I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

River_Rat

I just wanted to update that I got my donations for this month in - I ended up splitting donations between the DCCC and the Democratic ladies running for the Senate.  I would have done one or the other anyway, but events caused me to double up, dig a little deeper and do both.

QuinnCat

Blue - in answer to your question, I don't know.  She had her adrenals (and ovaries) removed at Stage IV (it was in her lungs and I could see the tumors on her chest by then) in February of 1968.  It was done at Stanford U. by Dr. Henry Kaplan as "experimental."  He has some notworthy successes in cancer research  ( http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/06/obituaries/dr-henry-kaplan-cancer-fighter-is-dead.html?sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all ) from this time period, but I think this is one of his "experiments" that failed.  In actuality, they were just trying to prolong her life as they sent the Intern out to give me the cold hard facts that neither of my parents were able to do.

After her adrenals were removed, she was put on cortisol and I think another medication to balance her potassium? (I remember "salt balance").  I was 14, so some of this is foggy, but her temperatures would rise very high and she would have to inject herself or risk going into a coma due to this potential salt inbalance.  By June, she had become paranoid psychotic (I don't know the exact mental health term, but she was no longer, mentally, my mother...she seemed to recognize us, but thought some were out to kill her...she would write things in a journal that were totally wild, but had the vain of worrying about her children).  She lived until December of that year, very medicated, in a nursing home.  I guess, in a way, she contributed to science with this surgery.

I've lived with BC all my life, due to this experience, my memories and knowing deep down that our cancer had to be hereditary (her two sisters also had BC at the same age).  For many years I resented this doctor as they took her back to the hospital to check for brain cancer, but couldn't find any.  After that, Stanford just stepped away from her care.  To this day, it is something that makes me cry.  I had a great mom too. 

pupmom

So, so sorry Kam. I hate cancer. 

bluedahlia

I'm so sorry Kam.  I just asked because when I looked up the side effects of prednisone (which shuts down the adrenals) it mentioned Addison's.

QuinnCat

Blue - I looked up Addison and I suppose it is what my mother was suffering from.  The paranoia could have come from the pain, though.  No one conclusively said.  I did see that Addison's can cause mood swings and personality changes, but my mother experienced more than that.  She was getting heavy duty pain meds during that period.

Are you taking prednisone? 

bluedahlia

Not right now.  It was prescribed to me for my pain but when I read the side effects, I stopped taking it.

QuinnCat

I think steroids are bad news long term...have heard that over and over, but haven't focused on enough to know why.

RetiredLibby

Some years ago, I had a case of poison ivy from hell. I was so allergic to it that I started blistering where I had not come into contact with it ... My immmune system was in hyperdrive. I had blisters at my bra line and panty line and sock line ... It was brutal. My lower arms (where I had been exposed to it) looked like a cartoon muscle man's arms. The doctor gave me 60 mg of prednisone/day to try to stop it. I lasted 2 days before the prednisone ate my esophagus (I had eaten full meals with every dose, but that didn't help.) I had to stop abruptly (which sent me to the ER with a migraine so vicious that they thought I had an aneurysm bleeding out) and take Prevacid for a year to help with repairing the damage to my esophagus. I hate prednisone, and they want to give it to me every time I get a respiratory infection because I am an asthmatic. Prednisone does a lot of good, but it is still dangerous.

pupmom

But I think they are ok short term. For instance, weird coincidence, I got a prescription today for Prednisone to deal with a severe case of poison ivy. I've gotten scripts for this a couple of other times over the years, and haven't experienced any SEs, knock on wood.

RetiredLibby

Yorkie, that IS a weird coincidence! Yes, they are OK short term (60 mg was a MASSIVE dose but it was our last resort before injections) and generally they are fine in the little dosepacks they give. I resist them like crazy, though, because they really continue to bother my esopahgus if I have to take them. I'm very sensitive to most drugs anyway, so we never know what will set me off.



L

bluedahlia

Same here HL!  If there are any side effects, I'm sure to get them. 

pupmom

HL, I get poison ivy every year, but rarely is it this bad. I could hardly sleep last night from the tormenting itching, , on both feet. This afternoon I gave in and called for a script. It is that dose down type. 

1Athena1

I wouldn't be alive today if I had taken the recommended cancer treatments. That includes Tamoxifen for the full five years. My body is still dealing with the awful aftermath. You know it's bad when you would rather be dead than on treatment.

As for the early perimenopausal symptoms I am dealing with, unless I go on HRT soon, I may die from treating them. I am at a dangerous tipping point.

Each body is so different.

Nothing comes between me and my ovaries save ovarian cancer.

There are some deaths I prefer to some lives. I also have very little respct for the way BC is treated. Lots of guess work, very little science. Lots of fear mongering, very little regard for individual preferences.

Sorry for being ghoulish.

Back to politics!!

RetiredLibby

Yorkie, here is something helpful I learned when I had the poison ivy from hell. You can stop the itching for a little while if you run a hairdryer on the itchy parts. It makes it itch worse (and deep down inside, too), and you will scream, but it makes the itching stop for a while after you stop. Just be careful not to burn yourself. Same with a hot shower -- I howled in the shower, but the itching mercifully stopped for a while afterwards. Oh, I remember standing in the bathroom and crying at 3 a.m. because I couldn't sleep and I was sure I would be disfigured for life. I was getting married at the end of the summer -- I still had the scars on my arms on my wedding day and I wore a strapless dress.



We no longer have poison ivy in our yard ... It took about 5 years for anything to grow again in that corner after DH got done with it!



L

pupmom

Thanks for the tip HL! When I shower the misery increases but maybe that's a good thing. We have done everything possible to eliminate poison ivy from our yard, but when yorkie#1 goes for a walk I think she gets it on her fur. Going to have to be more vigilant about that. Anyway, the prednisone is kicking in cause I feel less itchy. I also took my first Aleve today to deal with my leg and arm arthritis issues. UGH!

ananda8

I only had poison ivy once and that was enough. Caladryl worked for me but I had to polish my sandals where they touched poison ivy because I kept reinoculating myself.  The saddle soap I used worked great on the sandals..

Hot, really hot, water works on chigger bites, too.

rosemary-b

A 10 minute soak in ice water does wonders for the itch of poisin ivy.

IllinoisLady

Got a huge kick out of the Bill Maher piece and I have found it so true.  This is why we can't talk politics any longer with Dh's Republican family.  They have their Fox News one track mind firmly in place.  I also find it somewhat sad that for otherwise normal people who think nothing of questioning everything that is done or said by a Democrat....question nothing about their own party.  Lemmings type behavior to me.

I also very much enjoyed seeing Sen. Webb's speech again for I think the 10th. ot 12th. time.  There were and have been a lot of military people in my family.  I recall my cousin's husband talking about his return from VietNam ( with a young wife and two very young sons, one a brand new baby then ) and that he and the other returning soldiers found a latrine and ditched their uniforms and got into civilian clothing because they knew what they would have to endure if they stayed in uniform.  Took him years and a couple of near misses to be treated for the Agent Orange disease issues he had. 

Bush....I did not vote for him either time.  The majority of his time in office seemed rife with such in-competence or buffoonery.  Even my family his last 8 or so months in office ( despite what seemed almost hero worship ) often seemed uncomfortable -- almost timid about the possibility of another blunder.  They have managed to forget it all though and go back to my party, right or wrong.    I think it is why I sometimes find it hard to watch Romney....it is like I'm getting a restim from the Bush years.

Hope you all have a good evening.

Jackie

Momine

Just a few comments re weight, estrogen and AIs.

Those of you needing to lose weight, I highly recommend myfitnesspal for tracking exercise and calories. I had tried several online trackers and found them annoying. This one is very easy to use.

As far as I can tell, exercise is a very, very, very good idea for breast cancer patients.

If you are beating yourselves up over being heavy, stop! Even at my heaviest (weight gain was one of my cancer symptoms), my BMI was well under 25. The only time my BMI went over 25 was towards the end of my pregnancy with dd. I still managed to get BC before turning 50 and I am not BRCA positive.

How great an effect, in terms of additional survival, you get with the AIs really depends on stage, type etc. In my case the added advantage is significant, boosting my survival odds a good 10-15%, as in 10-15 more women out of a 100 alive after XYZ years. 

So far I am tolerating it relatively well. I do have hot flashes, painful joints and also, it seems, a bout of pretty bad shortness of breath. In other words, not exactly a cakewalk, but nothing unbearable so far. I find that exercise helps with most of the SEs and generally improves my well-being. 

alexandria58

Hi.  Was out much of yesterday, so need to catch up.  Watching TV this morning and saw an interview with Paul Ryan on Fox, in which he again refused to explain the math for Romney's plan, saying it would take too long.

Yup.  I guess it would.

pupmom

Telling the truth is hard work! Waaaaaaaa!! That's why we just lie. 

Enjoyful

Maths are hard, Alexandria.

QuinnCat

Romney/Ryan want to reduce, in equal percent, the current tax brackets, but call it "revenue neutral."  The way they get to neutrality is to get rid of "deductions" without specifying which deductions to us.  The only deductions that can sustain these tax cuts into "revenue neutrality" are ones that affect the most people..... the middle class.  Mortgage deductions, State and Local Tax deductions, Medical deductions, etc. etc.   Their policy will effectively increase the proportion of taxes paid by the middle class relative to high income earners because these deductions represent a higher proportion of the middle class income.

How long would it take to say explicitly what deductions they want to remove?  Seconds, but they won't, or they would lose votes.  Effectively, they will be dragging us into a flat Regressive tax.  The only Progressive tax structure this country has is income tax.  I could go on an on why a Progressive income tax is required to create fairness, but that's another issue.  We have so many other Regressive taxes that everyone pays, we need to offset that so the burden (not financial, but fairness) is not carried by the lowest income earners. 

Ofcourse, I'm preaching to the choir here, but this particular issue bugs me....they're deceptive, they're out for the rich, they would be dishonest leaders and they will destroy any future chance for the middle class to expand. 

Enjoyful

It's odd that a party that pushes transparency and job creation has chosen a secretive, job-destroying candidate.



Release the tax returns, tell us your plans for the country. If you won't, you're hiding something and you may not even have a plan. Why doesn't this frighten more Republican voters?

alexandria58

Ryan kept saying that they'll lower tax rates but keep it revenue neutral by "broadening the base."   Another cute phrase: everyone has to have skin in the game. Is there anyone who doesn't understand that those words mean having more people contribute taxes, in other words making people who are currently too poor to pay income taxes will have to pay.    So that millionaires can get hundreds of thousands in tax breaks, they want to tax or increase taxes on people not currently paying because they are too poor, too old etc - because those people can so afford to pay more.   

The real genius of the Republican party is in convincing white working class people to vote against their own economic interests.   I guess this is where the social wars come in.  

IllinoisLady

 Business people tend to do a very bad job at governing. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney both came from business backgrounds. They left the country in the worst financial shape since the Great Depression. Mitt Romney's Massachusetts was 47th out of the 50 states for job creation.

This is just an excerpt from something I read, but as there are never clear explanations for just how Romney/Ryan would "get us where we should be" --  ( Kam's entry above for example )  ---  it becomes heavy-weight to me.  In my opinion, if you want your business to succeed, you have to be willing perhaps to be cleverly unethical.  Depending on the kind of business, of course.  To my way of thinking then with all the obfuscation,flip-flopping, huge gaffes, when I think of someone like Romney I think....here is someone who can convince himself how to look the other way and has done so for years.  Nothing says it better than Bain. 

I don't think the debates ( although I will watch, of course ) will make much difference.  You can't un-ring a bell and you can't do much to change your personality and character or lack thereof either.  In general, truth carries its own light and weight and for the most part generally resonates soundly. 

Jackie

who is covering old ground.

QuinnCat

You reminded me of something IllionoisLady....it could be the metaphor for the Romney/Ryan campaign.

In Indiana, a plant worker was told to build a small stage. Subsequently, Romney's Bain colleagues herded the workers in front of the stage to tell them they were fired. Romney, the worker says, made $100 million by shutting down the plant.

We the voters are those workers.  Once we elect Romney/Ryan (never!), they will tell us how we are screwed and his rich buddies have made out on the backs of the middle class.

gardengumby

My goodness I've missed a lot...

I'm not going to remember everything I just read, as my mind is just junk anymore. First, though, in regard to ER+ cancer.  I was on tamoxifen for about six months total.  Apparently I am allergic to it, as my asthma became absolutely impossible.  I was incredibly tired when I was on it.  I'm tired now with letrozole, but compared to tamoxifen this is a cakewalk.  All I wanted to do - ever - was sleep.  I got terrible pain in my feet, so bad that I couldn't walk - now I believe it was the beginning of the bloodclot I got in my leg - and eventual multiple PE's in my lungs. 

Prednisone - they've tried to give me that sh*t my whole life.  I've always refused it.  I won't take anything that has steroids in it, and have managed my asthma by diet most of the time.  That said, I am worried about my lungs as my last CT scan indicated a great many inclusions that weren't there in the prior scan.  My MO doesn't seem particularly worried, but, of course, it's not her body.  Still I've decided that I'm going to just close my eyes to it (as much as possible) until the next scan is done sometime early next year.  That's when they'll really be able to tell, as the last 2 scans were done by different medical groups so even though they had the old scans to compare to, they couldn't do an exact like for like comparison. 

I'm on letrozole now (as I said) - have been for 11 months today (but who's counting... ).  I'm tired and achey - have a real hard time going up and down stairs as my knees hurt so much - but I walk on my handy-dandy treadmill every morning and it does help me feel better.  I don't have near the stamina I used to have, as before I was diagnosed I walked about three miles each day - right now I'm doing good to get in a half mile.  But I know that my stamina will increase as long as I am consistent.  According to my MO, the AI gives me a 17% improvement on taking nothing, so I'll be taking it for the full five years - especially so since I had neither radiation nor chemotherapy.  But I ache pretty much all the time and really want to retire so that I can sleep more and not deal with commuting anymore.

I'm not BRCA positive, but my Mom, maternal Grandma and maternal Aunt all had BC - and my Dad had prostate cancer, which I understand can be related as well.  I wasn't surprised to get it, but I had expected to be older at diagnosis.

and now, as Athena said, back to politics... 

Anonymous

I've given up "ranting" about the BMI, but still like to show another "side" of that "statistic"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439

For me, the most important "take away" is:

"The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack."

Still, it's another thing that helps me smile, and goodness knows, I'll take all of those I can get.

Blue, steroids, phew....hope you heal quickly without them. The BigP deserves the bad reputation it has for the SEs.

I can't write Vyi Nopois or I'll start to itch...maybe even need to make paste of epsom salts to slather on the itchers

PIP - entering year 6 of Arimidex, and I SO WANT TO test a month off - any one done that?  And then slept thru the night, and woke up not feeling tired???  Yes, anyone????

gardengumby

Sunflowers - how long do they tell you that you will have to be on Arimindex?  Originally I was planning on taking a month off of letrozole each year, but my MO told me in my last visit that some studies came back saying it wasn't a good idea - the studies were based on male prostate cancer patients taking vacations from their medication each year - bad results for the vacation takers, I guess.  My MO originally also told me that the 6 months I took tamoxifen could be included in my 5 years, but backed off on that idea as well.  I'm not willing to take this stuff more than 5 years though....