2005 ROCK-TOBER CHEMO GIRLS
Options
Comments
-
I'm sure you've heard of the death of Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve, today. She had lung cancer, but was never a smoker, and was only diagnosed last fall. I listened to the story on NPR on the way home from work and got incredibly sad. Her son is only 12-years-old and now has lost both father and mother in less than 18 months. I know it wasn't breast cancer, but cancer was her killer and I can't help feeling some of my own fears wiggle their nasty little heads in the back of my mind. My husband shut me down when I tried to talk about it. "It has nothing to do with you," he said. I must have touched on his own fears by speaking of my own. He cannot talk about "what if" in relation to me and cancer and death. In the story, they said she had been telling everyone she was doing fine and beating the odds, but then in the last 2 weeks, she became very ill. So, I thought you all would understand how I feel tonight. I feel sympathy for her son, family and friends, awed at the way she devoted herself to her disabled husband, and now so sad for her lost life. Hope I haven't increased anyone's burden tonight. I just needed someplace safe to say what I've been thinking and feeling.
-
Rosemarie,
I don't have to do rads either cuz of the mast. I just had Taxol/Herceptin #9 as well!! My next visit, I talk to the onc about removing ovaries or just removing the whole darn female insides!! I just don't need to worry about cancer of the uterus on top of this!! -
I remember TheresaPW very well through her posts. She was very lucid and she seemed like a fighter to the very end. Her last post was the day before she died!
On a brighter note, a belated happy birthday greetings to LauraGTO! Did somebody give you a nice hairbrush as a gift? I'd love to give you one! -
I had my 11th rads today - 19 more to go, then onto the ovary issue! My onc is still waiting for my tests results to come back to see if i can take herceptin. They were sent of in Oct- thats the good old NHS for you!! I am lucky my onc is even considering giving it to me living in the Uk!
I think i solved part of my underarm pain - wait for it - a too tight bra!!!!!!!!!!!! I think my chemo brain was better than the one i am using at the moment!!!
As for keeping in touch, cant begin to think of not speaking to you all each day!
DEbbie -
Marymelodi,
I too was very saddened yesterday by the death of Dana Reeves....I thought she was doing so well after I saw her on TV at the fund raiser several months ago. She looked beautiful, her tumor was shrinking and she was very hopeful. She was diagnosed the same time I was with breast cancer. My husband is like your's and is somewhat in denial and can't face the reality of cancer.
Graycie -
My husband has been so much in denial that he really has not been any support for me at all. He just wants to think that nothing is wrong with me. I don't think he realizes that it hurts me and that I just want a hug and reassurance that we will make it through this together. Instead, he won't even acknowledge that I don't feel well and that I am tired. He expects me to be my normal self. When people call and ask about me, he tells them I am fine (even tho I am right in front of him on the couch feeling horrible!) This disease has taken a toll on my marriage as well as my health.
Sorry for venting, maybe someone else is dealing with this and it would be nice to know that we are not alone.... -
Tracy:
You and I started on this discussion thread at the same time, began chemo around the same time, and begin rads this week -- in fact, I think you are beginning today. And now we have the commonality of the differnce cancer has made in our marriages. In some ways my husband has acknowledged my illness and has been good about taking more of the housework duties. On the other hand, right after I was diagnosed he committed to 2 more nights a week at bowling, for a total of 3 nights, and began working at his second job on Saturdays and late nights. He could do this job from about 4 to 8 on two or three nights a week, but does not do it that way. So, in some ways he has withdrawn from being with me both physically and emotionally. I have spent many, many nights alone, not feeling so well, but with no one around. Thank goodness I have a dear friend who will talk to me by phone almost whenever I need. Sometimes I'm sure it hasn't been convenient, but my friend has come through for me.
My husband is afraid, I know, but will not talk about it and does not like me bring up my own fears. His attitude is why worry if it is not happening? I realized that in our 15 years together I have been the one to take care of his emotions more than he has been the one to take care of me. There are other ways that I have been his caretaker. Now I think it has been an unequal situation. I realize my own part in the evolution of our marriage but I have been disappointed in what lacks. The cancer has exacerbated the problems we already had and has not brought us closer, as far as I am concerned. After all this treatment is over, I have some serious evaluating and thinking to do about whether another 15 years is worth it or not.
So Tracy, all this is to say that I can relate to your situation and have sympathy for you. Again and again, this discussion group has been the only place I could find the understanding so crucial to my well-being and I hope you find that also.
Good luck with the start of your radiation treatment. -
Marymelodi! Thank you so much for your response. We have learned that part of the recovery process could be eliminating "toxic" relationships from our lives. Well, I am very afraid that my husband may be one of these relationships. I also read that you should not make any major decisions in your life after going thru a cancer diagnosis & treatment for at least a year. I plan to spend some time re-evaluating our relationship and maybe getting some counseling if he will go. What I do know for sure is if I have to deal with any type of illness like this again--he will not be there for me.
Hang in there, PM me any time. For everyone else, thanks for listening an letting us vent! -
Adnerb -
You're so sweet! Thanks! I didn't get any hair brushes, but I did get alot head rubs!
marymelodi,
TracySeattle,
Graycie -
I read somewhere that some husbands may become distant or will fail to acknowledge a wife's cancer, because they are afraid of losing her. They think if they detach themselves, the pain of losing her would be more tolerable. Just FYI. I hope everything works out. After what you have been through, you deserve the happiest, most content life possible.
Laura
Laura -
Yes Mary Anne - we are on the same schedule!! I can't wait. I haven't planned the celebration yet - I'd be happy with 3 hours to myself with a strong cup of coffee and a really good book! I was told if more than 2 nodes had been + I would have had to do rads...I'm wondering if I should have asked for rads anyway! I've already started the reconstruction process so don't know if I could/should do it now. Our family is complete - had a tubal after my 3rd - so I'm ready for the next step...
The reality of all this is it is frightening - 20 years ago my 40 year old aunt died of breast cancer - she was diagnosed at 36. I was diagnosed at 37...I know a lot has changed in 20 years but I live with that every day. I know that there's a higher power out there looking over me and my family; faith and prayer have certainly sustained me from the start and I just have to believe everything will be ok. Sorry, I'm having one of those "I really don't want to die" moments. Our husbands are going through all of this too - they really want us to be ok and can't imagine us not being just fine! I can't complain - my husband has been great. He's not a very emotional person, he deals with things head on and finds his solace in researching answers but he has been there for me 110%. He's researched more on breast cancer than I have! I'm sorry for rambling - blame it on 2 hours sleep and 3 cups of coffee... -
By the way, one thing I meant to say and realized I didn't was that my heart goes out to those of you whose spouses aren't handling this the way you need them to. Here's a great big hug ((())) and I will certainly keep you in my thoughts!!!
-
marymelodi..I don't know what is wrong with me. I mean, I feel sad that Dana Reeves died and all that she had been through and basically I remember thinking what a strong woman she was for caring for her husband the way she did and wondered if I would have done the same, etc... But when I heard the news about her, I just couldn't listen. My girlfriend told me about it over the phone. Normally, I have great compassion for others but for some reason I told her I wasn't into this stuff and couldn't listen to it.
I've heard about so many people with cancer lately that I can't stand it anymore! Yesterday my girlfriend and I stopped to buy strawberries on the road and the woman selling said that 3 women in that village (a village very close to mine)were diagnosed with bc this past Fall (so was I). My neighbor down the street just started his chemo for lung cancer. The woman who owns the local grocery store down the street from me just finished her chemo for some intestinal cancer. The list goes on. What is going on here??? I can't stand it anymore.
On top of that..how do they know the chemo worked on me??? I asked my onc that today and she said they don't know. They assume because of this and this and this. Followups are mammograms and ultrasounds.
Makes me crazy!
Never mind...I'm going through a frustrating day.
Be well everybody.
ravdeb -
Ravdeb - I have noticed the same thing. When I go to the cancer center, the waiting room is standing room only. It makes me so sad to see how many people are having to deal with this awful disease.
-
Reading your past posts makes me realise how lucky I have been through this with my other half. He has been so supportive and in some ways it must be harder for him as he lost his mum to BC. He has been so loving, supportive and protective that i think it is how i have managed to get through it relatively sanely! Not a day goes by without him ringing from work to see how i am or to say he loves me. the other day he came home with some Estee Lauder perfume - " Beautiful" because i was having an off time with my hair ( or lack of it!!) and he said that he even loves my stubble because it is on me.I think we are probably closer now than before. I dont know how i would have coped if it had been him, with me having to cope.
Thankyou for making me realise how lucky i have been.
As for those husbands who arent helping - send them to live with me - they'll soon realise how lucky they were before!!!!!!
Debbie -
for those of you worrying that your eyebrows will never come back...mine are so out of control that i'm getting them waxed tomorrow. i look like my dad...big, black bushy eyebrows. they do come back, i promise my eyelashes are finally even too, which is nice. i did yoga this morning and went bald...decided i was done with wearing scarves to yoga and ditched them. i will still wear them for everything else, but yoga is officially my place for just a fuzzy head
i finish treatment tomorrow. i'm freaking out. -
Amy congrats on finishing up and going fuzzy. Why not , now is the time.
Fists up! -
AMY -
So happy for you! And congrats to you tomorrow, you did it, you survived, you're done!
Question:
My top eye lashes are coming in but not the bottom ones. Are both of yours growing? Thanks.
Laura -
Hurray for Amy!! I'll bet you feel so free going "fuzzy-headed" to yoga!
Laura, my top eyelashes are about 1/4 inch right now, no sign of lower ones yet. -
I wish I had some lashes!! I had three left on my right eye and plucked them out because they looked so lonely!!
-
Yeah, my lashes are lonely, too. I keep losing one or two each morning. I don't recognize myself some days. But, I love my fuzzy, duck-downy head. My friend says it looks like duck down. I like how soft it is.
Toodle-loo, -
i love how soft my head is too...just wish there was more of it.
my eyebrows are even now...the bottom ones actually came in first. they're teeny, but they are all back! they all fell out one week and the next week, they were back. -
My eyelashes suddenly came back - one day i had none on the bottom and stubby tops ones - this morning i realised that my bottom ones were back - not sure when that happened! I even had to pluck my eyebrows this morning!
My head is soft now - my hubby calls it my duckling head and it wont be long till i become a swan - bless! ( just hope its not white!!)
I guess as treatment finishes this year we will have less time to come on the boards as we all restart work. How about we swap addresses for birthday/christmas cards/updates - or email addresses ? After coming this far with you all i would hate to lose you all now!!
Debbie -
I have a suggestion about staying in touch. We could start a group blog and anyone could post a message when they want and then read and/or comment on others messages as they have the time. I use the site at eblogger for a blog of my own. I don't think it would be hard to do. What does everyone think?
-
Okay, I just did a little reading. If we want a group blog, I could start it, and then anyone who wanted to be able to post messages could send me their e-mail address. I would then do an "invitation" to be on the "team" and when the person responds to the "invitation" they are added to the members who are allowed to post to the blog. (This terminology is from the site, not me.) Or, we can continue here as we are doing. For me there is no problem with that.
If you want to check it out you can look at http://www.blogger.com
If you want to see my blog it is at http://somethingwonderfultoday.blogspot.com/ -
I was trying to figure out a way for all of us to trade addresses on the Beyond Cancer thread. We do have to be careful about posting our addresses on the internet. You never know when someone is "lurking" for inappropriate reasons. The Blog idea sounds good to me and it sounds like you can control who is looking at the information.
Very cool! I'm in! -
Me too - as long as i dont have to be technical - afraid i was at the back of the queue when that was being dished out!!
Debbie -
You don't have to be technical. You would send me a private e-mail and then I would respond back. No one would ever see your e-mail address, unless you wanted them to. Other people could read the blog, but they could not post messages. They could make comments to the blog, but not to you, personally, again unless you wanted. It would be alot like here. My guess would be that we - our group - would likely be the only ones going to the blog and posting messages.
But, we can trade e-mail adresses already by using the private messages feature here. So, maybe we could just stick with private messages, also. -
I think we should continue on this thread. It is already set up. We will always be the Oct 05 crowd. I have bookmarked the page and we can easily boot off the occasional lurker. Although why anyone would lurk on a breast cancer support group is beyond me.
Of course if you do set up a blog I woould take my technology challenged self there and try it out.
Hope you all have a good weekend. Had my Taxotere Tuesday, today had second Neupogen. Having aches and pains and feel crappy. Also didn't sleep last night. Oh well just one more round in three weeks then on to rads.
Dropped in at work today, all are waiting my return. Was getting used to this idle time. Will be a big adjustment ,I'm sure.
Fists up! -
Debbie, Your eyelashes came back? How long after you lost them? I woke up this morning and my eyebrows and eyelashes are almost gone...I am 7 wks post chemo. I am now half way through radiation. Your hair looks like it is growing in good. How long has it been since you finished chemo? We both started chemo in Oct so I figured we are probably on the same schedule. But,you are luckier than me with the hair. My hair isn't growing yet, even though I think I see some blond stubs (or white, hope not)my husband said it isn't growing. Maybe he can't see so well...HA...I guess it is just wishful thinking on my part.. Are you having radiation?
Marymelodi, I already have my e-mail address listed in my profile if anyone wants to e-mail me just put BC somewhere in the subject line so I don't delete it.......
Graycie -
I'd kind of like this thread to continue somehow as I would probably get lost on some blog that I don't understand. I'm surprised I figured this discussion board out! I'm totally computer illiterate!
Graycie... wish your hair would begin growing back! It should! Mine has been growing but the other day stubbles on the top started falling out. Seems to have stopped. It happened on the same day that a bc friend of mine went into the shower and came out totally bald! She's on AC now..had 2 treatments. We decided my hair falling out was a fluke as it happened on the same day and we had seen each other that day! Very wierd.
I still have my eye lashes and brows though the brows thin out and then fill out all the time...can't make up their minds.
I have one more Taxol and then go on to rads.
My husband made some comment about how I'm just breezing through the Taxol. I have to admit that it could be worse but I haven't slept in weeks and today I just exploded out of sheer exhaustion. I told him that I'm just breezing through because he doesn't stop to see how dang tired I am! Got mad at the whole family today as I was cleaning up and cooking and they were all sleeping or whatever they were doing. Was really pissed!
Got numb toes and fingers and last night my toes were tingling every time they touched my legs as I tried to curl up to sleep in bed. My whole body was a bundle of jitters and I had to finally get out of bed and not sleep for a few hours. I had my 11th Taxol on yesterday and today just was so fatigued. No sleep and chemo... I think I'm at the end of my rope!!!!
I'm also so weak! Legs can hardly climb stairs anymore.
And I itch like anything because I'm allergic to the Taxol but they won't take me off of it so I have all kinds of creams and antihistamine (quit that though because i was just too tired from it) so I'm so very uncomfortable.
Sorry I'm venting..needed to. Was pretty pissed with my usually very nice family.
I think I'm wondering if the chemo is working/worked. I talked to my onc about it and she said there is no real way to know and that I just have to be confident and remember that my nodes were negative and that was a good thing. She tried to assure me that the sentinel node that was removed (yes, only one) was negative and it's practically 100% accurate. I'm not so sure I agree and I've read of women on this board who had neg nodes and got recurrence. I keep thinking about this...what if there was a positive node after this one neg. node...
And..going along with keeping in touch...I will give my e-mail to anyone who pms me. I don't have it listed on my profile because of lurkers.
Have a good weekend everybody.
ravdeb
Categories
- All Categories
- 679 Advocacy and Fund-Raising
- 289 Advocacy
- 68 I've Donated to Breastcancer.org in honor of....
- Test
- 322 Walks, Runs and Fundraising Events for Breastcancer.org
- 5.6K Community Connections
- 282 Middle Age 40-60(ish) Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 53 Australians and New Zealanders Affected by Breast Cancer
- 208 Black Women or Men With Breast Cancer
- 684 Canadians Affected by Breast Cancer
- 1.5K Caring for Someone with Breast cancer
- 455 Caring for Someone with Stage IV or Mets
- 260 High Risk of Recurrence or Second Breast Cancer
- 22 International, Non-English Speakers With Breast Cancer
- 16 Latinas/Hispanics With Breast Cancer
- 189 LGBTQA+ With Breast Cancer
- 152 May Their Memory Live On
- 85 Member Matchup & Virtual Support Meetups
- 375 Members by Location
- 291 Older Than 60 Years Old With Breast Cancer
- 177 Singles With Breast Cancer
- 869 Young With Breast Cancer
- 50.4K Connecting With Others Who Have a Similar Diagnosis
- 204 Breast Cancer with Another Diagnosis or Comorbidity
- 4K DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ)
- 79 DCIS plus HER2-positive Microinvasion
- 529 Genetic Testing
- 2.2K HER2+ (Positive) Breast Cancer
- 1.5K IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer)
- 3.4K IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma)
- 1.5K ILC (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma)
- 999 Just Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastasis
- 652 LCIS (Lobular Carcinoma In Situ)
- 193 Less Common Types of Breast Cancer
- 252 Male Breast Cancer
- 86 Mixed Type Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Not Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastases but Concerned
- 189 Palliative Therapy/Hospice Care
- 488 Second or Third Breast Cancer
- 1.2K Stage I Breast Cancer
- 313 Stage II Breast Cancer
- 3.8K Stage III Breast Cancer
- 2.5K Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
- 13.1K Day-to-Day Matters
- 132 All things COVID-19 or coronavirus
- 87 BCO Free-Cycle: Give or Trade Items Related to Breast Cancer
- 5.9K Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results
- 86 Coping with Holidays, Special Days and Anniversaries
- 828 Employment, Insurance, and Other Financial Issues
- 101 Family and Family Planning Matters
- Family Issues for Those Who Have Breast Cancer
- 26 Furry friends
- 1.8K Humor and Games
- 1.6K Mental Health: Because Cancer Doesn't Just Affect Your Breasts
- 706 Recipe Swap for Healthy Living
- 704 Recommend Your Resources
- 171 Sex & Relationship Matters
- 9 The Political Corner
- 874 Working on Your Fitness
- 4.5K Moving On & Finding Inspiration After Breast Cancer
- 394 Bonded by Breast Cancer
- 3.1K Life After Breast Cancer
- 806 Prayers and Spiritual Support
- 285 Who or What Inspires You?
- 28.7K Not Diagnosed But Concerned
- 1K Benign Breast Conditions
- 2.3K High Risk for Breast Cancer
- 18K Not Diagnosed But Worried
- 7.4K Waiting for Test Results
- 603 Site News and Announcements
- 560 Comments, Suggestions, Feature Requests
- 39 Mod Announcements, Breastcancer.org News, Blog Entries, Podcasts
- 4 Survey, Interview and Participant Requests: Need your Help!
- 61.9K Tests, Treatments & Side Effects
- 586 Alternative Medicine
- 255 Bone Health and Bone Loss
- 11.4K Breast Reconstruction
- 7.9K Chemotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 2.7K Complementary and Holistic Medicine and Treatment
- 775 Diagnosed and Waiting for Test Results
- 7.8K Hormonal Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 50 Immunotherapy - Before, During, and After
- 7.4K Just Diagnosed
- 1.4K Living Without Reconstruction After a Mastectomy
- 5.2K Lymphedema
- 3.6K Managing Side Effects of Breast Cancer and Its Treatment
- 591 Pain
- 3.9K Radiation Therapy - Before, During, and After
- 8.4K Surgery - Before, During, and After
- 109 Welcome to Breastcancer.org
- 98 Acknowledging and honoring our Community
- 11 Info & Resources for New Patients & Members From the Team