Calling all TNs

Thanks so much for good wishes, Titan!

Sherry

OBXK - Did you recently add your photo or have I really been out of it? LOL  I love it - you look great!

Reality, I'm so sorry to hear that. I truly hope that Xeloda works for you. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for you and please let us know how it goes.

Take care.

Hello Ladies,

How are you all doing?  It has been awhile since I've been on the board and I have had my ups and downs for sure.  Still on treatment with some success and some progression.  

Karen.....I am on 5-FU which is a form of Xeloda.  The fatigue is the hardest for me, but the steroids help.  Little walks in the fresh air seem to help a bit, but napping when you need to nap is the ticket.  Think cat naps.  If you have to take an ativan to get a good 4 hours in.  They make the world of difference.

How is Luv?

and how is Cocker?

I have been keeping up with most everyone else through facebook.  If you would like to friend me please send a private message and I will give you my facebook page.

Gotta go for now.  Love to you all!

My mate at work who found a lump last week in her breast and under her arm has now had to travel to her home town because her dad is dying.  I feel so sorry for her.  She has the heartbreak of losing her dad and also has to wait for her results. Must be absolute torture for her.

Inmate so good to see you posting but sorry you had a progression.  I hope everything works out well for you.  You are such a fighter and never gives up.  I hope you do kick this cancers arse. 

Bak I really don't understand the insurance in the US. If you have paid in for this how they can refuse you the treatment. Is your insurance pay outs only up to a certain amount and if so why.  How can they only pay for say one MRI and not a further one.  Can you also go on the public waiting list (that's if you have one).

My wonderful manager at work has now left and we have a new one. Talk about a new broom sweeping everything clean.  This one seems like a tough cookie thats hard to chew through.  So far I have kept out of her way but would'nt like to get on the wrong side of her.  Still we shall break her in no doubt, she won't stand a chance lol

Good looking hat Karen.  Suits you.  Just love the bow.

My old fellar has got a pain in his hip.  Been coming and going for a while now.  I thought perhaps its because he is now standing on his feet for a long while at the cafe but now I suspect he may have to have a hip replacement.   God knows who is going to feed me if he has to go into hospital lol.  Well, I have to think of things like that don't I.    Okay Titan enough said!!

This is so true for all of us but so very hard to do.

Inmate - glad you popped in.

Dolce - Dr Carey is the specialist I consulted after my local recurrence last year. Kind, smart, very thorough. I left the 2 hour consult (!) feeling like I'd talked to the best there was.

Inmate - so nice to see you back! Sorry about the progression, but I know you're one tough cookie - looking forward to more of your posts.

Someone was asking a few pages back about hormonals for low ER+, well I was 1% ER+ and they put me one Letrazole. Side affects were brutal on me, so I stopped. For 1%, it just didn't seem worth it... hope I don't regret that decision.

I'm healed up from my last surgery three weeks ago, got my implant in and looking fairly OK considering all the foobs have been through. Mentally/emotionally I'm still all over the place. I'm 4.5 years out from original diagnosis and I just can't get over - anything. I'm pathetic! I irritate even myself.

Thanks for replying!! It gives me hope to read posts and talk to TN survivors!! Waiting to see Oncologist in 4 days. I'm not a fan of waiting but I have no choice. In the meantime Im self treating with diet, staying alkaline, trying to cut out sugar and red meat. Taking supplements..graviola(guanabana fruit)...breast health vitamin with dim..d3..green tea etc., turkey tail mushroom with other immune support mushrooms...low dose asprin 81mg...vitamin c drip 2x prior to bilateral mastectomy..maybe over doing it but I am too young and have children to care for to not fight this with everything I can both conventional and non conventional.

Thanks to all who post!!

Anna

Inmate - so glad you popped in here. Moowah!



Annie - I love the kitten photo.

Hello Ladies!  I haven't been on in a couple of months!  I still see familiar faces, but lot's of new faces too.  So sorry you have to be here, but trust me you will be glad you found this board.  It really got me through.  I passed my 2 year mark in March and so far so good.  Life is almost back to normal for me.  Still don't have energy like I used to, and still hurt sometimes.  Oh and my eyebrows are falling out again!  

But I just wanted to say hello!  Stay  strong and fight, fight, fight!!!

Hi to all of you ladies.  I am new and having stumbled onto this site yesterday spent literally all day yesterday reading the entire 4 years of this string.  I felt like I was reading a series of novels without having to wait for the next book to be published!  You can see my profile details.  I am now 60 years old {me, really, me, wasn't I just in third grade?}, diagnosed at 58+.  As most of you said, I found the lump myself a month before I was due for my annual mammo.  I (now it seems) fortuitously had been experiencing from time to time a muscle spasm just under my left breast (unrelated I'm told) and so while sitting up in bed in my nightgown in Fairbanks, AK while visiting my daughter and reading from my Nook, I lifted up my left breast so I could rub the annoying muscle below.  Lo and behold, as I raised my breast I felt a lump.  My initial and subsequent thought was, "Wow, where did that come from?"  It seemed to appear out of nowhere, as many of you have described.  I was not particularly systematic in doing SBE, but it had not been very long.

I went through the usual course that many of you describe here and am now 15 months post chemo. 

The main (and seemingly trivial, but not) reason I decided to post and I hope you have all read to this point is that I have seen nothing mentioned about icing you finger and toenails during treatment.  My nurses told me about this and literally while I received my chemo infusions (nothing at home afterwards), I had ice or icepacks placed over my fingernails and toenails.  I had some slight yellowing of my fingernails, but they really were fine.  Unfortunately, I delayed icing my toes until my 5th and 6th treatments and had more damage there, however, I did not lose any toenails completely.  They turned yellow and seemed to have blood blisters under the nails as well as curling inward.

I have been so fortunate to have a co-worker to confide in who had TN 7 years ago at the young age of 32.  She is cured today and living a normal life !

Inmate - I hope the new med works for you. I also keep trying new meds. Gemzar was great as far as Se's go. The infusion time was short and with neupogen injections, my blood count cooperated. Would'nt you know though, did not do a darn thing for my lung mets. Nope, they decided I was having it too easy on Gemzar and took the opportunity to grow!  I am up so early this a.m. as I am sitting here staring at my "last resort" - Xeloda. It arrived in the mail yesterday. I have it all sorted out in my shiny new pill box, compliments of the mfgs. of X, of course, along with a bunch of other crap in my "Welcome to X" packet. How many darn packets have we had....I just love it, "Welcome to Xeloda", like it's an invitation to a party! Anyway, my wonderful six yr old granddaugher spent the night with me, so I am going to wait until she goes to school this a.m. before I take my first dose. I realize that the nausea may not set in with the first dose, but for some people it does. I try to make mornings fun, so I do not want to ruin it. Hmmmmm, wonder what my excuse will be to wait to take it after she goes to school...oh yes, I have to eat breakfast before I take it, and of course, I need to feed cats, and oh yes, there's the litter box to clean.....

I wonder if taking Taxol weekly instead of DD/Taxol is easier on the nails? My one toenail lifted on one side but my fingernails were fine. I did not ice. I took the weekly Taxol.