Motivation

Spring: Welcome back and glad to hear you are doing so well!!!!!! You are so right that it is amazing how our bodies heal themselves and before you know it, you will be back to your old routines.  Take care.

Rachel,

The nurses call you weekly to check in. To remove drains, my husband was shown how to do it, and snipped a stich and easily did it last time. I also had a nurse friend and another doctor as back up in case he could not manage to do it. I've heard if something goes wrong, like a part that won't heal, they fly you back and put you up, at their expense, and deal with it. I think this is very uncommon though...

spring. 

Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 How is everybody doing??????  Sorry I have been MIA...life has been a whirlwind!  Don't even know where to start...moved daughter to college and missing her terribly!  Son started his second year as a commuter, started my fall sessions of Zumba...still teaching 6 days a week and have 36 students in my Tuesday/Thursday classes, Arbonne has never been better and I'm helping new people get started, I've been freezing the veggies from the garden and loving having all my organic veggies to eat!  Had my check-up with the onc last week...markers came back normal and they are amazed at how healthy I am! LOL  Still working with Team Survivor and trying to build that.  Waiting to hear if Oprah or GMA picks up our story.......blah, blah, blah! 
Just living and loving life!

I need to go back and catch up with all of you!!!!!!!!  I'm sure you are all doing FABULOUS!!!!!

Make it a great day!!!!

Lisa

Nice to hear from you Lisa! 

Hi Lisa!

{{hug}}

Val

Spring, nice to see you back, showers feel so good, and take so much out of you right after surgery.

Kari, hope you're feeling better.  I had TE and implants, so between Spring and I you'll get a lot of options if you want to know more.

Enjoying getting out and running through these last gasps of nice weather.  Hope everyone is having a good day

Lisa, so happy to see you again!  I know you are missing your DD!!  Glad things are going so well for you!

Feeling better today-thanks kmmd!!  Stopped at Whole Foods on way home from work yesterday and bought the Vit C and the zinc, maybe that helped?!  Went to bed early.  Off work today and tomorrow, so after checking this thread at 7:30, i changed and hopped on my bike, rode to the Club and it was hoppin!  4 ellipticals, all busy, had to wait only 5 min.  Hopped on and did an interval program that kicked my butt!  My heart was pumpin!!  2 miles later I hopped off and rode home, showered and took my laxatives, so far so good!  The sigmoid is at 8:50 tomorrow morning...shoot I'm hungry!!  DH will be home this afternoon!  So happy!  Even did an hour of ironing....thought I better take advantage of being home from work and do something!  But now I think I'm gonna veg out and watch taped shows all day!! heehee  Took French in school, love that language!!

Joy, funny about the shoe and thinking of Helena, HI Helena!!

Spring, do you go home soon?

Make it a fabulous day! missed you Lisa!

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.
  ~Lao-Tse

Wonderful that you get to hang out in NOLA!  Beignets at Cafe Du Monde... I can almost still lick the powdered sugar from my lips...  (and see the fat on my hips!  )  Have some Oysters!!!!  I am guessing you can't have alcohol, now that's rough in NOLA....!!!!

Just saying hello and wishing everyone well.  Spring you are nothing short of amazing. 

Mandy

Sobx - thinking of me and laughing - my wish come true...LOL

So great to read all of your posts.  The daylight is increasing over here .. it is finally spring here and I even got up for a walk this morning at 5.45am. I only run every 2nd day and even surprised myself by this effort. Thanx team BCO.

Kari - I know this is the point of your quotes but gees they sure do hit the mark - they make my heart move.  thank you.

big hugs

Helena

Vivre--well said. I have been thinking about it this morning also--especially Rachel as I know you are 'at the scene' being in NYC. Hug your loved ones today and I know we all appreciate that we are still here.

Spring--don't push it lady! That's really far to walk. Enjoy NOLA though--loved the image of Cafe du Monde and the beignets!!!

DH and I are off to the Best Buddies event at Hearst Castle. Such a great event--a benefit bike ride to support the global organization which pairs people (like Big Brother/Sister relationship) with intellectually challenged people. The premise is to get challenged people out in the world as friends, co-workers, etc. Will be sad for Maria and Anthony Shriver, who run the event, with the recent loss of their mom who did so much with Special Olympics. But it's such an inspiring and fun event. http://www.bestbuddieschallenge.org/ 

yes, indeed, at the scene.  I was with the FDNY today, as I am on every 9/11, and lucky to be there.  I wanted to much to get home to tell you about it, and I was over on the Hair thread because we're working on some hair stuff and I was on Bottle O Tamoxifen because that is where i pretty much live on BCO, but I thought motivation was the right place to post about today, and sure enough, here you are posting about 9/11.

So I hope I remember all I meant to tell you.

I work with the firefighters and the troops since 2002 with the FDNY firefighters and with the troops since 2003 when we invaded Iraq.  What I do is a combination of letting them know people didn't forget them then or now, and making a connection between the firefighters and the troops.  I was selling t shirts for the FDNY firefighters when there was a fire in my own home, I have been dispossessed since 2003.  I had a bunch of t shirt stock in the house, and the t shirts got soot on them from the fire- so I couldn't sell them as "new".  Who would want these washed t shirts?  The troops.  So I found some troops in "the sandbox" (which is a bit of a feat in itself, because they don't exactly share that information) but there were of course hundreds of thousands of troops and I had only a couple hundred t shirts.  So how many to send?  How awful if someone wanted a t shirt and didn't get one, how could I say no?  And how could I possibly send 200thousand t shirts?  Then it became obvious, I should send 343, the same number of firefighters we lost.  So I called up the firehouse and ordered the remaining shirts to make it 343.  When I went to pick up the shirts, the firefighters had also collected their own shirts, from their own backs and handed them to me in big bags to send to the troops.  That's the firefighters.

So then the t shirts make it to the troops, and I told the troops that whenever they doubted the support at home they should hold on to one of these t shirts and remember there are 8000 FDNY firefighters who support them every second of every day.  I got back from the troops many things for the firefighters, like pictures of 343 troops assembled in formation at Baghdad Airport in uniform, and then pictures of them all stripping to reveal their FDNY t shirts underneath, and then standing again in formation in those blue shirts on the tarmac at Baghdad Airport... That's the troops

And so it went, back and forth, so many stories, of the troops and the firefighters exchanging t shirts, and then troops coming home and visiting NYC and coming to the firehouses, and of course MANY firefighters who ARE troops as well...  and 8 years later the guys know me at the firehouses, I'm "The T shirt lady".  Over the years I had to switch from tshirts to popcorn, due to bureaucracy and bullshit... can't sell without a sales license, can't buy the FDNY logo due to copyright issues, can't sell the funny firehouse t shirts because someone complained about them being politically incorrect... and I am currently in a bind because I decided to send Cookies for Kids Cancer instead of popcorn this year, but the CFKC gal is a little too busy to work on my shipment because she has a 5 year old undergoing chemo and RADS...

And lots and lots of firefighters having cancer.  9/11 is another "gift that keeps on giving", like SFBC.

I guess what made this year different for me is that as a cancer patient, I could relate to the firefighters on a whole new level.  One of the guys having a stent put in for his kidney was going for nuclear medicine and I told him what it was like for BC lumpectomy and about the blue pee and we were all laughing and the guys were telling those kind of medical stories and we were all laughing the way we do here so much that when someone called me away the guy telling the story actually said no, let her stay I want her to hear this...

And I was telling one of my closest firefighter friends (he's leaving at 4am tomorrow to escort a steel beam from the WTC to Fort Benning GA with a team of 9/11 first responders) about the adventures in chemo hair and about the experience of lbrewer and chelev, how hard it is to even walk in the door of a salon for hair care and he stated it plainly- as firefighters do- that people just don't care enough to help cancer patients.  He's got several family members with different cancers and he himself has a stomach and skin cancer.  He was one of the first to step up when I told my closest friends and family about my BC.  That was when he revealed that he also had cancers, and since it was so new to me I asked him how he knew the cancer was gone.  He didn't answer me then and of course now I know why.  So we were talking about all of that... and laughing like we do here about it.  I refuse to give cancer any credit for anything good, but I will admit that it does give me entree into areas with people who had great suffering where I can now speak to them on a more human level, I can actually be helpful now where before I could only babble.

And there is my regret that because of SFBC I can't do as much as I used to for the troops and the firefighters.  I have been MIA from them both for the first 6 months of this year since DX, surgery, RADS blah blah blah.. that other thing we all have to deal with, having to cut back on our commitments.  SFBC.

It is not a bad thing to be in such fine company and be able to relate to them more on their level.

I got some walking in, because the two firehouses I visited are about a half mile apart. I started at one (missed the "first bell" when the first plane hit the first tower but made it for the second bell, when the second plane hit, and then back again for the 3rd bell, when the first tower fell) then walked to the other for the next bell, then back again for the 3rd bell and then over to Mass nearby, then back to both houses and home after Mass, so that's about 3 miles I think if you cobble them together. 

I was thinking about you folks here on BCO and all my SFBC friends often, during Mass, looking around the room etc... and you know it's raining... and as I was walking through the church the wet rubber on my shoes was squeaking on the floor... and I thought of Helena  

QOTD- o/ Rubber Duckie You're the One, When I am with you I have so much fun, Rubber Duckie I'm awfully fond of you.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8IfCSnYPYo 

Rachel: What a beautiful person you are to care so much and to do so much.  Your post about your 9/11 experience brought tears to my eyes.  I think most of us wish we could do more for the troops and the firefighters. But you are actually doing something.

Hugs to all.

Mandy

:::putting on my Troop Shirts hat for a moment::::

Valjean- I have had the privilege during these 8 years to speak to those who serve from all over the country (and sometimes from all over the world, with the coalition forces in the "sandbox"), from little towns in states that have no "air time" (there's an industry joke about what to call the space between NY and LA... the answer is "the audience") who answered the call and serve their country in the name of 9/11- for us.  Sometimes they tell me how "some day" they'd like to visit NYC.  It blows my mind continually how these people would care so much about us in NYC,leaving their safe homes for the dangers in the deserts and elsewhere, without even the promise of ever being able to come here and enjoy the city.  And it drives me crazy that they have the impression that New Yorkers don't care about them. (this also from the media) So I make sure that whenever the troops are coming in, I take them around to the sights, into the firehouses.  The troops have to know that they can walk into any firehouse in NYC and be given a hero's welcome.  Yesterday there was a group of Special Forces at the Mass.  I went to them to thank them and welcome them.  Turns out one of their unit is the son of a firefighter who died at the WTC on 9/11.  Know that all service members can cut the line for the Statue of Liberty (and lemme tell ya its a freakin loooong line) the don't have to pay to go to the top of the Empire State Building, and oh, here's a letter that sums it up from Fleet Week in 2007:

May 30, 2007 -- On behalf of the 600 Marines and 3,000 sailors who have been in New York for Fleet Week, thank you ("Welcome to the Fleet," Editorial, May 26).

The outpouring of hospitality, generosity and well-wishes has been overwhelming.

The Marines and sailors have unanimously reported that New Yorkers treated them to more food and drinks than they could consume and felt welcomed and appreciated in the Big Apple.

When calculating their travel time in the city, the Marines and sailors found themselves accounting for all the people who would stop them to shake their hands, pat them on the back and say, "Thank you."

This reception particularly means a lot to the Marines, who have just returned from Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Now we are on our way home, where we will continue our training for the missions that lie ahead.

This has been a great break for us all.

As we say, "Bravo Zulu" - New Yorkers are "good to go." No city rolls out the red carpet like New York.

*Col. Peter Petronzio*

USMC

Commanding Officer

24th Marine Expeditionary Unit

*Capt. Michael Hawley*

USN

Captain, USS Wasp

So I say to you what i say to the troops- You are Us and We are You and we love you