MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

Thank you Odlie16 .... After reading so many posts of women who have been through a lot more than myself tx, etc. , I feel a little guilty sharing my feelings of fear(s) here.  I am sure a lot of it comes from my family's history and the uncertainty of it all.  Those who have taken care of family members through cancer know what I am taking about. 

I am sorry for the loss of your mother as well and it is really tough losing your mother and best friend.  I really feel for anyone who has gone through that. Not only was it horrible watching someone you love slowly die from this diease but watching the suffering was horrible.  My mother's body was weak from the cancer since it had spread to her bones and liver.  Then she started needing blood tranfusions and eventually caught a mersa-like infection through her open wound from a TE.  (The wound wouldn't heal) during chemo.  It started eating the tissue in her hand, arm, up to her chest.  She was in a coma for a week and we thought we lost her then. She came back around a little, bearly cognicent, in and out of reality.  I had to make the final decision and tell the doctor it was OK to take her off the feeding tube since it was only prolonging her death and discomfort.  She was moved to Hospice on Monday and died Tuesday. 

So on the other hand I feel like I have gone through/participated in the care of 3 wowmen with BC (including my own). I think that would make most people a little freaked out if they had gone through that and seen what I have seen.

Thank you again for the welcome :-)

Eli - Not sure when or where my "forever lazy" suit came from - but I seem to wear it quite a bit these days.  I think it's the cold dark weather that brings out the hibernation mode in me.

Elimar - congratulations on finishing the treatment, you need to celebrate!!!

El hopefully we will both be celebrating Friday! (biopsy result in)

Eli - I think its a seal.

I am still snorting over Marlegal's question at the butt store!!!

OK-by popular demand I am about to post my cruise report!  If you don't feel like reading the whole thing I totally get it!  But I tried to make it humorous.  Pictures will have to come later when techno-daughter gets home.

Once upon a time on 12-22-12, 9:36AM PST, DD & I flew to Florida. When we arrived in our hotel room at 11:45PM 12-22-12 EST, we were starving as all we'd had all day were pretzels & some snacks we'd packed. We never had time at an airport to get anything sustaining. So the 1st order of business was ordering in pizza. My sister was already in the room when we arrived, trying to sleep, so we woke her right up!! Pizza arrived, we chowed down & attempted to sleep. Wasn't easy due to excitement levels.

AM 12-23-12, we walked down the street to Duffy's (recommended by cruise line employee) for breakfast. Can you say YUCK?!?!?!!? We'd devoured the pizza the night before so that was a bust for breakfast. Oh well, we knew our stomach's would be pooching before too very long.

Got through all the rigamarole to board the ship & finally stepped foot on deck about 3:30PM. Went immediately to the spa where my sister signed us up for daily use of the thermal suite (hot tub, sauna, steamroom, heated tile lounges). Can you say awesome? I was in there everyday at some point, several days, more than once. It was divine. Plus she signed the 2 of us up for massages/facials on the last day sea day (the 29th). Those were pretty awesome too; the only thing that would have been better would have been if I'd had a cute, sexy massuer instead of a masseuse (I just learned the difference right now trying to spell masseuse). It was however fine & dandy anyway.

We of course ate our way through the whole week!!! My kid is very petite, but HOLY COW! Can she put away the food!! Not that her aunt & I didn't give her a run for the money.

We didn't get to parasail or snorkel on the private island owned by the cruise line on the 24th. It was too windy, so it was considered unsafe! It was VERY disappointing, but we managed to lounge around the beach & the water (it wasn't windy at the swimming area, just further out & around the point) & drink margaritas! My sister & I had some tears talking about Mom, but we would just dunk under & know one else knew we were basket cases for a good 1.5 hrs or so!
The night of the 24th we meanadered through the shops on ship. My sister traditionally purchases a fine jewelry item on each cruise she's been on. Her wish list this trip was blue diamond stud earrings!! (Don't I wish?) We perused the shop's supply but didn't see anything that just jumped out at her.
I wanted to attend the ship board Christmas Eve service which was billed as non-demoniational so we got to the area where that was being held & I was very disappointed to find out it was pretty much a by the book Episcopalian service-not that I have anything against Episcopalians mind you, but I wasn't looking for a book-reading service, so we left. We made our way to the showroom & lo & behold, the crew was performing "Christmas around the world" with the different nationalities singing & dancing traditional Christmas songs for their countries. It was awesome. They ended the show with the entire crew (those participating anyway) singing "O Holy Night" which put Jen, my sister, & I right over, as that's Mom's favorite carol. We were blithering idiots for a good hour after that, so it called for drastic measures at the bar!!!

The morning of the 25th we woke to the cruise director's morning announcements regarding an unidentified object being observed by the bridge! Mind you, we are rounding Cuba today & we can see the island off our balconey! Well within just a few minutes we are told that a jolly old man in a red suit is in the showroom & wants to see all the kids on the ship! We didn't participate in that-we figured it was a GREAT time to hit the Lido for breakfast!

The 25th was an at-sea day & our goal was to spend Christmas as un-Christmas like as possible, so I was in the hot-tub/thermal suite most of the day. I also did my 1st foray into the casino, just to get the feel of the Blackjack table(s) & the dealers. Jennifer & Rachel spent alot of time around the pools & we congregated in the room about 5 & opened presents, which we had purposefully kept small & we had a stocking each that the others stuffed the presents into. It was fun, fast & completely different than any other Christmas we'd ever had.

The funniest part of the day was: around 3, we met at the jewelry store. My sister had spotted some diamonds that were "under cover" that were to be unveiled on the day after Christmas. We got there & met "Rory" the guest jeweler from Sophia Firoi & yes, the diamonds undercover were blue!!! Well, he ended up taking us into a "private showing" room & Jennifer proceeded to try on varying sizes of blue diamond studs! While we were having fun with that, Rory noticed Jennifer & my matching cougar tattoos (the one we got with Mom in May, the month before she died) & asked us what the story was. We looked at each other, and immediately started crying. Rachel had to explain for us. Well of course he was horrified that he had caused us such stress, especially when he understood the purpose of the cruise, etc, etc. He ended up quoting a pretty decent price for the earrings, which of course was more than Jennifer had planned on paying, but they looked fabulous on her & she decided WHAT THE HELL! So Rory became our ship/excursion buddy. We ran into him everywhere & he would give us hugs. He was in his early 30s and gay, gay, gay, but very cute & fun to talk to. As we were leaving Christmas afternoon to go to the room & do presents before dinner (it was one of the 2 formal nights) Rory turned to my darling 18yr old daughter & asked her how hard was it for a young tween to have fun on the ship?!?!?!? She came unglued! Told him she was 18! He about swallowed his tongue. So, we got to the room, opened presents and got ready for dinner. Rachel wanted to go back thru the shops after she was dressed (while we had been there before she was in shorts, tshirt & her hair in a pony & she looks young!) She had a dress that was essentially a nude sheath with black lace over the top in strategic places, 6 inch heels & she has recently learned how to apply make-up! So I must say, she was drop-dead gorgeous! We sashayed back thru the jewlery shop, found Rory & I thought for a minute she might change his sexual preference!!!! It was hilarious! She jutted out a hip & said "How old do you think I am now, Rory?"

The 26th was Jamaica day! That was our trifecta excursion day. A tram up & over the rain forest, ziplining back down & then tramming back up & bobsledding back down. It was about a 3 hour tour! The weather didn't start get rough tho'-it was steamy, sunny & pretty nice for the most part--a couple times it got fairly sticky feeling & then a breeze would come up to mellow it all out! DD & sister have both ziplined before so I was the virgin on that part of the gig. It was quite fun & I would do it again in a heart beat. There were 5 stations of varying lengths & it included one section that was a straight down - I could've done without that one. The bobsled was on a track like a roller coaster but it was done in honor of the Jamaican bobsled team in "Cool Runnings." It was fun, fast & I was a total screamer because Rachel was driving!!!!!

Thursday the 27th was Grand Cayman. We werent signed up for any excursions there. DD wanted to wander off & get into her own kind of adventure, so sister & I just mostly loitered in the shopping area for awhile, went to "Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville" & ran into Rory & 2 of his buddies who were ringers for the gay family on Modern Family- they even had adopted from China, just like me!

The 28th was cabana day on Mahogany Bay, Roatan, off the coast of Honduras! This was my favorite. My sister had rented us a cabana that came with plush chaise lounges & a humongous hammock, complete with mist-ers! When I hit that hammock, that was it! I told her to just leave me there! We swam in a cordoned off area of ocean that was just for the cabana people! It was like being Adele or something (I'm using her for a size comparison)...it didn't matter that I looked like a whale; there weren't too many hotties to compare me too! There was a cabana boy too who fetched whatever we requested (which wasn't much! The prices were outrageous, but we had to have 1 drink for goodness sakes!) Unfortunately our middie cabana boys ARE much more attractive than what was reality, but it was still nice to have him at our beck & call! We were supposed to be there for 6 hours, but the captain had warned us the night before that we were in front of a storm & so our time at Roatan was only 4.5 hours---CAN YOU SAY BUMMER?????????? I had to go hit the thermal suite for a couple hours when we got back to the ship, I was so bummed!

The 29th was an at sea day. Our main form of entertainment was the massage/facial packages which was nice. I had managed to make myself comfortable every night since Christmas at the casino and was up on my gambling money. Ended the cruise with $125 more in my gambling pot than I started with, so I was quite content with that action.

One of the other fun things that occured was way back on the 1st stop, Half Moon Bay Cay, Bahamas. my sister was walking the beach & the ship has all these photographers that go out on excursions & try to get you to take photos so you'll buy later. While Jen was walking this one dude came up to her & tried to get her to pose, saying things like "America's next Top Model", etc. Well she finally cocked a hip & pouted into his camera! That night, on ship, we ran into him & he approached her to show her, her pictures. We all started teasing him, etc. Turns out he was from like Libiya or Armenia or somewhere with inpronoucable names if you're from the USA! So he told us his name was Nemo, yes, like the fish! After that, we CONSTANTLY were running into Nemo. He snapped us coming & going! On the last day, Rachel sketched a picture of Nemo from the movie, holding a camera. When we went to go purchase pictures, we found Nemo & she gave him the picture. He blushed! he seemed to be very touched, agreed to take a photo with us (I also have one of Rory & us). When DD gets home, I will have her put the photos on FB so I can copy them here.
My final note is on the 30th, I got to do something that was on my bucket list. I went to the Everglades and rode in an air boat (not quite the one that I remember from the TV show in the early 60s) but an airboat just the same. I got to see alligators in the wild! IT WAS AWESOME. And then that night I got to meet my chemo angel, her husband & their service dog, Buster. It was a trip of a lifetime!!

Eph--WOW!!!!!!

Eph, Thanks for posting about your cruise, sounds like a lot of fun. If all goes as planned, I want to do a I'm done with treatment cruise sometime in the summer months. Hopefully by then I will have some hair back.

Eph, it sounds like you had a wonderful time, and for the most part it did it's job.

Several years back, when the issues with DH's family had come to a head and my mother's only sibling had passed away a month prior, we spent Thanksgiving day in a Touristy "Danish"  town.  Mid afternoon we ate a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at a somewhat famous Danish restaurant.  It was different.  I think what I missed most was the leftovers. 

Look at you dancin' Diana!!! Is someone in the kitchen with you? (I know the name's not quite the same, but it popped into my head!)

Dianarose doing great the hapy dance yea!!

El that is a monk seal sleeping on my beautiful beach in kauai, I am dreaming  of going back to see him next month, I really NEED a nap onthe beach!

Eph,sounds great, my sisters,niece, Mom and I rented. Cabana there  too when we

went on our cruise in 2010!!Mom loved it will have to find the pic!

Diana, congrats hon 🏆



Eli, hope you're on schedule to wrap up this week too.



Eph, I loved the journaling. The highlight of my ten days off around Christmas was a facial I had, so I'm glad you had good spa experiences too! I. Am now trying to think who I can cruise with! Hub did one with me and was underwhelmed...that's just him. Looking forward to seeing your pics while I can remember the stories that go with the names.