I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Good Afternoon Everyone!

Happy anniversary to all our brides.  Tim and I have been together for seven years.  He's a helluvalot better man than any of my husbands ever were.  I am so grateful we were together when I was diagnosed and went through treatment.  The only time I've ever seen him cry is when he was removing my bandages after my surgery.  It just about broke my heart.

Beautiful weather today ... upper 80's and everything is so green!  I'm almost caught up on the mowing, just have one more field to do down below.  It's so pretty down there, it looks like a park.

Just got back from having a chest xray and bloodwork done.  I'm a little nervous about the xray.  Hopefully, I'll know something in the next day or two.

Linda .. Sure glad to hear some of your DH's health issues are resolving.  I just love that guy ... he was a saint to put up with all of us last summer!  And he was a wonderful photographer to boot!

Mary .. Made me nervous too when I saw the mods posting.  I'm glad it was for a recipe and not something else.

Blue .. I'm sorry you're still in so much pain.  When do you see the pain management doctor?

hugs to all,

Bren

Bren-Why the chest x-rays and bloodwork? I get nervous about every single medical test I have these days. Time before last when I visited my onc, the nurse led me to a different area of the clinic. It was the area where blood draws were perfomed. I thought something was wrong with my bloodwork from the week before and they were going to draw more blood. Turns out, my oncologist's exam rooms were now in that wing of the office..I just about fainted with relief, and my blood pressure reading was really high that day. Oh, for the days when I was ignorant and stressfree about medical stuff.

Mary 

No work for me today - we have a holiday for our annual 'state fair' type thing in our city. The country comes to the city - lots of animals, rides, food etc. It runs for 10 days. We don't go since the kids grew up, so I get a nice rest instead of work.

I think we're kind of under the microscope because of our visitors. 

Mary 

Kam - LOL - I actually try to do it to him every now and again, if he complains about something, I come up with one too - he doesn't seem to notice though.

3monst - good to hear you are ok. My review was ok for the last quarter but has been over shadowed by the earlier trouble - I'm thinking of fighting it.

Hi all:  Thanks for the good wishes. My poor DH had to work until late, so we had a quiet dinner at home and watched old Daily Shows.  

     Looks like I may be doing hand surgery after all.  Bother.

Seattle is having another hot (for us) week.  If more people had AC it wouldn't affect us so badly, but there are a fair number of people who moved here expressly because they DO NOT LIKE HEAT!!!!.  Yesterday my husband and I went to a meat market that's in our downtown farmer's type market (It's called Pike Street Market for you non-Seattleites).  Anyway, the only other customer there at the moment was really really cranky about the weather.  She kept saying "It's too f**king HOT!"  She was a kick in the pants.    I told her she lived in the right place for 10 months out of the year, and she said "Yes, but it's too f**king HOT right now!!!!"   (Yesterday got to 85, today it's supposed to reach 87 and Thurs and Fri into the 90's).

When I was first diagnosed with a herniated disk, my hubby went with me to the physical therapist so she could show him how to adjust my back painlessly (no jerking or crunching allowed!!! ).  A couple days ago, he said that he thought maybe the pain I've been having is due to my back even though the presentation is completely different from my "normal".  Anyway, he's adjusted my back morning and evening for the past 3 days and I am SOOOO much better.  I can walk at much closer to my normal speed, and have once again begun my morning exercise routine!!!  Well, I've got to work my way back into it, but still...  I am a happy happy camper!!!!

I used the suggestion for zuccini au gratin last night.  THANK-YOU!!! 

Blue ... What is tomorrow?  Do you see the pain specialist?  I hope you'll be jumping for joy soon ... and that you get some relief from your pain.

Gumby ... Your husband sounds like a keeper!

Athena ... The chest xray was because the PCP heard wheezing in my lungs.  And the blood work is just normal stuff, plus thyroid and anemia check because of all my weight loss.  I think I find out about the chest xray tomorrow.  I have to admit ... I'm nervous about it.

Sunnyflowers ... So glad you got rain.  We could really use some down here too.

Alex ... I'm sorry your hand/wrist feels so bad.  I had carpal tunnel syndrome, but turned down the surgery.

It's a beautiful day here today.  Temps in the upper 80's and there is a nice breeze blowing.  I have a report to do so I better get busy on it.  I'm so excited to be mailing out my brochures and letters tomorrow.  All it takes is one new client to really help us out!

Hope everyone is having a good day,

Bren

Hugs and hi to all! 

Blue my fingers are crossed for a pain free wedding even though I have seen not a single cookie   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 I have come to realize that I am having some achy SEs --maybe from the tamoxifen?---involving pain in my feet in the morning.  Given what the rest of you are dealing with, i'm not totally comfy calling it pain-more like stiffness and discomfort.  Any rate, once i walk around a bit it goes away.  I can live with the achy feet but the hot flashes right now are MURDER!!!!!!  Every since this "heat wave" started here in Seattle.  PS MARY  Lets not tell anyone how while it does get hot in the middle of the day, the temperature drops a good 20 degrees at night just in time to go to sleep!

Once again, I must note that Mary and I have passed like ships in the night---I had lunch at a lovely restaurant in the Pike Market called "Marche"--outdoors on a patio celebrating birthdays of two colleagues. All facilitated by the absence of a certain manager--Yipppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

On the mother front, it may be that the chemo is simply not working for her anymore and that the cancer is coming back.  We had onco appointment yesterday and her CA125 had only dropped about 6-7 points making it about 70.  This is the second time that it has not dropped significantly.  Her onco said the elevated levels could be due to other things like arthritus (sp) or heart failure and not just cancer.  When I asked if there was a way to figure out which it was he said the only way was really to stop the chemo.  The schedule had her going for the round we were starting and one more after that. 

This series of chemo since July has been hard on her as she was expecting (as were we all) that she would be done on July 3 and just getting monitored.  She really wants to go back to her home and see her friends and well, face it, all her junk.  But she can't fly by herself and given our relationship, there's no way I'm going.  My godbrother is available the latter part of September but because of the last round of chemo, she wasn't going to be able to go then.

I took a deep breathe and asked the onco, what was the real difference between her doing 2 more rounds of chemo or just doing 1?  He's a smart guy, he has heard her talk about wanting to go home and he said no difference in this case.

So the new plan is that she has 2 more treatments and then a CT scan and then an appointment in 2 months and then?  In between the CT scan and the appointment, she is free to go home if she wants.  But now she can't really figure out what she wants to do as far as going "home" or staying here.  She is feeling wobbly so now I suggested that maybe they shouldn't get tickets and should just see how things go. I think what she should do is go home and visit her friends and then fly back with godbrother--she has grand aspirations of cleaning her entire house in 6 weeks and renting it out. The whole thing is a mess and I am resigning myself to having to clear out two hoard houses--the one at "home" and the new one in Seattle. 

Frankly I think she has a fairly short amount of time left but I cannot really talk to her about death and dying and how to spend her time because she is in such deep denial.  She can't admit her most basic feelings--being scared to death of dying and not wanting to die--because she has spent so much energy telling every one how it doesn't bother her at all.  Well if it doesn't bother you why the heck are you --at 83-- talking about stem cell treatment for your heart condition or getting into some research project for the ovarian cancer?  IMHO people who really aren't fighting death or afraid of it go and enjoy life they have left.  Which she doesn't.  Its not that I want her to be "happy" that the end is here, its that I guess I am craving one moment of honesty: whats so wrong with being truthful and saying "I DON'T want to DIE !!  I am mad that I have cancer and can't just pass away in my sleep?  My mother was awful and she got to die on her bed during a nap and here I am suffering."

Which is so NOT happening.  And no, she who has praised therapy for decades will not go to a therapist to talk about what is going on, even though we got the name of a specialist for cancer patients and got a list of groups etc etc etc.

Sigh.  okay back to my trench. . . holiday coming at the end of the week and I so want to enjoy it.

hugs to all.

3monstamama, my 86 yr old mother is a lifelong hoarder. I recognize everything you mention. They are primarily self involved and unable to connect emotionally or honestly with their families. What we want from them we will never get.



It's taken me years to be at peace with this. And I'm not always successful.



Not cleaning out any more hoarder houses. I got my brother to be responsible now and we coerced her into assisted living. I'm given to understand that her room is as cluttered as ever. But she is now in another state and I'm done.

Thanks for the hugs, Sunflowers and Chickadee. 

it so nice to have a place to vent that gets it---too often I feel like the bad uncaring daughter.

chickadee I am only going to clean the house when she has moved on to whatever follows this life.  One round of trying to pick-up the living room by tossing the 3 month old grocery flyers and having my mother lose it was enough for me!  Her assisted living home is on the way to hoardyness--the only reason the floor is clear is that the cleaning people come and pick it up every week.

3monst - zap it with the "bad uncaring" - I am a great believer in the premise, we are ALL of us, as "good" daughters as our respective mothers allow or allowed us to be.  What Athena says.

There is a HUGE ( if I could spell humongeous, I would call it that) MYTH in the Zeitgeist, telling us how a mother/daughter relationship SHOULD ( my least favorite word) be - and I am sure some women fit comfortably in that description, my experience has been to know a helluva lot more who don't.

"Woo, woo, New Agey alert"  Circle of Stones: Woman's Journey to Herself, by Judith Duerk. Some fabulous healing questions, if you let them heal.   The followup to COS ( more than 25 years old) is I Sit Listening to the Wind: Woman's Encounter Within Herself.

Bottom line, again, & again, Be as gentle with yourself as you can be.  

3monst - sorry you are having a tough time with your Mum.

I've been to Pike St Markets - many years ago. I really liked Seattle.

It's supposed to be 27 C (80 for the F) folks today - it's also supposed to be winter - crazy. No rain for a while lately. I did some gardening yesterday - love planting new things.

3monst:  so sorry about your mom.  This may just be the way she deals with it. I'm with Sunflowers - mother-daughter relationships are complicated on both sides.  Everyone just has to muddle through it. Hugs to you.

Athena, jazz band sounds good.  I can play a few chords on my guitar, even with the brace.  Need drums, horn and a bass - and we can swing it.