Sisterhood of the Secret Handshake

Juli- YAAAAY YAAAAAY YAAAAAY for tasting this year!

kmmd- I couldn't do it all, I cut the night workout (argh)  and the night bath/wash.  At least the kid would look and smell good, but was lucky, I got the wash in in the morning.

Come on Michigan girls!  We been shakin' in PA, CA, the land of Oz and NYC, let's get some Midwest (?) shakin' goin' on!  (I hear they can shake it in Canada too, eh?)

Speaking of shaking in PA, that's PattiB, Mary and me so far on December 12 in Allentown.  I have been invited to a dealer appreciation event at the car dealership there, so I am bringing my car in for a switch install- appt at 11am.  Then I figure I can bail and hang with youse guys.  Mary and I ended up at a Wegman's (thanks to Mary driving me), which I actually thought was pretty cool.  We could go to a restaurant too if you like.  (Hey, it's not stunning NorCal, but all we did was talktalktalktalktalktalktalk... like me and Leah for for 4.5 hours over takeout... and we can pick exactly what we want to eat... and we could actually get some food shopping done if you like.  Can you imagine all of us with carts shopping and talking?)

 PattiB, like you, Friday is diet day.  I ate so much yesterday I hurt myself, and I don't regret it.

Little Red, you speak like poetry  Missed you and glad your computer is back!  What happened with the home color?  Eh, don't worry about losing it if you don't use it.  That's for if you have the man and don't use it.  I have two stories about that one... basically, a 90 year old woman at a viewing of a movie my friend made about older people who live like gypsies in trailers at the Modern Museum got up and defended senior sex when a young person in the audience expressed doubt that the sexual goings on depicted were real- she said she was 90 years old and still "doing it" and that if you don't use it you lose it.  And I dislike telling you I went something like 10 years pre-kid and pre-SFBC without it and then had two lovers sorta at the same time (hey, they were in different countries) and not only did they not notice any "cobwebs" but also they didn't notice that I was 15 and 20 years older than they were- even naked in the light!  I didn't know they were so much younger either- and that brings up a couple funny stories I assure you.  One ends up with me in a golf cart at the airport in Israel... Leah, I didn't tell you that one, when you told me you got it to come over here this trip...

meg- xoxoxoxoxoxox

PattyB part deux- oh for crying out loud now no one is putting the "o" in G-d.  Hey- that's just for Jewish folks, and I didn't even do it before SFBC!!  I figure at this point I don't need to do anything more to piss Her off... And what you say about G-d not singling people out was believe it or not part of my amazing lunch with Leah.  Did I tell that part of the story yet?  About meeting the rabbi?  Once when dating a nice Christian boy I attended his church service.  The minister was preaching about how someone approached Christ and asked how he could help him, was he hungry, did he need a place to stay, clothes, money etc... (apologies if I am supposed to use capital "H" for referring to Christ as "him", I just don't know and my head's full of turkey, I can go back and edit, lemme know) and Christ said something like how if this man wanted to help him, he should help his neighbor, feed his hungry neighbors, give to those who need it.  The minister said the point is that you can go to church every Sunday and be the most pious parishioner, but if you don't live as a kind person then you are not going to Heaven.  I said to this rabbi and Leah that is my personal belief, I may not keep the Jewish traditions from the bible, I break them almost every moment, but I believe if there is a Heaven and a G-d, they will look at how I lived my life, and care less about whether I ate a bacon cheeseburger than if I shared it with someone who was hungry.  They both quoted laws of my religion that support that, and I wish I had written it down.  The women on this thread are the kindest most giving people I know, whether you put the "o" in "G-d" or not, I am sure if there is a Heaven and a G-d, He is in heaven right now shaking His boobs in our direction.

That said- I know it's not exactly your point.  Must continue post in a few minutes, the kid is waiting for breakfast... and his day to begin.   

My heart fills when you guys thank me for this thread.  It's really me who has to thank YOU.

My heart fills when you guys thank me for this thread.  It's really me who has to thank YOU.

My heart fills when you guys thank me for this thread.  It's really me who has to thank YOU.

My heart fills when you guys thank me for this thread.  It's really me who has to thank YOU. 

(I had to do this this way because I tried to make that BOLD and it just WONT so I want to make it stand out) 

cross posted between my morning posts... man I am beat like an old shoe - and I don't even want to THINK about food.  It's like I am drunk and hungover- and there was NO alcohol to blame.  True, I did take a Xanax yesterday but still that was in the morning... no dears, there is no escape, this is a side effect of TURKEY.  Of course I should have lowered the dosage... and period is 3 days late.  Hmmmmm.  Third month on Tamox.

Yesterday went off without a hitch.  Even the car seat installed in both cars the first time each time without wrestling.  My step-mom kinda avoided us, which was not nice but OK, whatever.  We saw zero floats although we were one block from the parade, still OK.  Parking on the way up was a scene.  Madhouse.  My friend was brilliant to make a reservation.  The restaurant was a winner- and the general manager came to say hello because he has a three year old. Kid enjoyed mashed potatoes and creamed spinach and pumpkin squash soup and milk. I had some of his soup, 3 raw oysters and 2 small crabcakes. (yes, crabcakes!) I swear that's all! After on the way back to my Dad's at Lincoln Center, I let the kid run around the fountain.  It was a hoot and a half. Then my friend from NJ brought us back to my place,Turkey breast went in oven at 350 uncovered , i got 10 minutes running around the garden with the kid and then turned it down to 170  with a little chicken stock in the pan-- the skin was already crispy  opened all the other containers from Whole foods and put in pans on the stove, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and the vegetables my friend doesn't care for I put in glass bowls in the micro.  Then I skipped out of the kitchen, my friend and I built 40 cardboard brick toys for my kid while the nanny gave him dinner. Then I put the kid to bed with the Rescuers Down Under and we chowed down while watching the Newhart marathon of their Thanksgivings.  The kid woke up with a poopy, changed him and restarted the movie and back to eating.  I swear it didn't seem like I was over eating that much.  I had nice piece of turkey breast about half inch thick with it's skin, reasonable scoop of mashed potato, same for stuffing, a little creamed spinach a little sweet potato, a little cranberry sauce and nice amount of gravy over the turkey, potato and stuffing.  I repeated that for a second helping. I drank only water. Put the pecan pie in the oven and took a breather on the couch.  Whipped fresh cream, put vanilla ice cream on the hot pie, with whipped cream and shavings of 85% dark chocolate.  ONE piece, I swear.  I gotta tell you that's a smashing dessert.  We ate less than 1/4 of what I bought- and forgot to eat the rolls.  I packed every bit of it up- except a leftover plate of each thing- I will take a picture.  My friend took it all home and by 9pm I was a blob on the couch.  My morning friend called at 830pm and I couldn't get up to answer the phone. At midnight I woke up and lets just say I went to the ladies room and leave it at that. I also managed to remove my bra and pants- HUZZAH.  and the same at 2am.  and the same at 3am and so on.  And I do think I said o myself that at least this time getting up in the middle of the night to spend time in the ladies room made sense, and how happy I was this had NOTHING to do with SFBC.  I think I am high on triptophan.  I dunno but its 2pm and I slept from 11a-1pm and I an fcrikeyucking useless, still burping, still full- can't even think about food, and only recently donned a pair of drawstring pants.  Every time I go to sleep I wake up iwth my kitty beside me.

Good Lord, in 2 hours I have to get dressed to go to dinner with my Dad and one of the doctors who helped me through SFBC, a friend of the family, rhumatologist and his kids and all i want to do is sleep!  

And tomorrow- I MUST get very serious about the troop stuff.  I haven't even been writing to them about the goings on, and I have 34 customs forms to reprint because they didnt print properly...

OK, but back to what I missed...

Mary- I think you are already doing all that is possible to show your SIL that it's not what it was then.  Look at YOU!  And as hard as this is going to sound, it may be that she's just not going to do the screenings, and this may be the right decision for her.  We can not force or change other people.

Little Red- awwwwww....  that's so twisted... I mean WE all understand why you don't want to be told how great you look, but there's no way the Thanksgiving folks could know.  You know they were really saying that they were just so happy to see you.  But it is wickedly hilarious to read how you describe it.   What's the deal with your ex ?  Sounds like he did a number on your head.  How old  is your son (you probably said but my head is full of turkey :::urp:::).  Last year Thanksgiving was just me and my kid, and it rocked  I can't wait to get where I can curse because its pretty impossible for me to tell the story with the golf cart or explain my goings-on with men without using the F word.  Like, the guys I end up with are all unfcrikeyuckable.  See, that just doesn't work... Oh yeah baby, you got some length going on there!  Oh yeah, when we were watching Newharts, there was a Bob Newhart with Suzanne Pleshette and I swear to Gcrikeyd she had chelev's hairstyle.  

I forgot to mention how amazing Jess's post with her minister's wife mom explaining sex was...

can't wait to hear how Juli enjoyed the tastes this year!

kookiesmom- NICE kitty cat!!!!

Holy cow Mary- you vacuum the ceiling?  better yet, you have the kids do it  You know you are NEVER boring.  And see how many here enjoy the spit? hahahahahahaha!

Catherine- its about f8cking time you showed up. All kidding aside, your experience might be especially helpful right now because about 3 of the gals here had to go off Tamox for various bad crap going on, so its nice to know there might be a way back.  OH so typical, the California girl is already thinking about washing her car... this is me washing mine in February 2001:

Yes, that's snow on the ground.

A couple times last night, tossing and turning, and a couple other nights recently I did almost kind of feel it was surreal, because I could actually sleep on my stomach.  I almost felt like I could relate to that stuff the docs all say about how I will look back at this as some short bad time I can barely remember blah blah blah, and I am and was extra thankful that I have been so fortunate, relatively, with SFBC , but I can't put it out of my mind the fear that I could leave my kid for this shit, I can't forget what my friends here are still going through, I can't forget the women we lost.  Even with many years of practice and 15 years with the Rolling Stones, I don't know of any way to forget that kind of fcrickeyeducked up shcrikeyit.   I also don't know anyone who is not a SFBC patient or SFC patients who gets the jokes we tell and laughs as deeply.

 Anyway.... I should waddle over to the bath and see if perhaps bathing will get me moving about the cabin freely... waddle waddle...

Oh right, how stupid of me, Catherine, Mary's here too, and Renee too... so really its youse guys who "started" this thread when I showed up on March RADS.  When you get a chance please fill the gang in on what the deal was with you having to stop Tamox and the reasoning for getting back on- and welcome back aboard in all senses.

::urp::: 

For those of us who are refugees from our old beloved thread, I just noticed that thread has 93K posts over 2 years... and this thread has 9800 posts in less than a month... at this rate in 2 years this thread will have 235,200 posts...

oh... my... gawd! 

hrf- what I don't get, will never get, is all the women who get "boob jobs", losing the sensitivity and all that just for looks.  I think you gotta give yourself more of a break.  Hard enough to find a good guy on a normal day, but when you're going through this pile of shcrikeyit with missing parts and no hair, I mean, hey, it really takes the fun out of the whole mating game doncha think?  I still have one crusty brown patch of RADs whatever on my aureola and I can't handle what a guy would think looking at it- even though the guys I know wouldn't notice or care.. hum... and you know that only makes them less attractive.  Hey, we want to look good, and feel good about how we look, we all know that's the biggest turn on...and its just a leeetle hard under the circumstances you describe. I haven't been on the hair thread for a while, what's the deal with your hair not growing back? Probably at work its just that EVERYTHING has changed.  I have a saying from the most part of my life that was spent always traveling... If I was going on a trip it wasn't like I was going some place and coming back, because no matter what, you just can never go back actually, things are always moving forward even when you're not there.  So you just go forward, always.  

Ah Debbie, it seems to me that the gals with less boobage are actually having less radiation because theres just less area of the body getting radiated.  Also, any place where skin touches skin will "cook" as one side heats the other.  So  you'll be putting strips of cotton, like from an old t shirt, under your boob where it lays on your rib cage, or stomach, or if you are like me, down to your knees... but seriously, the next thing is lie down on your back like you're going to sleep.  Your boob will fall slightly off to the side, kinda into your armpit.  So when you lie down, that's where the skin- on skin will be, so you'll want to protect the skin there too, or wake up with an underarm burn where you hot boob was.  Calendula Ointment, not cream not anything else, has been proven to reduce the burning and shorten healing time (lemme know if you want the study link), aloe is also nice to keep on hand, pure aloe and keep it in the fridge.  Ointment is a pain in the ass to use on this skin, but that's the stuff to use. Boiron. You can not use powder.   Some weird anti-intuitive stuff about radiation burns... regular burns you want to let the air in to heal, radiation burns you want to keep covered, wet and believe it or not- warm.   If you do get burns, you'll want vaseline bandages- they are incredibly comforting, but also messy.  So you have to put gauze over them to protect your clothing from looking like you're melting.  You can get the kind of gauze that's got like a clear teflon coating, that really protects your clothes but the corners can stick your skin a bit.  Meanwhile, how to keep the gauze in place?  They have this sort of tube top material, you can cut holes in stratgecally, like arm holes, and put it over your whole bandage get-up and everything stays magically in place.  Even serves as a bra kinda. The radiation burn series is like, first nothing, then little red bumps that blister and sometimes open.  The trick you try to do is not let them open until there's been new skin grown underneath.

Another critical thing is taking anti inflammatories like ibuprophen.  The key thing about this is that the swelling alone can make it terribly uncomfortable, and these meds stop it from swelling, much like a toothache.

Drink water, get a bunch of 100% cotton t shirts you're ready to lose- I couldn't wear a bra much of the time so I got some denim vests to "hold me buns in the basket"... oh and the bad rad boob popped up like pamela andersons' while my good boob sagged like usual.  Quite an odd experience.  Oh take pics of your boobs if you can before you start, because after you will wonder if it always went this-a-way or that, which one was actually bigger etc... I had pics like this and it really helped sometimes when I was obsessing about it.

If you can get them to do your TX on your stomach, prone position, the beam shouldn't touch your ribs, heart or lung, and you can avoid rib pain.  If you can't get it done in the prone position, don't worry, because 30 years of data shows no higher incidence of any trouble to the ribs, lung or heart even if the beam does go through.  

You can usually get a shortened course of RADS, something like 2-3 weeks, which is a newer method that so far- 12 years- actually has better results.

You can wear gloves during TX, I did and it made me feel more like me.

You can usually bring your own music.

Sometimes you get these very dark feelings of dread.  They're freaky until you realize its a RADs thing.

It doesn't hurt, it just goes against every instinct to submit to it.

Ask them to get a surgical pen to make their marks on you, they often use Sharpies and those are just not meant for human skin.  No harm i know of from Sharpies, but ewww. why not use a surgical pen?  In any case, it's gonna wreck whatever shirt you wear. 

The single most important thing to remember is not to underestimate how much this can really do to you.  Everyone makes that same mistake.  DONT BE A HERO.  There are people who sail through it, and I think thats the AA cup gals.  Just my experience. 

oh  oh, I did that wrong before- that was views, not posts... for posts, this thread had 885 in a month and the other has nearly 6000 in 2 years.  At this rate this thread will have 21,240 posts in two years!