Starting Chemo May 2008

Holy cats are the boards quiet!  I dropped in last night and read, then off to bed.  I started thyroid medication yesterday.  Yep, my radiologist not only scarred my lung significantly, but apparently fried the thyroid in my neck because it is inactive.  They found it on my pre-surgery physical and then finally understood why I have been telling them that I am sooooo DAT. 

Angels - What a difficult thing, but know that your Mother is safe and will be well cared for. 

Gracie - I hope you have a fantastic time at the reunion and it works out with your dd.  Have fun with your sisters. 

Been working too much lately, still studying for the certification test and feeling a bit overwhelmed.  7 days until vacation.   

Off to bed to study.  Love you all!

Jean

A late night note as I know it will be busy tomorrow as we pack up to head out.....thanks for all the well wishes. Mom is doing better than I thought...lucky for me a lady  from up the street has her husband there.  So mom has glued herself to her...poor lady.  She has done better than I would have thought, her first night was a bit rough but the staff is keeping her busy. She has been to bingo , doing her knitting and because she has no physical ailments they are getting her to help in various thngs.  I called today and they said she was up a bit early....wondering around at 3:30 am  pleasantly confused.     I had to laugh at that...it your are going to be confused you might as well be happy. !         So I am heading into our camping trip without having to worry which is a wonderful thing !

I will be out of touch for a couple of weeks, will have alot of catching up to do when I get back.

Today is a good day !   ( and so will the next 14 or so be !)

PS Eddie, I sent out mail to you today so should be there next week

Yea Angels. Enjoy. Love you all

In Indiana!

Bumping us back to the first page.

Eddie I will get my Randie mail sent to you Mon or Tues.

Eddie -  my mail went out today.

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.  We had some storms, but it is very pleasant.  Kids are loud so I'm listening to Dave Matthews Band on my Ipod.  I got distracted this week by the Twilight series.  I finished all 4 of them in a week.  At least I wasn't on Farmtown.  We also registered the kids for school.  This has been a good summer.

Talk to you later - Julie

Julie,

I LOVE  Dave Matthews. He lives in Seattle, you know. My mom (who is moving here-have we talked about that? I am steeling myself) will live in his neighborhood. Maybe they'll hit it off. This has been an incredible summer (and winter, Kerry). Like you, Kerry, I am mostly elated all the time. I am trying to stuff two summers into one to make up for last year and it has been very successful so far. Randie would be pleased at those of us"catching up" on vacations and walks and relationships and life. I long for her to be able to do the same thing and I hope she is more comfortable in another place but we think of her everyday and her spirit and memory is among us all. My "slow start" diet has worked well so far. I have lost five pounds in two weeks and my plan is a pound a week for the next 15-17 for a total of twenty to twenty-two pounds which will get me to where I want to be. I was looking at a chart at the onc's office once and it was one of those, "If you are five feet five inches, you should weigh 128" charts and I snorted because that is meant for 18-year-olds as far as I am concerned. I gained nine pounds during and after chemo and I was 13 above where I feel MY chart says I should be so it's going to happen. Here it the best part of this news....I have been swimming a slow mile once a week and it is making a humongus difference in the aromatose inhibitor department. Like Kerry, I started on femara. It last four months because though I have a huge tolerance for pain, the femara seemed to settle in my shoulder blades and especailly in my left one which sustained some football injury a zillion years back. The pain made me wince for a long time. The onc told me I was a dope (He was nicer than that) and I switched to aromasin and it made life much, much more manageable but the big pain was still in my shoulders although much less. Two weeks ago, it took 18 laps just to loosen up my left arm while doing the crawl. This week...it took about three laps and the pain was so much easier. Needless to say, I am recommending swimming to all women with sore joints. My dh and I are just about ready to leap and finally purchase a piece of art for over our bed. We went to the Bellevue Art Fair yesterday and I have to say it was an amazing sensation for the eyes. It was three fairs in one -- a fine arts, a beautiful crafts one and one we never even made it to...we spent four hours at the first two. Women, your mouths would have dropped open as you marvelled at the amazingly beautiful art. Think about your favorite galleries but all together under one roof outside where it was hot but shaded and beautiful. Each artist had to be juried in and they are from all over and they are sitting at their booth so you could talk with them. The crafts one also had magnificent stuff. We bought a friend a house warming gift of beautiful coasters. Most of the art was way out of most of our price ranges, but the woven art and the ceramics and everything else were not to be believed. And we had no kids to say, "Come on...let's go." It was great. Spaeaking of kids, my little one is sick at camp, but they seem to have it under control. Our older one almost got kicked out of his Israel program not because he was making out with a girl; not because he missed curfew; but because he lied about it...he tried to sneak back into his room an hour later and it was "staked out" by staff. Really....camp -- a good place to sneak out. Israel? NO. You always want to be accounted for in Israel. They spared him and we were glad because we didn't want him to have a bad taste in his mouth related to this program as he has had the time of his life. The poetic justice, though, was that the next week, he chose (on his own) army and we got a call telling us he hated it because he had bug bites and was eating meat out of a can and was forced to do dishes for five hours and on and on. That suited him well after all that making out. Things have a way of working out, don't you think? Okay, I had kid digression. This is a very good summer. As I mentioned before, I am even enjoying my mosquito bites as no mosquitos dared approach me last year because they could send my usual lardy self was pumped up with poisonous chemo. Now, they are back to biting and that makes me feel normal again. Who'd have thought? Ramble, ramble, ramble. Ciao.

It is a good summer.  I'm loving the fact that it's stayed cooler than usual here.  (Though not where Cris lives!)  I like having a garden instead of a weed patch.  I like sampling fruit at the farmers' market without worrying about getting some horrible GI infection.  I like watching my daughter become more and more independent. 

I really, really, really miss Randie, though. 

Eddie, congrats on losing the poundage . . . I'm hoping to take a few off myself, by cutting out some of the "feel good" treats I allowed myself during treatment (and kept right on allowing myself after treatment) and increasing my running mileage.  Interesting about your shoulder.  I've developed pain in my right shoulder, and was attributing it to too much schlepping of laptop and luggage this past month (since my left side, with its 14 missing nodes, is off limits, everything goes on the right).  I still think that's the most likely explanation - I first noticed it after what I called my "hell week," when I was traveling every day - but I was already wondering, a little, if it could be treatment related.  Except I'm on tamoxifen rather than an AI.  The pain isn't horrible, but it's certainly annoying. 

Finally, an announcement: I swallowed hard and signed up to run the NYC marathon in the fall as a fundraiser for Fred's Team, raising money for breast cancer research at Memorial-Sloan Kettering.  ("Fred" = Fred Lebow, the marathon's longtime race director, who ran his final marathon when he was a brain cancer patient, crossing the finish hand in hand with Grete Waitz, the many-times race winner.)  I'll post a link over on Facebook, but in the meantime, here's a link for y'all.  This group is a big part of my motivation.

https://fredsteam.mskcc.org/fundraising/Controller?action=userHome&user_id=40223&event_id=128

Linda

Oh, YAY!  I have an internet connection in this campground.  It's .... .... as ... ... .... slow ... ... as ... .... .... ... a .... .... modem, but, heck, at least I can talk to you guys now (until my battery runs down, of course).

Anyway, this is what I wanted to show you:

More hugs...

otter 

Morning Everyone!

Great weekend!  It all actually worked out just like I wanted it too.  Met up with a couple of friends Fri. night for pizza and talked for hours, family reunion on Sat. (Got to visit with my cousin who has pancreatic cancer-my heart broke when he told me that he was going to have to do another round of 13 chemo treatments, but he isn't giving up.)  Seeing both of my sisters was good-being with everyone was great.  Sat. night went out to eat with another friend that I hadn't seen in 30 years--we were reconnected on FB-all I can say is WOW, what a talk we had.  She is doing a 38 mile bc walk in Sept and asked if she could put my name on her shirt and walk for me.  That my fight to kick bc butt and live, pulled her out of a deep depression and now she is trying to live life to the fullest.  

Got to get ready for work now.  It's going to be a long week.  Working 7 days straight!

Love to all.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/so-you-think-you-can-dance-a-tribute-to-breast-cancer-fighters--487

 Here is the link to the dance routine Cris mentioned. My BF talked through the whole intro, so I missed that it was about cancer, and after watching a lovely piece I was confused about the judges reactions.. BF can talk and listen to the TV and compute both, so he understood... but I, got super human scenting skills, not hearing( he thinks my ticking watch is REALLY loud)

 I have been absent, but not away. Lots of work to do trying to keep this damned store in business, lots of crying, and getting my period for the 3 time in 8 weeks.

Not sure if I can pull off the texas trip if this store does not pick up. I made come decisions last night. I am going to get through August and see if it picks up, if not... I will have a planB in place to move forward,. Maybe I will quit, maybe I will restructure somehow, maybe move to a smaller store.. who knows. It all feels like a kick in the gut after making it through cancer with a smile on my face. Trying not to be jaded and bitchy all the time, but somedays it is hard.

Mostly I think it is a good summer, but I am starting to get really angry at people who are letting weather dictate their every mood. I want to shake them and say FECK YOU!!!! RanD would love the rain falling from the sky but she doesn't get to... and all you can do is bitch that your 'SUMMER is RUINED" ....  

anyway.. gotsa run.. more another time

Love to all

 xoN 

Once again, I return to you on my knees, apologizing for going AWOL. I haven't read the last pages but I know I owe money and I hope I'm not too late. Anyone?



After Randie left I fell down the rabbit hole, but I didn't end up in Wonderland. I did, however, do a pretty good impersonation of the Mad Hatter.



rock, that doesn't sound good. Get thee to a physicianry.



I'm glad everyone is having a wonderful summer (and winter). I'm going to throw myself a pity party and say that this is now the third summer ruined for me by chemo. The worst part is I'm sort of thinking this is not working. If it isn't I'm gonna be so mad I wasted this. 12 weeks doesn't seem like a very long time but waiting another 4 for the scan is very very hard when I'm driving myself crazy feeling the lumps that are not really the biggest problem (and the new ones) and thinking maybe they're the same size but maybe.... Oh, well, enough already.



Otter, thanks for the postcard; it was really cool.



Sorry for y'all on the West Coast with unheard of temperatures.



I'll go back when I have a little energy and see where to send the stuff, and see what's been going on with everyone.



I've missed you. And I love you! You, too, Randie.



Eyes

is anyone out there please?