Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?

Hi everyone, 

Once again, thank you so much for your kinds words of comfort and support. 

My brother definitely has a tumor, no stroke. They have been telling him since Tues they would be taking him to surgery shortly to release the blood surrounding the tumor and biopsy the tumor. But he has been on Coumidin since his knee replacements years ago. I know from my husband's situation, they do everything possible to delay any surgical procedure until your blood thickens to an acceptable level- usually 3-5 days. Once when Bob couldn't wait that long, the transfused several bags of fresh frozen platelets to speed up the process. Bill is stable at the moment, so they were able to wait. He is supposed to have the surgery at noon today, to remove as much of the blood around the tumor as possible, and to biopsy the tumor itself. The Dr's have said that he has the best case scenario for a bad situation. The tumor is right in the front of the brain, not behind or under anything which makes the removal of it much simpler. I have asked my cousin to keep me updated, because I am not sure if my sister is not understanding what she is told or if she is trying to censor it so as not to upset me. I was very confused after talking not her yesterday afternoon. She said they were draining  the blood from the tumor. I had never heard of that being done, plus she said they were "testing" the blood and it would take up to 5 days to get the results. She never used the word biopsy. 

As you can imagine, I did not sleep well last night even with my Ativan and Ambien. I ended up taking an extra Ambien at 5:30am and slept till 10.  It all seems so unreal because I was with him less than two weeks ago and other than being a little quieter than usual, he was fine.

Anne

Anne, sending very positive vibes to your brother.  How wonderful that you just enjoyed good times with him before this happened.

We're having a beautiful fall day, though it was a little breezy for golf when I played this morning.  It's sunny and in the 60's now.  I'm about to go to Sam's Club to see about a prescription re-fill and will go to the supermarket, too.  DH and I finished up the potato/leek soup for lunch and he suggested we have some lentil soup next.  So, Jackie, I'll google "lentil soup"!  I'm sure I have recipes in my collection of cookbooks and looseleaf notebooks of recipes.

Nova and Logan, my niece's two older children (10 and 8, or 11 and 9--I forget which) will be spending the night with us tomorrow night.  Their father is bringing them to this area to attend a Renaissance festival.  He's supposed to drop them off about 5pm.  I think we will probably go out for pizza tomorrow night for dinner, to a restaurant where we can each order our own small individual pizza.  I like vegetarian pizzas like spinach and feta cheese.  DH always wants Italian sausage on his, and the kids like salty meat like pepperoni. 

The kids' mother is at her mobile home but she doesn't want them to come there and stay with her.  The place is a horrible mess and she has been smoking inside, since her foot is broken.  Cigarettes and marijuana.  Since she can't drink (her liver has already been damaged by alcohol), she smokes weed to relax.  Or escape reality.  My sister has been keeping the 5-yr-old girl, who has a different father.  She is making it clear to my niece and to the child's father that she cannot commit the rest of her life to raising a small child.  If one of them can't take their daughter by the new year, she will have to go to a foster home, where she will be fine if the foster family is a good family.  This little girl has been shifted around enough that she is very adaptable.  She's an adorable child and still very adoptable, in my opinion.  She's extremely bright, too.  She knows her mother is there, half a mile from her grandmother's house, but she is perfectly content being with her grandma.  A very sad situation. 

Sorry to blabber on.  Hope everyone is doing well today.

Carole, I'd imagine that it bothers you a bit to think of the little one with her Grandma.  She has weathered so many storms  in her young life and will have to face another right after the new yr. possibly. 

The fact that she is really bright helps.  In fact, her young age would likely be a good thing too.  Makes me wish I "knew" someone who would be more than thrilled to have a little one around, but I'm afraid I don't. 

I hope things will work out for her. 

Blessings,

Jackie

Sandra -- what a supper idea.  Thinking of the Styrofoam cooler inside the tote.  Also, I get hay for the little dog houses that I have for a couple of the feral cats I care for.  I wish I could put houses out for all, but I know at the one area I'm not allowed ( they are already not thrilled the cats are there at all )  to put anything out to help the animals in the rough weather we have so often. 

I hope back beyond the tall fence they come through that something is there that offers some shelter to them.  The people who owned the store before were very amiable about little cat houses and other little things to make life a bit better.  There are new owners although the building is still owned by the original people and leased to the people who now run the store.  They asked me to remove these cats and I told them I would see but the cats had been there for a long, long time because the "former" store owners totally encouraged the presence of the felines.  I told him if I couldn't find another option maybe I would get a hold of the former owners.  I haven't had any removal discussions since then and knock on wood, I won't.  I intended this new person to 'understand' that this area has been home to this cat group for some time and it could be seen in a negative light if big changes were made. 

Jackie

p.s. I'm certainly going to remember this way to make cat shelters.  Not only is it great, its very economical too.

Happy Saturday to everyone!

We are starting out with no sun, but it will be ok.  We don't as yet have our Artic blast -- I think that is actually a few days ahead, but it won't be too warm anyway.  Well, knew it was coming but a couple of yrs. we made it into December with really very moderately coolish days -- I think not this time.

Not a lot planned for the day.  I helped my friend out yesterday -- and will have to do double-duty around the house today as well as get my bills written out.  Oh, what fun for me.  Bur it is all in a day's work.  My friend was such a support for me during my initial txs. and was so great in cheering me on -- there is no question for me -- if I'm home I will drop everything to help her out if I can.

Hope you all have a great Saturday and saying hi to those who aren't posting much.  Hugs, to Chevy, Cammie, Sally, Blondie, Wren, GG, and anyone I may have missed. 

Blessings

Jackie

TEKA-- I love it, love it, love it.

Love,

Jackie

Hi everyone

Sorry I didn't get a chance to update you yesterday. I picked my GC up after school and their mom got here about 5 and stayed till almost 10 because her computer is broke and she needed to use ours.

Really good news to report on my brother. They were supposed to drain the blood and do a biopsy of the tumor. They were able to remove the whole tumor and not only drain the blood, but completely stop the bleeding. I am a little confused because they have already said that the tumor is a melanoma, but they are biopsying it anyway. I thought melanoma was a diagnosis in and of itself. Of course, we don't know what, if any, follow-up treatment there will be but the Dr is confident that they did get it all. Luckily. Bill is already attached to Sloan-Kettering in NYC because of some major skin cancers, so I am sure he will go to them re follow-up.

I was so relieved, and so tired from not sleeping the night before, and Jamie staying so long, that I fell asleep about 11, without turning my noise machine on, and slept like a log until 10:45 this morning. I feel like a new person.

Hoping you all have a great weekend

Anne

I just started a new thread called What's the matter with me? I don't want to read!. I used to think I was the only one who couldn't seem to focus enough to read more than a Facebook post for weeks after surgery. Now that I know I'm not alone, I'm fascinated to read more stories from everyone else and hear your theories. https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/91/topic/826105?page=1#idx_2  Please share YOUR observations.

I too struggle to read.  I used to be able to fit it neatly between the hundred and one or more things I use to do everyday, but for some reason -- I start a book and can no longer seem to find those "odd" moments that allowed me to read one or two ( in a good week ) almost three books a week.  Oh well !!!  I keep thinking one of these days I'll be caught up better -- and then.

Jackie

We are starting our day with sunshine which always reaches my happiness button quite easily.  Still rather cool, but I can deal with that if there is sun.  Some breeze out but that too is ok in the sun.  I guess I have always been a sunshine person -- it just ramps up my interior energy so much. 

Just going to be a regular day for me though I do have a lot that needs done.  I think I will just have to move through it all -- not really choosing, and just doing. 

Hope you all have a really beautiful Sunday.

Blessings,

Jackie

Having one of those days fatigue is bad and so much to do. Did not get up until 9:00, DH went to broom shop and DGD is with her grandmother in Alpine. No one to deal with so I will do what I can, just pace myself.

Hope everyone is doing well.

nancydrew8...so sorry for your recent Dx. I was dx at age 59. I underwent lumpectomy and internal radiation. Sorry I don't know if you can do internal rads if you've had external before. I think there are alot of older women who are not treated with chemo. There are so many factors that go into that decision.

Praying your results will be b9.

Nancydrew - as Nash stated, there are many factors to take into consideration when determining treatment. I did "just surgery" the first time. Because my recurrence was HER2+, and I'm hormone negative, both chemo & radiation were pretty much a certainty. If you have to go with the whole megillah, you'll be able to get through it. I was 69 when I started pre adjuvant chemo & it's not pleasant but doable.

Sorry I don't know about 'internal' rads, but there are some good radiation threads on this site.

You're right - no way to assign predictions or blame. I think the hardest part is waiting for the answers about what's next. We're here to listen anytime & please do keep in touch.

Nancy -- welcome to the older women.  I hope you will stay here and come for your daily injections of joy and understanding.  As to some of your questions -- I think much of what will happen will be determined either by the biopsy or by a lumpectomy if your Dr. and you feel you need to go that way.  There should be some pathology reports coming out of the biopsy and/or lumpectomy or both -- but those reports help a great deal in the determination of what and how any further treatment might consist of and the amt. of treatment.  It could be fairly minimal or not as the case may be, for the information you have right now it would seem to me, that this was caught EXTREMELY early ( digital mammograms pick problems up so much quicker now )  and so your course of treatment would indeed reflect that to a degree.

I'm sure it was a major shock ( you did mention that ) that after all this time and all those NED pronouncements you have to WORRY and FRET again.  As your Dr. said -- this diagnosis has always been equal opportunity no matter how we live our lives.  We have about the same chance of anyone though I'd err on the side of doing things as well as one could as not only would it help with the diagnosis of cancer, but also with some of the other Big factors in giving you medical issues that very much disrupt your life and psyche -- like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and so on.  

We here are good at hand-holding, chatting about a variety of things, consoling each other through many life issues that are common at one time or other to everyone, and even talking about cancer.  We will support you as fully as we can.  There are  lots of newer medications and other things now and I think having to do chemo is not as it once was.  Some of the people I did chemo with worked, took long walks,  and generally kept up pretty well with their life.  Still having to do these things can be scary and mentally stressful.  We all thought we couldn't handle most of this, but as I like to say -- it is amazing what you can do when you have no choice.  Not trying to be flippant here -- like most just finding I had cancer struck cold terror in my heart -- and then I found out what I would have to do to be NED like I have now been for several yrs. and pray I remain -- and was sure I did not have the strength and  fortitude. 

You can do what your family and loved ones as well as yourself need you to do -- because they need you and you need them.  We learn to adjust our sails so we can keep going and keep moving in the right direction.  You will have lots of company here and we will be holding you up all the way. 

Useless to say don't worry so go ahead and worry--no permission necessary, but we will be here to do our best to wipe up the tears and banish the worry.  You are with a very large group of women that known scared and feeling defenseless really well.  We care.

Blessings

Jackie