Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
Comments
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I remember that cancer was never admitted publicaly as the cause of death. "After a long illness" was the code sentence in the obit. And how could you discuss breast cancer when you couldn't say breast out loud. Was it Happy Rockefeller who admitted she had it and made it more acceptable to talk about? I think people worried that they wouldn't be able to sell their house if someone died of cancer there. Without really knowing the cause, people were apprehensive. Kind of like rheumatic fever until they figured out it was strep. The healthiest person in our family was my grandmother's oldest brother. She died at 82 and he was at least 8-10 years older. He was a wheat farmer in Kansas and ate from his huge vegetable garden. Nothing like knowing where your food comes from.
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It's so interesting to read and wonder what exactly causes our cancer...... And I don't think there is ever a specific reason.... My surgeon told me that we are always replacing old cells in our bodies, with new ones.... but SOMEtimes those cells go bad, and cancer will develop.
Meaning I took the pill, and then HRT, then back on the pill, because it had the combined estrogen and progesteone instead of just the estrogen. So altogether I was on it for about 40 years!
I had to take it, becauser when I went off after my hysterectomy, I developed the worst hives and welts I had ever seen! Went on for about 2 years, until "they" determined it had something to do with my hormones. That's when I went back on it, and my skin trouble quit.
It WAS kind of a secret when my Mom got BC too! She did the same thing with me.... didn't tell me until it was over!.... But she lived many years after her mastectomy. I have heard that artificial sweetener, too much sugar.... inhalants like plant or bug spray.... blah, blah... But I still think it is a crap-shoot.
I took Tamoxifen for 1 1/2 years.... with no problems.... until I lost my hearing. A small stroke.... which is one of the listed SE's.... AND it also lists Glaucoma..... but we are so intent on trying to make sure of never getting cancer again that sometimes, like with me, the SE's are worse than the disease. We just don't know.... And then OTHER people can take the same drug, and no problems...... just because we are all different.... Same as there are sooooooo many types of breast cancer, and stages, and grades.... I just thank God for every day....
And that I can go work in my gardens..... think I'll go do it now!
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Weklckme new r bies, dont think we have any rule,
Bbl to caetchvup
Happy Sunday
Not surecwhat the wewther is, cold but not too, lol.
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MomMom- Thanks! I am also known as mom mom to grandkids.
I had no idea triple negative was identified in 2006. Crazy! Recently, primary care told me I did not have to have a colonscopy, as there was a blood test now available. The results would dictate if I needed to proceed with the test. I never heard anything so I guess all okay.
We have come a long way with genetics and it can only get better. I was lucky enough to have the Oncotype available so I could avoid chemo.
So tomorrow is my first day back to work, albeit part-time. Sigh. I think it's going to be good for me, but gosh how I will miss spending lazy cold days sipping tea and corresponding with my bco friends.
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Wren,
How interesting to be reading your words, and one of the VERY biggest reasons I think if ever I would think it time for me to stop visiting with people from BC. Org., it would be terrible if just for the fact there is always something to learn. Of course, the emotional connection is VERY strong too.
Today I learned and oh how many, many times I read the words in an obit ----- after a long illness. I never knew that meant some sort of cancer. Of course, like probably a lot of people -- I always wondered just what it was that this poor person had that was BAD enough to cause them to exit the world. I don't think I once ever thought of cancer. I do recall ( just not exactly when the habit started ) often reading somewhere after that, the area where it was often mentioned, different societies or causes who would welcome a donation in the name of the deceased. I did realize that sometimes the family would choose to possibly help research about the "illness" that took their loved one.
The other thing I learned was that rheumatic fever is a form of strep. I had rheumatic fever when I was 8 yrs. old. It was pretty much the beginning of the school yr. that yr. and my parents were almost terrified that I had come down with polio. The vaccine was likely close then but not yet out so it was a major fear of all parents.
Short story is that I had been kept out of school for a couple of days before the week-end and had been told that I would return to school on Monday though I think I still had the 'drainage' going on. That Monday morning ( my sister and I had bunk beds in our small room ) upon awakening, my knees hurt so bad. Not sure how I managed to get out of the upper bunk and to the floor --- but I did. By the time I got to the dining area ( in one part of our living room ) I sat in my Dad's chair. Back then and I pretty sure it is still that way -- you sat in one chair as it was your PLACE. My Dad who was VERY hard of hearing had not gotten up yet. Because my legs/knees hurt so bad, I begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay home from school one more day. My mother ( I could see and feel it in her demeanor ) had great reluctance. She finally said ok, but that would be the last day.
I then asked her to help me over to the couch as I knew that Dad would not be happy if he did get up and find me in his PLACE. Mom helped me up and likely thought I perhaps was doing a fair "acting" job of getting to my feet. In reality, once up, though hurting, the pain was much better if I wasn't bending my knees too much. Finally got over to the couch and I got sat down. My Mom grabbed me under the knees to swing my legs up and I let out a blood curdling scream.
The bedroom was not that far from the living room, and as bad ( actually he was nearly deaf ) as my Dad's hearing was -- he heard that scream. He ( found out later ) jumped into his pants and grabbed on his hearing aid and came out to the living room to find out what was going on. I was in a Pediatrician's ofc. within the hour. Both Mom and Dad were I think very stoic but terrified that it might be polio. If memory serves -- though not totally sure how to even treat it ( small town that it was then ) the Dr. was almost certain it was rheumatic fever and so began that day about 10 months of bed rest and 12 pills ( who knows what all they were but I'm sure a number of vitamins were in there ) one set of pills every four hours -- including during sleeping hours.
So -- I could never learn some of the things I do here. I think somewhere through time I might have heard about the rheumatic fever/strep connection -- but forgot it. I definitely never knew of the other.
Ok --- I'm going back out to the sunshine and warmth. I'll see ya 'all later.
Jackie
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Oh sweet Jackie! I knew you had Rheumatic Fever, but didn't know what it was all about! My Brother had that too, when he was little.... I just remember how he was always hurting, and seemed forever before he was better.... I remember them giving us a spoonfull of cod-liver-oil every day.... and I thought I would surely DIE from that! n
Yes Polio was another scare! I was in Campfire Girls, and we had to quit swimmimg in the big old dirty lake, when that scare came out.... But you know, maybe THAT'S why, when we became parents ourselves, that we made sure OUR kids got all their immuzation shots!
We always heard of whooping-cough, measles, mumps, Scarlet Fever and diptheria! And everyone of those scared us all "in those days."
And we very rarely heard of "cancer"..... I'm SURE people died from that, but for some reason, it wasn't talked about....Maybe in those days they thought you could "catch" it?
I heard my Mother's Mother died of "consumption"..... or something.... then there was also Pneumonia, and Tuberculosis in those days.... I'll bet SOME of those could have been cancer....
I nearly died from ruptured appendics with Peritonitis when I was about 14.... They thought I had the flu.... but man, I was as sick as a dog... THEN the last night I was home, I felt something like a knife tearing into my stomach.... and I got sick, but then it felt better!
Next day I couldn't move.. they finally called out the doc... he pressed on my stomach, and quickly let up, and I thought I would pass out.... So they finally thought I was sick enough to get a trip to the hospital.... Ha!
I was there for 10 days.... I would wake up and hear them talking about me not making it.... Oh wah, wah! Guess I showed THEM.... Ha!
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I just looked it up..... "Consumption" meant the early stages of Tuberculosis! When you think about it, we really have come a long ways since "those days!"
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Hi Ladies.....Gosh, I can't seem to keep up with all the wonderful posts. I am so sorry that I missed wishing the birthday gals a Happy Birthday on their special day! Welcome, Jilly!
We are down to our last few weeks in sunny Florida and although I loved getting out of the snow and cold, I am ready to head back north to HOME and the Illinois springtime. I love the spring flowers and love digging in the flower beds. I also think I need to go home to rest. It seems like we are on the go all the time here. The sunshine energizes us and we just keep going!
I have had lots of breast cancer in my family. My great grandmother had it. It skipped a generation. She had two daughters and neither of them got it. Then both my mother and her sister got it. One aunt on my father's side had it and 2 cousins on that side have had it. One of the cousins died from it . All of the women on my mother's side died from heart problems and not the cancer. Although I'm sure genetics plays a role in it, we were all raised in the same general environment and area and I'm sure there might have been some environmental factors that were added into it.
Chevy, I loved the pic of you and your hubby, and Jackie.....you and Denny are looking pretty good! I once knew how to post pictures on the site but haven't done it for so long that I have completely forgotten how to do it. Imagine that!
I think I hav about 6 pages to read to get me caught up and then perhaps I can enter back into the conversation! Hugs to all of you! Have a great week!
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Good one Chevy!
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I love it, Chevy! Be careful when you lip off to seniors!
Rita, the nice thing about IL and other regions farther north is that you do have wonderful springs. In FL and the south, including LA, we sometimes zoom straight into summer instead of easing into the hot weather. Glad you've enjoyed/are enjoying your couple of months in FL. Have you eaten lots of good FL fish, like grouper?
We slept last night with a raised window in the bedroom and one in the adjoining bathroom, too. No a/c or heat. This whole week we'll be in the 70's. And that's hot enough for me. I'm hoping to play golf Tues., Wed., and Fri. Trying to make up for all those wet weeks with no golf. AND the yard beckons as the weeds are going crazy out there with the sudden warm weather. My back aches at the thought of all that bending and pulling weeds. I have to call my straw fellow and order some bales of straw for mulching. Right now this is all in the thinking stages! I tell myself that yard work counts as exercise just like going to the gym.
DH is off to the skin dr. to have her look at a growth on his scalp that looks like a wart to me. But he wants her to check it out. My mother has an apptment at the kidney dr. at 11:15. I'm hoping my mother is holding her own with the kidney function. She had bloodwork last week to tell the tale.
We're missing Cammi around here and Sandra and others who haven't checked in. Hugs to Blondie and everyone needing a hug.
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I had an aunt who had rheumatic fever as a child. She never married and was our favorite aunt- she took me to my first movie, when we went to visit at Grandma's ( which we did once a week formally, we were in and out of her house daily), she played with us instead of playing cards with the adults , etc. then, when I was early to mid-teen, she had a "spell", involving her heart. No further explanation was ever given, but she went from the fun, energetic aunt to a total invalid overnight. She rarely left her room after that, mostly bedridden and maybe left the house 2more times in her whole life. It was awful to see the strong, healthy, working woman she was become a thin, frail, weak, needy patient in a matter of weeks. I believe 90% of her decline was fear of having another "spell". It was so sad losing her 20 years or so before her actual death.
Yet there are days now when I can almost understand. I never thought much of minor aches, pains,coughs, stomach problems etc. I was too busy living my life. Now, every twinge is noticed - could the cancer be back? While my head knows the odds against it, it is possible and my thoughts go there immediately. At least I know that cancer is not like heart issues, for example- I can't prevent it by sitting still in a chair and not exerting myself at all. My cancer journey took me from being the one everyone counted on to being the "elderly" parent that needs to be taken care of, more in the sense of planning outings that won't tire me out too quickly, than physically being cared for. I don't like the change, but I am forced to accept it, because I physically do not have the stamina I had before.
Anne
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As I look back at the entire tapestry of my life, I can see from the perspective of the present moment that every aspect of my life was necessary and perfect. Each step eventually led to a higher place, even though these steps often felt like obstacles or painful experiences.
Wayne Dyer
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Good Morning,
Wow !!! I hope we can all find a path of acceptance for our obstacles and painful experiences -- mainly that we can find a way to take in some of what feels like losses in energy, time or abilities to build a newer, easier mode of living our life through limitations and problems that seem to have come from illness or 'ahem' age. Well, I'm sure going to give it the old one-two-three anyhow.
I wonder where our sweet Clown may be -- Mimi, what are you up too?????
Glad to see you here too Rita. I had just written on your Illinois Ladies Forum just how wonderful the Spring in Illinois is and that I felt like you'd be so happy to get home to it. Then read here almost the same exact sentiment from you.
Chevy, I absolutely adores the graphic and statement. Each era, generation has so much that is special about it. I think of some of the fears our parents generation had to live through and how well they seemed to have done it. We ( my generation ) were in some ways hippie love children, and I'm sorry to say....I didn't have much imagination as I had little concept of all the amazing strides that have taken place since the most amazing one of all --- my birth in 1945. OMG, did I say that !!!! I think the war ending then just opened the world up -- like Pandora's box so that so many strides could become a wonderful accomplishment -- while moi' was mainly oblivious just trying to catch up most of my life since I missed the 3rd. grade of school for the most part.
Anyway --- I'm just hoping you are all going to have the most delightful day. It will be about 82 here today and somehow, even this early -- my senses are all going full blast with the feeling of delight that in the main winter is soon to become something to no longer consider as I begin to watch for the earliest signs of what I hope will be a glorious Spring. I tend ( probably said this a hundred times here now ) to be much more inclined toward resolutions at this time -- wanting myself and my surroundings to awaken just like Spring and to bloom and blossom as easily as Spring seems too. I soooo, sooooo missed this in California all those yrs. we lived there. Well 25 for me. Not that it didn't have great charm and appeal -- especially in the first years of my transplanted time there --- but over time, there was something ( a little space inside that never got filled ) and later I came to believe it was the place that needed seasons, real ones that you can see and smell and feel deeply with a satisfaction that was full to the brim. I think that is why I still take such huge delight in our Spring season. It is so real and feellable.
So good day to all.....Sandra, Blondie, Mimi and anyone else who hasn't posted lately. You are loved and cherished and I hope you have a marvelous Spring day wherever you are and whatever your doing.
Blessings
Jackie
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Anne..... It must have been something else along with the Rheumatic Fever? I know..... My Grandparents always said a "spell"..... whatever that was, because they couldn't run to the Doctors like we can now..... I mean even when we were little.... We didn't go to the Doctors, unless they couldn't stop the bleeding, or we passed out, or maybe the fever got too high, or maybe if we got run over from playing in the street!
I remember the mustard plasters, with a wool cloth over our chest, and sitting with my Daughters in the bathroom, with the bath-tub running hot water, to steam up the room.... to help the "croup"..... Didn't have a shower.... And giving them castor-oil, like they gave ME, for everything! I guess they thought if they cleaned us out, that would get rid of what was wrong with us.
The Doctor that delivered me, in 1937, was the same Doctor that delivered my girls, in 1958 and 1961..... He would come to our house also! I don't even remember if/how we could pay him, because sometimes DH wasn't working!! Man, those years were rough.... but we were so happy!!!
Jackie, it was AWFUL during that war.... I missed my Dad sooooo much... And being afraid of the black shades, and the air-raid sirens.... and nobody had enough money.... Waiting in a line for bread.... and paying for it with a token.
Mom worked for the Burlington railroad.... cleaning out Pull-man cars, that took the troops back and forth.... A neighbor would watch me and my little Brother at their house... They had an out-house.... right in the middle of where their GEESE were, and those things would terrorize me and my Brother every time we ran out there!
And Mrs. Meyers always said my dresses were too old and too short, and she was going to sew "gunny-sacks" to the bottom, to make them longer.... I didn't know how she coud put a bunch of gum wrappers together to sew on my dress! I didn't know what gunny-sacks were!
They were big burlap bags that potatoes came in. They would save them, and also FLOUR sacks, to use for dish-towels.... And I even saved them for diapers for my girls!
Everyone cooked on black coal/wood stoves.... had ice-boxes.... And they would put an iron on the hot stove, to heat it, so the women could iron.....Mrs. Meyers had a pump on her sink in the kitchen... so we could pump water, right in the house! How funny this all seems now! And their house didn't have anything over the two-by-fours on the floor... so all they did was sweep the dirt down through the cracks.... Hah!
So we started out, and grew up with nothing..... Just our families.... But how thankful I am now, for everything we have.... and everything we can do.... It was fun going down memory lane.....
NOW it is very hot outside..... Ha! The temperature out back says 85! So I can't work out there, cleaning my gardens.... I even brought the fan in... Took out the Infra-red heater..... One extreme to the next!
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Good grief-I forgot about mustard plasters. They burned, and smelled to high heaven, but cured you in no time.
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Never had a mustard plaster. Only gobs and gobs of Vicks with kleenex on top to keep pj's clean.
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I remember staying over at my Grandma's house over night, and her whole bedroom.... or HOUSE for that matter smelled like Vicks, or Mentholatum... Ha! And I didn't like sleeping with her, in that bed, because that room was pitch black, and I was afraid! I don't know of what, but I didn't like staying overnight ANYwhere.....
But you know, I still use it in the ointment I make for my hands, when they break out, only NOW I love the smell.... It's supposed to be good for your toe-nails, if they start to get fungus...... then cover your feet with little socks.
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I like to smell Vicks salve. I always have a jar of it close to my bed and put some on the end of my nose to help open up the sinuses. Weird, huh?!!
The kidney dr. was very pleased with my mother's blood work. Her kidney function had improved and her vitamin D numbers were good. So it was a good dr. visit.
I was wrong about the high temp. for today. It was in the 80's. Too high.
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Got a jar of Vicks right here, next to my chair! Anything I have my DH says" use Vicks!" It's still his cure-all. Never had a mustard plaster!
Do wish I cud take a Celebrex, my arthritis is really miserable lately and Tylenol just doesn't cut it. That's the only thing I'm allowed on the Coumadin.
Staying off all caffeine still seems to be working on the tachy. Only one brief episode. But I want a piece of chocolate.
MId 40's here today, tomorrow rain and dropping back in the low 30's. Come on spring.
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Hey all im here, thanks 4 caring
Big hugs back
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May love and laughter light your days and warm
your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may
roam. May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures. May all
life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours!
-- Old Irish Blessing -
So Chevy, do you use the Vicks straight from the jar for your toenails? I never heard of that but my Grandmother used to put Vicks on the bottoms of my feet when I had a cough. We also put socks on over the Vicks. I still do that some times and it seems to work. It also helps to heal cracks in your heels. Amazing little salve, isn't it?
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Enjoyed getting out and playing golf today. A breeze was welcome because it got up to mid 80's and is humid. That's what happens when that gulf breeze blows inland. Our "normal" high temperature this time of year is mid 70's.
Rita, I never heard of putting the Vicks on your feet! I know about rubbing it on the chest and dabbing it on the nose. I've seen policemen on tv and in the movies put it on the nose when they have to go near a corpse. Nice thought!
Hi to everyone. Hope you all had a good Tuesday.
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Mike's sister Lisa came to San Antonio to begin the final processing to be a stem cell donor. So far, so good.
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Hoping for things to go well, Sandra.
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Sandra,
Here's hoping that Lisa will be the "cure" for Mike, realizing the road ahead will be a rough one for Mike. He is shrinking!!!!
Hugs,
Di
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