Not Buying Into It

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited November 2010

    I say this thread has long since stopped being about Pompeed, and even if I sound harsh, that is as it should be. That subject has been gone over until most of us are ready to drop dead with exhaustion.

    What has emerged in its place (and will hopefully stay) is a refreshingly introspective conversation about how breast cancer intersects with our outlook on life. I am generally loathe to hijack someone's thread, but I think it's time for Pompeed to take some responsibility for her feelings, for people's reactions, stop seeking so much negative attention and perhaps explore other parts of BCO where she can be the giver of support or the listener or where she can learn about the medical aspects and ask specific questions that can help her. She surely needs support, but there comes a point at which she needs to give more in order to get more. That time is now.

    We cannot help her, and after this point, not should we try, as it is a waste of our time and, as I have said repeatedly, we have been manipulated enough. I do wish her well and I hope that eventually she is able to feel better. End of subject for me.

    Otter, I love Ehrenreich. I read her books "Bait and Switch" and "Nickel and Dimed." 

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  • steelrose
    steelrose Member Posts: 3,798
    edited November 2010

    I don't see these posts as "dwelling in a dark place" for six weeks. I see what started as a hostile reaction to one woman's raw emotion turn into an amazingly honest discussion. Pompeed was the catalyst and now everyone seems to be digging deeper, reaching farther. No one is trying to change anyone's mind here, we're way beyond that,  but it does seem as if there has been an acceptance of the choices that we make as individuals. They are CHOICES not THREATS!

    To me, Pompeed represents control, our control over a horrible situation. I may have chosen the traditional route with my cancer... surgeries, chemo, pills... but she reminds me that I can walk away from it at any time. Get up from the chemo chair, pull out the drains, refuse the pills...  I have no intention of doing any of that anytime soon, but I like to know that it's an option. Cancer is so scary, and we are all held hostage in so many ways. Our own bodies are holding us hostage! And in the back of my mind, I am always dreaming of escape. Thank you Pompeed, for keeping that dream alive. 

    As for positive thinking, I've never been a rainbows and roses girl. I can be moody, skeptical, and downright defiant at times, but my optimism following my Stage 4 diagnosis has genuinely surprised me. It may be terror, but I cling to hope... false or otherwise... to get me through the surgeries and treatments. No apologies for that! I enjoy denial immensely, still I seek the truth. Thanks to all of you for this enlightening discussion, and for sharing your individual stories.               

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited November 2010

    Steelrose, I loved your post.

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  • kira1234
    kira1234 Member Posts: 3,091
    edited November 2010

    steelrose, I'm not even anywhere near your choices in my diagnosis, but sure relate with you. Thankyou for saying my feelings so well.

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  • lmc1970
    lmc1970 Member Posts: 168
    edited November 2010

    Well said steelrose-I know how you feel...

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  • Bukki
    Bukki Member Posts: 114
    edited November 2010

      I know positive thinking....I am positive I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. LOL

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited November 2010
    LaughingPompeed - My intentions were only "good" and I wish you many happier days as you travel this journey....I can't speak for all here on this site, but we've all been through our own personal "hell" and just keep moving forward the best way we know how. Gentle hugs.
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  • worldwatcher
    worldwatcher Member Posts: 205
    edited November 2010

    Steelrose

    Thank you for your insightful post.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited November 2010
    Steelrose - GREAT post, enjoyed it and could relate very well, best wishes on your journey as well!Kiss
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  • Lowrider54
    Lowrider54 Member Posts: 2,721
    edited November 2010

    steelrose...

    D'Nile is lovely this time of year isn't it?  Particularly about a month or so before Ms. PET is about to visit.  Dreading her precisely calculated visits, I row out for a bit and float down D'Nile, taking in the sites and sounds and smells. 

    A few days before Ms. PET arrives, I row back to shore with a courage-filled bucket of fish as an offering in hopes the visit is dull and uneventful with not even a speck lighting up in her eyes.  I have heard it can be a wonderful thing and that her visits become less frequent and I can immediately return to D'Nile and float down to visit NED for awhile.  I hear he makes a mean batch of Woo Hoo cocktails!

    Hugs to You All!

    LowRider 

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  • Pompeed
    Pompeed Member Posts: 239
    edited November 2010

    Athena: I'm responsible for my own feelings.  They are mine.  Good, bad, indifferent, I own them.  Like everyone owns whatever they feel.  And while some here think I should be, I am not ashamed of my feelings.  Or my expression of them.  I thought that was what this site was for: the open and honest expression of personal and individual situations.  I don't know where you got the idea that I have not taken responsibility for my own emotions. 

    I am not, however, responsible for the reactions of others to what I have said about myself.  I am not in control of anyone else's reactions.

    As for manipulation, I have not given anyone any advice about their own medical or personal situation and wouldn't dare do so.  Nor have I said anything about what anyone else is doing for themselves as their own choices.  Almost every note written in reply to what I have said about myself has been a narrative of someone else's own story.  It's nearly universal.  And I can't find a single note amongst those where someone has said: "I've changed my mind about my own choices and I'm going to do what Pompeed is doing instead."  So where I've supposedly "manipulated" you or anyone else or changed anyone's mind so that a woman alters or abandons whatever path that individual has choosen for herself is beyond me.  In my experience, it's impossible to manipulate people who are well-satisfied with and committed to their own choices.

    Steelrose:

    Thank you. Very, very much for the wisdom.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited November 2010

    Barbara A:  thanks for your post.  I would be interested to see what your onc says about an oncotype score of 11 "pre-surgery" then surgery found 4 positive nodes.  So of course I was rocket-launched into chemo.  My onc says even though initially I had a very low onco score, it flew out the window when I turned up node positive.  Wonder what others have experienced....

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited November 2010

    Pompeed:  You have every right to feel however you want to.  Some people cannot understand this and expect us to be "positive" about this whole crappy cancer biz.  I see healthy people every day getting cancer and wonder why we haven't been able to wipe this out in the last 60 years or so.  But then there are many diseases that we haven't even managed to understand.  And don't even get me started about the insensitivity I have personally come across in the discussions with doctors, oncs and radiology docs.  Okay - I'm done for now :-)

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited November 2010

    Pompeed, you completely misunderstood my post.

    Shelly56 - and don't get me started on how miserably we are losing the supposed war on cancer....

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  • Pompeed
    Pompeed Member Posts: 239
    edited November 2010

    My take on the breast cancer problem:

    There's been a very significant improvement in treatment and therapies and survival rates in the past generation.  It wasn't so long ago that radical mastectomy was THE standard of care justified by the "the more of the anatomy which is taken out, the better the outcome."  Women lost their breasts and their lymph nodes and often even their chest muscles and collar bones.  "More is a cure" was the thinking.  Even though, as a theory, it wasn't tested.

    Things have improved from those days and survival rates are greatly improved.  Early detection has improved.  Which tells me that as long as there are early detection methods and therapies which are proven to be effective, the money which is available for cancer research will be spent on other kinds of cancer which are difficult to find early (ovarian cancer) and cancers which have little in the way of proven treatment options (pancreatic cancer).  I'm betting that the thinking is: it will be nearly impossible, with people living as long as they do, to prevent cancer.  That being the case, spend money on screeening and early detection methods and on therapies for cancers which do not have effective treatment options now.

    Breast cancer is not the top cancer killer.  And women have effective means to find it early and methods of treatment.  It's not going to get the largest pile of dough for research. 

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited November 2010

    Sadly, the death rates for breast cancer have barely budged from the seventies to 2004; overall deaths from all cancer between the pre-chemo 1950 and 2004 dropped by just 5 percent, according to government data. People like the American Cancer Society and radiologists who benefit from mammograms love to say that cancer deaths have fallen, but that is misleading. IF you get cancer, your chances of dying have barely budged, but more people are dying of other things and that is why it appears that cancer seems to loom less large as a cause of death.

    Luckily, most women will survive BC, but 1/4 will not, and that is a huge disappointment after the billions thrown at pharma, which has developed drugs of mostly marginal benefit.

    Mammograms have been found to be virtually useless as a whole (they may benefit some). Survival statistics today are also skewed by the fact that mammograms find cancers earlier, so five-year figures look better. Unfortunately, in BC, it has not yet been proven that early detection saves lives.

    Honestly, I hate to sound old-fashioned, but I still think surgery is the best treatment out there for non-metastatic cancer, although of course we don't want to go back to the days of the Halsted (sp.) mastectomy.

    And I can say much more while I wait for a Comcast customer service agent to come to the phone....grrrWink

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  • Lowrider54
    Lowrider54 Member Posts: 2,721
    edited August 2013

    Ah, allass, I cannot return to D'Nile this time.  Ms. PET's eyes shown a little too brightly on some newly aquired shiney spots while finding a dull reflection in existing areas.  My fish-offering was not totally in vain, however.  All is not lost, it has no taste for flesh yet and I do like the dimming of the light - it simply means, we stay the course and pay a visit to Mr. MRI and with his whirring voice surrounding me, hoping he shouts 'Not Real, Not Real'. 

    Oh, how I long to meet the Stable Boy and maybe, just maybe, I will get a good roll in the hay out of this afterall... 

    Fingers crossed...LowRider

    PS - Athena1 - you still liking your B cups?  I so am now that I am able to button my blazers and zip my coats up to my chin if I want to too!  Woo Hoo!

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  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited November 2010

    (((((Lowrider))))) Oh, life in the dark with just you and NED would be wonderful.

    Yes, always loving my B-cups. Of course, if you go to Victoria's Secret, I am an A, but I'm convinced they oversize their bras.

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  • PlantLover
    PlantLover Member Posts: 622
    edited November 2010

    1Athena1 wrote: Pompeed, you completely misunderstood my post.

    Well then, that makes two of us.

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  • Lowrider54
    Lowrider54 Member Posts: 2,721
    edited November 2010

    Cool beans....my daughter got me a gift card to Victoria Secrets...'tis the season to be shopping!  I could never find a bra in there that fit me - you have given me ultra high hopes!  Thanks....

    (((((1Athena!)))))

    LowRider

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  • worldwatcher
    worldwatcher Member Posts: 205
    edited November 2010

    Lowrider..."Ah, allass, I cannot return to D'Nile this time.  Ms. PET's eyes shown a little too brightly on some newly aquired shiney spots while finding a dull reflection in existing areas."

    So sorry. Fingers crossed that Mr. MRI and with his whirring voice shouts 'Not Real, Not Real'. 

    Prayers up too.

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  • funfacts
    funfacts Member Posts: 1
    edited November 2010

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WQqJQ-A9yPAJ:70.32.98.90/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D88819+Pompeed&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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  • Alpal
    Alpal Member Posts: 1,785
    edited November 2010

    Funfacts - your post is trollish to the extreme. I doubt if anyone on here cares what someone posted on another forum 3 years ago. I'm reporting your post.

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  • PlantLover
    PlantLover Member Posts: 622
    edited November 2010

    Everyone please report funfacts post.  Man, I don't get angry often but ...

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  • konakat
    konakat Member Posts: 6,085
    edited November 2010

    Reported -- what an ass!!

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  • Cowgirl13
    Cowgirl13 Member Posts: 1,936
    edited November 2010

    reported

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  • FireKracker
    FireKracker Member Posts: 8,046
    edited November 2010

    that was her first post and she is starting trouble...HEY go away. reported.

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  • flash
    flash Member Posts: 1,685
    edited November 2010

    Hey Pompeed,

    How was schooling this weekend?  Ponies here are cold and quarter sheets when riding just don't do enough.  At least footing is staying pretty good for the month.  Hope all is well with you. How's the drain?

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  • FireKracker
    FireKracker Member Posts: 8,046
    edited November 2010

    with all this crap goin on i too forgot to ask pompeed HOW IS THE DRAIN COMIN ALONG?????

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  • Luckylis
    Luckylis Member Posts: 13
    edited November 2010

    Read all you want, go through your initial reactions which you so boldly posted.  Most of us here have been through what you are about to.  Shut up and listen to the real world.

     Me?  Military family, overseas, stage III, sick.  Get the job done.  It is not pretty.  No time for crying when all you have to do to rid yourself of the cancer.  The rest comes later..the feelings, family, insurance whatever.

    It's a blur, quit being reactive and get proactive.

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