Anyone starting Chemo in August 07?

OK. I'm back now that I can think clearly again. Here is what I've been finding in my research lately in terms of causes. I've been reading a very provocative book called "Cancer is Not a Disease, It's a Survival Mechanism". It honestly makes more sense than anything I've ever read. The book says that cancer is a crisis of toxicity. Our bodies do not want to kill us. Our bodies are designed to filter out daily toxins and our immune cells quickly take care of the few rogue cells that happen all the time.  However, our world is far more toxic that it ever was. Our lower-quality food doesn't give us the nutrients we need, and our bodies have to work harder to digest it. Our air is polluted with all kinds of chemicals. We don't get enough sleep at the right times, which regulates our hormones in a big way, we get too many hormones from pesticides and animal products, and we don't get anywhere near enough sunshine to produce the hormones we need for cell regulation. Hormones are big in terms of cells dying at the right time. That's the problem with cancer cells. They don't die.   So, our liver and kidneys and lymph system are working like mad to detoxify us, but they get overwhelmed, and those toxins have to go somewhere.  Cancer is the bodies attempt to sequester those toxins someplace so that the main organs can function and not shut down completely. Fatty tissue, like breasts, are "safer" places for it to go as the body tries to keep the toxins away from our main organs. Of course, if the toxicity overload never stops, the cancer must keep going.

It's all making my head spin a bit, and I'm probably not describing it all correctly, but it is making so much sense to me.

Hi Ladies,

Yes.  That's my sister.  Nash, that is exciting!!! Have fun.

DeAnn, that book sounds very interesting to me.  It makes a lot of sense.

Hugs to all,

Jackie

Lilith, I'm glad to hear your mom did well with her 2nd chemo. Good luck with the doc appointment and tattoos (you wild woman). And with the BRCA2 and your dd, perhaps she will get lucky. I'm fairly sure (and so are my docs) that my dad was BRCA2 (Ashkenazi Jew, pancreatic cancer), but I'm not BRCA +. There's no way to ever know, I suppose, but there is a good chance that I was on the lucky side of the BRCA gene game.

And the ski trip sounds like it was awesome!

Nash, I am on FB... with my real name. I'll PM you. 

I've seen my onc this morning, and discussed Zometa. I'll switch to Arimidex next month, and I am having a base-line bone densiometry, plus she says she is going to a BC conference next month where she hopes to get some of the study results; so based on all that, we will re-discuss Zometa. 

Hi Girls,

Went with my sister yesterday for MRI so they could place clip on surgical biopsy side for day of surgery (March 17th).  Then they took us up to get a mammo so the surgeon could have a visual of the clip and where to place wire on the day of surgery.  It took them 5, yes 5, hours to find the freaking clip that they just put in.  My poor sister really got inducted into the club of torture yesterday.  The nurse kept coming out and telling me that my sister was worried about me!!! Could you imagine?  I was so darn worried about her.  I crocheted enough squares for my afghan group to make a whole afghan.  Anyway, we then went straight to her neurologist and the good news was he doesn't think that breast cancer and treatments will interfere with her MS.  Hopefully, he's correct.

Thanks for listening.

Hugs, Jackie

P.S.....I'm getting my fipples on March 10th.  I'm not thrilled, but I'm going to do it!!!!!

LOL, Jackie, on the Madonna bra. I think Lilith is getting fipples this week.

Your poor sister! Five hours? Good heavens. I'm not too thrilled about the post-MRI mammo clip finding expedition that I'll be having, either, and now I'm wondering if I should tell my ride I'll just call her when I'm done. A girlfriend is driving me to the biopsy, and was going to wait there for me, but it appears there will be the possibility of having to set up camp. Yikes. At least you got a lot of crocheting done, but jeez! But good news from the neuro--that's encouraging.

You don't need to apologize!!!!

I'm actually glad that you posted about Ann's ordeal, b/c it didn't even occur to me that they might not be able to find the clip right off the bat. And it reinforces my decision not to drive myself (I'd driven to my initial biopsy, but I'd had my mom with me at the time, and I only had to go 10 minutes on the streets. This new place is 35 minutes on the freeway).

So, see, it was actually helpful that you shared it, plus, if you can't tell us, who can you tell?

Jackie, I am so sorry your sister had to go through such an ordeal at the very start... 5 hours of squishing and squashing - yuck. It makes one glad to have a mastectomy, only for not having to go through that ever again.

About fipples: I got them last december, and yesterday the tattoo. The fipples op was really a walk in the park... and strangely enough, docs here don't ask you to wear "non-compression" cups. Of course they got smaller in the last 3 months, but they are - ahem - cute, if I say so myself. The tattoo was unpleasant (picture a doc sawing color into your skin), but nothing dramatic - and it does wonders in hiding the scars!!! for the time it will take to finish healing... we'll see, I'll keep you posted.

I had today my bone densiometry, totally un-eventful, it is good to go to a hospital for something easy, not scary, totally painless, and to leave 20 mn after.

Hey girls!  long time no see.  Or post, or whatever.  I haven't had a lot of free time lately.  Still working way too much.  And nothing much to report on this front.  But i gotta say, there is still SOOOOOO much cancer stuff going on with us!  Our in-laws, sisters, parents.  WTH?  I often find myself wondering what combination of things it is that is causing all this cancer.  Microwaves?  Plastic?  The water?  What is it?  It's scary, really.  I suppose we'll never really know.  I keep having to remind myseld that dx was almost 2 years ago.  Not last year.  It's so far away but still it all mixes together.  Weird.

Hey, Angie! I just sent you a FB friend request, as DeAnn alerted me that you're over there. Whoo hoo! It's so much fun having my bc.org friends over on FB--I'm loving it!

But DeAnn, I am SO sorry to hear of your MIL's brain mets. That sucks, sucks, sucks. Are they giving her whole brain radiation or can the lesions be gamma knifed out? But I'm glad to hear she's tolerating the chemo/rads well.

I keep thinking chemo and all that was last year, too. Glad it's not just me.

Well, my biopsy has been moved from 3/16 to 3/5. Remember how it has to be around my period? Well, I've always been like clockwork with my cycle, except for this month. For some reason I randomly had a 24 day cycle, which hasn't happened since I was 13 or something like that. But really, it's good, b/c I can get the stupid thing over with sooner.

Hormones. It's all about the hormones. Apparently false positives are more common between ovulation and menstration, so they try to do it early in the cycle. Some facilites say between days 5 and 15. My facility is uber-anal and says between days 7 and 10. Which makes it a bit of a trick for scheduling, but I was lucky to get an appointment for next week. I had visions of having to wait until April.