldn't stop laughing.

Maybe we should skip the chemo and let a few snakes loose in the treatment center....

Leah

Anonymous

YKYACPW you identify w all the other YKYACPW comments.

Insomnia - had it last night and have to force myself to stay in bed for 10 hours each night, 8 to sleep, 2 more for healing.  Get so mad when I cannot sleep and needto sstay in bed longer, but want to go to bc.org and bulls*#@ w everyone who is awake too.  Tonight I am taking my Megatonin, besides using the lavender oil on my pillow.

LEs - have been told by nurses and assistants that they do not know how to take bp on leg or even lower forearm, they were not listening...........!.  They SAY they do not know how to give the IV in other places, and my right arm, affected side w surgery, is only place w a decent vein, that vein in gold for them, but I want it done another way and I am too easy and it always comes back to that vein.

Thus, from now on when I go to the dr, I will have the voice of NativeMainer yelling in my ear sounding like MAXINE LOL - DO NOT LET THEM TAKE THE BP IN YOUR ARM!!!! .  (Read posts above)

SEs - you hear all the SEs and about snake poisoning and think that that one homeopathic remedy in your case with snake venon or the arsenica album would be good for all your friends on chemo. 

YKYACPW the holiday decor is still hanging around end of March and all you want to do is read and write about bc.

YKYACPW in Barnes and Noble the only section you visit is women's health for a cancer book to jump out at you.  

YKYACPW the most boring thing in the world now is how someone hung their door or what traffic was like, all you can think is time is ticking and you have things to do to survive. 

lvtwoqlt

Essa, I have gotten information on how to take bp in the leg from step-up-speak-out, printed it, taken it to the doctor's office, given to the nurses, carry my own bp cuff and teach them how to do it.  When I went for my colonoscopy in Feb, I also took from suso the papers 'what we want our health care professionals to know about LE' with important points underlined with a pink pen. Before I left the center, several nurses said that they read that paper even though they didn't know where it came from, thought it was very well written and were glad that I was speaking out about LE.

Sheila 

gardengumby

YKYACPW - you go in for your mammogram and it takes 1/2 as long....

badger

YKYACP when you check your on-line health record, and it says you had a mammo in Oct 2010 but you know that's inaccurate because you had a BMX in Feb 2010.  You try to get this record expunged but no such luck.  Oh well, at least you didn't get charged for it!

MakingLemonade

 It's nice to be able to laugh so I was just wondering, If I have them both removed can I walk down the beach with no shirt on? 

Charles_Pelkey

Man, oh man, Lemondade, and here I was worried about ME doing that. I say go for it. If you get arrested, I will offer you free legal services ... although odds are I am not licensed in your state. You could become a cause célèbre.

badger

YKYACP when you have checked your state's obscenity laws to see if you could go topless.

I did and technically I could because of how the 'indecency' is defined.  No nips, no crime.