Getting tired of the arguments on this board!!!!

Well, if the subject of the downside of treatments hasn't been fully aired and has been kept under wraps and hidden in secret places, might be useful, at least to some, to get it out of the dark corners and put it out into the light and air.

grannydukes, I think you just said it well.  It is poison, and for some the risk outweighs benefits, and for some the benefit outweighs the risks, and we will all draw that line according to our own life experiences and values priorities and beliefs.  Every single person here has a unique set of circumstances that in concert with a different biology of tumor will mean that each of us makes a unique decision.

Pompeed wrote "Like it or not: there are serious and permanent side effects to therapies for the treatment of cancer. That's not my opinion. It's scientific fact."

Actually, it is your opinion.  Scientific fact would state "there MAY be serious and permanent side effects for the treatment of cancer."  

You make all your statements with factual assertion (and lots of conjoined sentences which is truly annoying).  Anyway, it just isn't the case. 

I doubt anybody is really going to fall for your agenda and you are right - if they believe a stranger on an internet board over their doctor, than they have bigger problems than anybody here can fix.

You are entitled to your opinon of course.  We all have them.  But don't disguise it as fact.  The person who gets to spout facts on this board is Otter - she's the only one who does it right. 

All you have to do is Google the possible side effects and there they are. No one is trying to hide them from anyone. In fact my onc asked me the side effects of TCH when I met with him as he knew me well and knew I would already know all about it.

Hey, the worst permanent side effect of chemo is my crazy 70's perm hairstyle - I hate it but I'm alive!!!!

Sue

Thanks ladies..I really do care about everyone here.

I've just never seen such inefficient "lawyering" as witnessed on this and the other thread. Sounds like my family growing up. We would defend ourselves, defend and defend, going round in circles, solving nothing and just defying the law of physics against perpetual motion. I am also reminded of hunters whose method is to simply exhaust their prey. Fine for a crappy family meal or the African savanna, but it's tiring here. Pompeed is spending energy in a rather disorganized way.

Mazy and Madalyn - I don't think Pompeed could answer the question you pose of what her goals are here. I speculate that they have changed but I am disturbed by patterns of her behavior that seem unhealthy as evidenced on this web site. I do feel sorry for her because she has been harshly spoken to, but playing a lawyer's dance is wasting everybody's time and resolving nothing.

On the other hand, I must thank Pompeed because some of her views about treatment dovetail with mine and I do not feel BCO is sufficiently tolerant of those views. She has opened avenues for discussion which some of us feel were missing, and to some extent, she has had to bear the brunt of the push-back that those of us who preferred to stay silent may have endured. It doesn't make her a hero, but it does put things into perspective. It's a shame that the atmosphere in which these "not buying it" ideas have been expressed has led to "arguments," shall we say but perhaps there was that much pent up emotion to let out.

It's also true that not everyone will find someone who feels/has been through the same thing on BCO. A small thing: I had a TE that folded into itself --a rare complication-- and no one had experienced that (quick surgery corrected the problem). A big thing: Lupron was my nemesis, but I had to go to a prostate cancer forum to find advice on dealing with SEs. And -most importantly for me, personally-- there is really nowhere here to talk about the role of major comorbidities in choosing cancer treatment and shaping our decisions, and efforts to get a forum on that have not been successful.

However, for many things, you will find an echo.

I tend to wager that Pompeed is "secure" in her treatment decisions and she is not pretending that those are binding. It's the endless attention-seeking that worries me. Perhaps she is furious about getting cancer. Totally understandable, but a disorganzed Quixotic sword fight with the four winds can only make that worse, surely?

Cancer forced me to take stock of who I was as a person. Perhaps Pompeed is in that process - who knows. I'm not inclined to read yet another several paragraphs of self-defense at this point. I would rather she did something better for herself, like look at the forums that might help her such as "Surgery" and "Breast Reconstruction"/Non-reconstruction. I bet she would get good advice on the drain situation. Or start a thread on riding - that would be a great way to bond over something she loves with people who also have bc.

Someone once said - and I don't recall where - paraphrasing...'at least we don't argue like they do on the stage iv forum'...apparently we aren't alone anymore...

Oh, and the "You Know You Are a Cancer Patient When..." is absolutley a riot!

Hi Molly .. no need to apologize .. I've been around a number of years and have seen all kinds of arguments on this site.  They usually burn themselves out .. and the posters move on.  For many of us the main thing we have in common is breast cancer ... beyond that, our lives may be very different and we come from very different backgrounds.  Arguments are bound to pop up from time to time, especially on controversial topics.

We may fuss and fight a bit, but underneath, I believe there is real concern for one another.

Hugs,

Bren

Interesting thread. I orginally joined BCO back in '04 when my cousin was Dx-ed with BC. I spent months researching, asking questions, sitting back and learning from those on the board at the time of what their journeys were like.

FF now to '10 with the possibility of it now being me. I knew BCO was where I need to go.

I never ran into thread back then that were argumentative and lashing out at one another. What I saw was a great deal of support, encouragement and information.

Not sure why that dynamic seems to have changed in 6 years. The website has  options of blocking people, one can chose not to read a thread if it's they dont find it helpful or constructive/supportive whatever..

But I dont remember there being serious heated threads back then.  

Oh, if you want to see a bashing, all I've got to do is express my opinions about reconstruction options.

tl

In my humble opinion, I don't think it's appropiate to 'talk about' a specific person, name names, etc., on a public thread that that person can read; which I realize is probably the intention, which is the first thing that makes it inappropiate.

If someone feels the need to discuss their opinion, about a specific someone else's opinion, (or thoughts, feelings, insecurities, etc.) they should do so via a private message, or talk to that person directly.

Not everyone wants to know what one person 'thinks' about another person.

Marie .. you're not supposed to post PM's.  But, a long time ago, I got some hate mail and in order to make it stop .. I threatened to post the hateful stuff.  It solved the problem .. I'm a woman of my word and I would have posted them.

Bren

It was a long time ago .. and everything is fine and dandy now.

Hugs Marie,

Bren

Awe, what a cutie!!! My kitten, sadly, died not to long after I took that photo. He had some kind of freak blood disease. I drove all over Dallas to four different vets trying to save that poor kitty. The first kitten I ever had too. He was cute....he was actually a Scottish Fold. His ears were folded over. When I took him to WalMart to get all his kitty stuff, people kept saying "awe, look at the little puppy". Sniff Sniff.

The local humane society was giving away cats due to overcrowding a year ago and my daughter insisted I get one to keep my 11-year-old manx marmalade lady, Fidget company.  Zorro outweighs her by about five pounds, but she rules the roost!