STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER

Sunshine99

Alice, I'm wiping up the coffee I snorted out my nose when I read your comment regarding the candy. That made my day!

Katyblu, WHO DOES THAT??? Good gawd!!!

MountainMia, I don't think you were mean at all. You were clear in your expectations, unlike this other person.

We have a camera at our front door. If the bell rings, I look to see who's there before I answer it. It's like my phone. If I don't recognize the number (or if it's the guy with his "healing ministry") I don't pick up. LEAVE A MESSAGE!!!

AMG2, I'm so sorry about the coffee. That would really suck big time.

Tinkerbell, hahaha1 I love that one. ""Stress feeds cancer and YOU are stressing me out, so STOP IT and go away!!!" I'll have to keep that one in my bag of replies to pull out when I need one.

BTW, I discovered that if I pull up side by side windows of this forum, I can scroll down through the posts and reply. Otherwise, i respond to one comment and then I'm trying to remember who said what. Whatever... It works for me.

Happy Saturday everyone.

Kikomoon

mmm coffee, pho, candy, the small joys of life. No one understands how frustrating and upsetting it is when you lose your taste for things you loved. During that time in my treatment, I broke down crying outside a restaurant, I just couldn't go in and "eat". friend had to bring me right back home and deal with me.

Divine that "passive" list is good. Still working on the apologizing for everything one.

bcincolorado

spookiesmom love the pic! Made me smile today.

Anonymous

Saw this today at a small bookstore. Do we need it in bulk?

cm2020

SerenitySTAT....Yes please.

cm2020

Spookiesmom...Your story made me laugh! The picture is fabulous and not one bit of remorse on the cute little guy's face! In fact, he looks quite proud of himself.

Myshadow

Spookiesmom- I don’t post often, but couldn’t resist when I saw your cute little pup! It was like stepping back in time. My little gal is 14 now. She was so mischievous in her youth, she would steal the socks right off my feet and “bury” them in her blankets. Now she just wants to cuddle with me in her blankets. The sun was a little too bright for her in this picture haha.

Spookiesmom

Awwwwwww what a sweetheart. Xoxo from Spookie and Kris. They sure do help when you’re in funky town.

MountainMia

I'm not in active treatment and recently I met my out-of-pocket maximum for the year. I'm not sure if I'm glad about that or not...

bcincolorado

Hopefully you did not have a high out of pocket. I was blessed before I got on Medicare to have a plan with a $700 a year deductible. a PET scan took care of it right off the bat.

MountainMia

bcincolorado, it was $3500, with a $2500 deductible. I think that is fairly high, but I expect there are a lot worse.

According to the healthcare.gov website:

"A plan with a higher deductible than a traditional insurance plan. The monthly premium is usually lower, but you pay more health care costs yourself before the insurance company starts to pay its share (your deductible). A high deductible plan (HDHP) can be combined with a health savings account (HSA), allowing you to pay for certain medical expenses with money free from federal taxes.

For 2021, the IRS defines a high deductible health plan as any plan with a deductible of at least $1,400 for an individual or $2,800 for a family. An HDHP's total yearly out-of-pocket expenses (including deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance) can't be more than $7,000 for an individual or $14,000 for a family. (This limit doesn't apply to out-of-network services.)"

So yeah, it's high deductible. It's private insurance, not a plan on the marketplace, not employer. I pay all of it myself. The premium for next year is about $9500. But I'm 4 more years away from Medicare, so I don't have many good choices.

WC3

I love cheese, and dairy in general. I've cut out cheese as a snack item due to the cancer, there is a correlation between ER+ breast cancer recurrence and consumption of high fat dairy such as cheese, but I occasionally have it as an ingredient. That being said, I had a pretty healthy diet and lifestyle for much of my adult life and made an effort to take steps to prevent some of the ailments my older relatives developed, but I'm starting to realize a lot of it is really just genetics and I'm developing a lot of these issues at a younger age than my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents did.

Jelson

WC3 - I gave up grapefruit due to taking tamoxifen, I had enjoyed one a day when they were in season. Looked forward to resuming grapefruit but was then put on a statin. Checked everything to avoid soy. Stopped using Splenda in my morning coffee and tea - throughout the day. Tried to stop putting milk in both, that failed but settled on 1%. Come to read here on BCO within the last month that BLACK TEA which I have consumed all my life is estrogenic????

MountainMia

WC3 and Jelson, it honestly feels like you can't win on the dietary things. Even people who eat "healthy" food can find that the cards are stacked. Part of the issue is we are all quite individual. Part is that foods are not eaten by themselves, so what might be great by itself has some issue when eaten with something else. Part is that the actual science of digestion is not very far along, so information that comes out is revised quickly, leading to confusion. Part is that journalists often don't understand what they're reading, or they aren't careful at how they write, or their carefully written pieces are chopped up for space requirements, so what we have to read is an mishmash of facts that don't explain the real impact on real humans. And part is that, some people live long and healthy lives despite eating a crap diet, and some people suffer despite a great one. It's very frustrating for me, trying to figure it all out.

Spookiesmom

So I called in a carry out order for pizza. Girl couldn’t understand what I wanted, a small, and tried to upsell the order. Go get it, walk in, she says Hi Sir! I growl back, it’s ma’m. Tell her order for ……. Gave her a $20. She had absolutely no idea how much to give me back. I had to tell her. The pizza was ok, I will never go there again.

I’m flat, extremely thin short hair. I wear funny pink shirts. I’m sick of this crap. Rant over

Sunshine99

Oh, Spookie, I'm so sorry. Maybe it would have been worth it if the pizza had been better.

I went to Pick Up Stix a LONG time ago (over 10 years?) and the kid behind the counter asked me if I wanted the "light" dressing. Then asked if I got the senior discount. So I'm fat and old??? I was probably around 125 pounds at the time and not yet 50 years old. Sheesh!

With regard to cheese, wine, chocolate, whatever... Moderation. And a little goes a long way to keep me a happy girl. Except for grapefruit. Ibrance has knocked that off of my food list. Oh well.

bcincolorado

mountainmia I know in Colorado I got on a State plan here that was great after I lost my employer insurance and could not work. It was so good I would have kept it if I could have. Your premium gets based off your household income which also incudes utilities even. I think we paid $153 a month for our plan with the $700 a year deductible. $40 co pay at the doctor including specialists. Once I got on Medicare though I could not keep it.

MountainMia

bc, that's awesome. Iowa's options, last I looked, were not as good as the plan I've got. They wouldn't make my life better. I'm fortunate I can come up with the money. It hurts in years when I pay piles and don't need much, but I guess I got it all back and then some with my cancer treatment.

KIDI919

Jelson: I drink at least 7 cups of black tea a day and have for at least 40 years. I guess it's to late to bother stopping now.

I love the smell of coffee but hate the taste. Once in awhile I've accidently taken a sip of my husbands...yuck!

AliceBastable

KIDI919, I'm another tea addict who hates coffee. How can anything that smells so good taste so foul? I drink Earl Grey most often, but lately I've been slurping Constant Comment, which is perfect with the pumpkin cake and gingerbread we've had recently. Now both of those are examples of beverages that taste as wonderful as they smell!

ctmbsikia

I drink 2-3 cups per day with the zero sugar creamers. Pumpkin spice right now. It’s glorious. So sorry for those doing chemo that have lost taste.I would at least enjoy the smell. Or try to!

Have a friend facing a lung cancer diagnosis. Her friend who they live with just lost her ex (cancer). I will see them this week.

I actually went out outside and danced to another friend’s band Friday night. Almost felt normal. It was fun.

Got word this morning that I lost a cousin. We weren’t especially close but both his sisters who are older thanked me for texting my condolences. My sister is sending some stuff to his family and I didn’t have the heart to ask how her last scan went on the group text with my brothers. She will let us know right?

My daughter was here this weekend. My son stopped in today. I don’t know if it’s the right time but I tell them how much I love them and what and where everything is when I go south. I would not want to be young today. It was hard enough 30/40years ago compared to today’s climate.

KIDI919

AliceB those are two very good teas! I generally drink red rose but now that you have mentioned those 2 I'm going to get some. Yum

SeeQ

ctmbsikia - there's a book called Shit You'll Need When I'm Gone (and others with more genteel names) that help you gather that kind of information in one place for your loved ones. I read about it somewhere on this forum back in the beginning (for me) and the name stuck with me.

Sunshine99 - great idea to use two windows for reading and responding. It's brilliant! I tell myself I could've thought of that...but, of course I didn't! Lol. Anyway, thanks for the tip!

Jelson

KID919 - My husband and his entire family loves coffee. He buys beans from a company in California, puzzling over descriptions of flavor, what country/farm they come from, he eagerly awaits the box's arrival and roasts them himself. He periodically mails bags to relatives who also love coffee and every Thursday brings a bag to our neighbors who discuss the various beans and the different flavors. Every morning he brews in a vacuum coffee pot (over the years I have found them at flea markets and on ebay) and he asks me what I think of my cup, perhaps compared to the day before or whatever. To me it is just a cup of coffee, to him it is a whole sensory experience - with a different taste as it cools. I'll say I liked it?

Now this is funny, in the summer I find I don't drink as much tea during the day because I substitute eating watermelon (which will probably turn out to be carcinogenic). So between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I always have a watermelon cut up in the refrigerator. The rest of the year I easily drink almost 10 cups of tea because I use a big mug. Maybe it will be less this year because without Splenda, sugar or honey it just doesn't taste as delicious to me.

bcincolorado

We made a big file folder with information in there on where things are. I also made a list of stuff in the house that is worth something and some are family heirlooms for a couple of generations now since I have stuff from my great grandma here. I would not want them to pack it off to donate somewhere after I am gone. Kids are grown and have houseful of stuff of their own at this point. The things we wanted from my in laws were not worth a lot but took a painting my mother in law did and a drawing that no one wanted. Some of ,my husband's sisters wanted the expensive jewlery she had but I did not care about that at all. I wanted things to remind me of them. We got my father in law's military medals and the flag from his funeral since he was in the service. We have it all in a nice case on display now.

Sunshine99

Jelson, I saw a cartoon about a "watermelon study" when I was a kid. The cartoon showed some guy in a lab jacket. He may have been holding up a mouse, but I don't remember that part. The caption was something like, "We fed this mouse 5 (or whatever number) watermelons and it exploded. Therefore, we conclude that watermelons are hazardous to your health."

So keep eating watermelons, as will I. At least we'll die happy, right?

Kikomoon

Coffee and tea are both tasty to me!

ctmbsikia - i need some of this zero sugar pumpkin spice you speak of. Enjoy reading this thread.

Chiming in to say I sent on online message into the black hole of my Dr.'s office, that I will be needing another medication refill.

A PERSON called me back same day. A real life person. I am SHOCKED. I wonder if I got put on a "list" last week......shouldn't be this way.

Kikomoon

Coffee and tea are both tasty to me!

ctmbsikia - i need some of this zero sugar pumpkin spice you speak of. Enjoy reading this thread.

Chiming in to say I sent an online message into the black hole of my Dr.'s office, that I will be needing another medication refill.

A PERSON called me back same day. A real life person. I am SHOCKED. I wonder if I got put on a "list" last week......shouldn't be this way.

bcincolorado

Love the "black hole" comment! I usually send a message and it takes 2 days before someone gets back to me and then they ask me another question in the portal instead of calling me. Then it is 2 days again so anything takes a week or more to resolve.

KIDI919

Jelson, WOW they really love their coffee. As for watermelon or probably any food being cancerous, probably. There are so many chemicals used to grow food it's no wonder people get sick. I have noticed kids having more food allergies. My grandson it's milk and eggs. Little guy I'm babysitting it's milk and soy. I never heard of these types of allergies growing up.