Starting Chemo April 2009

Helen and Judy - Hope you enjoyed the "virtual" turkey and all the sides - Kevin and I really enjoyed having you. (I hope no one else reads this or they will have me committed!)

Lena - I'm so glad to hear for you, and so happy, as Titan said, that you have Pack Rat with you.  I will say a prayer tonight that you feel less ill tomorrow and that you feel the love being sent your way.

Geri

Lena, thanks for coming by, I hope that you feel better tomorrow and glad that you have your PR with you.

Geri, thanks for dinner, was lovely! LOL! Titan, glad dinner went well, a glass of wine always helps! I remember the Black Friday shopping, very crazy out there! But sometimes worth it. Really nice that both families were able to celebrate together.

Helen and Amy, hope you are both doing ok. Betsy, hope you managed to enjoy the Holiday.

Have a good weekend everyone, hugs, Judy x

I had a very nice Thanksgiving with lots of family.  

But something strange happened last week. I had to go to a new client that was sort of in the vicinity of the onc's office where I got my final few chemos.  I started driving, put on some music, forgot where I was going, and automatically drove straight to the chemo place! I caught myself before I got all the way there, but it was the strangest feeling. Like my brain just drove there on auto pilot.   It brought back all the feelings of what it was like to drive there to get treatment, which is something I rarely think about anymore.  I didn't like the memories one bit!  Corrected my course, went to the new client and the rest of the day passed without incident. But still......

Lena - check in with us please. You are on our hearts all the time. 

Lena, I'm so torn between "ok, this is your journey and you decide how it will end - no one here will know, we will just have to presume because we won't hear from you", or to be a bit selfish and say "Lena, please, ask Pack Rat to let us know in some manner if you die".  I hate even writing that, but Lena, you have always been one for the unvarnished truth, and that is what you are clearly telling us, that you are in the dying process.

When you last wrote here, I did understand that having Pack Rat with you was not the same as when he visited, it was a necessity because things were not going in a good direction.  I believe what we meant in being glad he was with you, was that you were not alone and he was there with you.

I am sending you my tel # in a P.M., and Lena, please ask Pack Rat, if he is not inclined to post anything on here, if he would call and just let us know - as you said you love us all...we love you Lena, and this would be a gift to us from you.

Amy!...your driving incident sounds freaky!..For some reason your mind must have just flipped back to a couple of years ago...

I still have to resist the urge to flip the cancer center off when I drive by (sorry if I offended anyone)..but it was my way of relieving my stress...my dh would say..they are helping you..why are you doing that?...I only did it once but it felt good..

Lena...love you like a sister..(whether you like it or not)...laughed with you and cried with you too..won't cry now because it would probably piss you off.. but letting you know that I'm thinking about you...

Lena - I too have been reflecting on our online relationship and how much it means to all of us. I know that many people IRL would not understand this at all, but I know that you do.  I know from what you have written that you have other online-only friends (in the SIMS world and other places) and those bonds are real and true and transcend physical presence.

So you know that our connection with you is much more than words on a page and we have all become knitted into the fabric of one another's lives since 2009 when we all began this awful 'journey.'

It is very hard for me to write the word 'dying' in regard to you, but I am trying to take my cues from your words, and if you are writing it, then I will too.   You are truly a unique and amazing woman - I have been enriched by knowing you and I know the others here agree.

I wish you peace and comfort every day. I have great trust in the hospice people and PR and am glad they are there to support you.  

But I echo what Geri wrote above - please give us this gift of peace by letting us know what is happening once you stop posting.  I am going to email you my 'real' email address - perhaps PR can send a quick note of update if he doesn't want to post here. Or of course he can call Geri's # as well. But please consider using one of these avenues. As Geri said, it truly would be a gift from you to us.

In my almost-three years on this board, I have seen many woman write the words "I hate this damn disease."  I never truly felt it as much as I do right now.

Amy, thank you for writing what I know I am feeling as well. The photo is amazing and the L is very clear. 

Lena, I imagine you as part of our lives forever.  

LENA! Sorry to intrude on your group here but I sought you out today since you've been mostly absent from the Stage IV section of late. I miss you!!!! Always the "voice of dissent," as you like to say, strong and unconventional, but a sharp voice... the voice of TRUTH. i am sad beyond words that you have not been well. Please know that I'm thinking of you and I hope your Pack Rat is spoiling you rotten.

Sending you love and wishing you better days... no false positives... only hope...

Rose. 

Lena,

Oh hopefully you will have the energy to check back in with us a few times more. All I can say, "when you see the light, go for it girl!" We shall miss you. You and PR remain in my thoughts.

Remember "The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few, or the one." Have PR contact Geri if he is so inclined.

Sending love,

Betsy

Judy,

I've decided that since I'm a 1% er...I might as well "occupy" something...so my lazy boy chair is it. Oh...wait, it's the 99% that are the occupiers...well, if you can't beat them, I say join them. LOL. I am feeling better. One day I have energy, then next day I don't. Today I'm tired. But I guess that's to be expected since I'm only 2.5 weeks out from surgery.

My biggest worry is that my thermal cuff will fail, but I'm trying not to think about it. It is why this type of hysterectomy takes longer to heal from. I think it's all that's holding me together where my cervix was removed. The onc said because of the heat, the tissue damage is greater than the surgical damage. Hence my 4 weeks off from work, and 12 wks of no sex. 

Hope you are feeling better, are you still tired?

Hugs to all.

Betsy

For some of us following bc, there has been zero (0) sex for a looooong time. 

Hi all,

I told you I would tell you the story of what happened in the ER. Well, since I needed fluids they had to access my veins. When the nurse looked at my bruised hand (5 attempts) and wrist (1) she called for IV therapy. When the IV nurse came, she looked at me real close and was eyeing my wrist again. I said, you need to use lidocaine. She said no. I said in a low, serious voice "then you better be damn good, cause you only get one try". I think I scared the begebezes out of her, after she left my dh and sister said I channelled John Wayne and cracked up laughing. She called for the small vein specialist. When she came, she happened to be a little chatter box. I was in no mood to talk, I had a splitting headache, my stomach hurt and I was nauseated. Any woo..she asks me so what side was your breast cancer on? I said my right side, she says "WOW...three rightees in the room."  We were all in various stages, the first IV nurse just had her trans flap, the specialist had only part of her breast repair work done. She said after her mastectomy, she was going home to Korea to have further work done. She said they will keep her in the hospital for up to a week vs sending her home with drains in like the US does. My sister, who had her phone with her said she wanted to take our picture. Now remember, I feel like crap...eventually I said ok. She plans to send it to me and I will forward it on to the hospital. So instead of three amigos...we were the three rightees. Long story short, the specialist accessed my wrist without lidocaine and said if I had any further need for IV they needed to give me a pic-line. TG I just needed the one bag of fluid.

Count-5 IV attempts in my hand, 2 in my wrist and three draws from my arm for one dang surgery. No wonder I'm traumatized when they say "lab work".

Betsy, I do relate. Any time I have to have an IV or even just blood work I go into a panic mode. It is so difficult to be jabbed over and over again. I am also at a point where I say it like it is and if the technician won't listen then she/he doesn't get to touch me. 

Lena, if you are reading, sending you lots of love 

Amy you look like you BELONG on that mountain top. :-)

NONE of you want to live vicariously through me, now, OK? HERE’S WHY.

I cannot change my own frickin diaper all by myself, anymore, the skin mets smell, *I* smell (even when I come right out from the shower which I had to be helped into and out of and my own body (Oh no this can’t be MY body can it?!) is so ravaged and disgusting! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! I don’t want anybody NEAR me anymore even and the thought of offering up this mess to anybody to have sex with makes me NAUSEATED, not excited or romantic even with the ascites bag off and when I’m not in pain. BLECCCCCCCCCCCH! I’m now “full time” in a hospital bed because I can no longer physically get in or out of of my real bed anymore. I really am a skeleton now too. I still feel better than when I was on the AIs believe it or not that’s about it.

Betsy, next time just bite the damn nurse who won’t give you lidocaine and tell her you’re giving her rabies because you’re tired of being a tortured pincushioned lab rat. LOL ;-) . And also, I have always VEHEMENTLY DISAGREED with that “needs of the many” crock of bullshit too. I’m so glad you got through that nasty surgery.

Steelrose. My final goodbye to the Stage IV area is in the (finally posting it) WW IV thread in there.

Betsy - what a story! It would be good if things could just go smoothly, right? There is always something, large or small and sometimes, it is just enough already! Hope you are feeling ok today. Thinking about you!

Lena, really pleased you came by, I am thinking about you alot! I am sending you, strength, positive thoughts, peace, anything really which may be helpful to you at the moment. .

I am doing ok, still tired alot, but this week has been ok. We got together with friends last night which was nice and we are having some very old friends over on Sat night which I am looking forward to. I don't think we do that enough.

Titan, Amy, Geri, Helen and everyone - sending hugs and hope you all have a good weekend,

Judy x