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

I'm wishing for all of you a wonderful, great time with friends, family or for whomever you share Thanksgiving with this yr. Be safe, and healthy and happy. See you all soon.

Blessings,

Jackie

Do you realize that you have been given exactly what you need just so that you may proceed with the spiritual lessons and growth that you, you alone, need to master? Yes, life can be absolutely daunting, but you can have gratitude when you realize that you have just what you need.Gratitude is the virtue that shifts our energy in order to facilitate our great growth to the next levels. Without the hankering after what we don't have, we allow ourselves to receive from God just what we need. Then we have and use just what we need to, so that we're prepared for greater gifts and gains inside. -Michael Goddart

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! Count your many blessings!

I feel the capacity to care
is the thing which gives life
its deepest significance.

Pau Casals

Good morning all

Welcome Tikkasmom - so sorry you are here, but happy to meet you. I hope you will find, as I did two years ago, a very welcoming group of ladies, who will not only offer the kind of support only someone who has been there can, but also become close friends. You are free here to express your emotions without censure or judgement, and will always receive understanding and when needed, emotional hugs. We, as a group, have experienced just about everything there is on the cancer planet.

Beyond that, although our lives run many different roads, we enjoy sharing them with each other. We stay away from politics. "Religion" as a debate topic is another one we try to avoid,although we are not afraid to say we are praying for a special circumstance, whatever that may mean to each of us. Just about anything else is open for discussion. Some of us garden, golf, fish, crochet, camp, or share recipes. I am one of the travelers. I feel like I am constantly move between my home of 38 years in Ft laud, Fl and my oldest daughter's home for the last five years in Atlanta, Ga, with side trips to my son just outside Charlotte NC, and my siblings in upstate NY. The only "schedule" really is my grand children's birthdays- I try to be with each one on their birthday.

Thanksgiving was the first holiday dinner in this Fl home since my husband passed three years ago. I have been here with my daughter the past two thanksgivings, but since it was just the two of us, we did a small turkey breast, store bought mashed potatoes, stove top stuffing etc. This year we did the whole meal from scratch. It was a small group, 8 of us, including 3 grandkids, 2 daughters, one son-in-law and one mother-in- law. We had a very good time. Today, Christmas decorations are going up all around me, so I need to get myself moving and helping.

Hope you all had a great day yesterday!

Anne

Good pathology results. Cancer small, all 5 nodes removed were clean.

Will see oncologist but shouldn't need any chemotherapy nor radiation. Surgeon said Oncologist may recommend hormone treatment.

So pleased........ Thanks for support

welcome TikkasMom, so nice you were able to get your test results today and not have to wait all weekend for them, I hate the waiting part.

We spend Wednesday with Lew's son and granddaughter, got a FB message today that granddaughter has lice! And we snuggled with her all Wednesday evening while we watched TV. We just finished washing our hair with the special soap. Ugh.

It's raining hard and the temperature dropped 30 degrees this afternoon. Good thing I didn't venture out for Black Friday. I used to love to go just to people watch and for one or two items for the children that I'd seen in the ads. It was fun. But I don't buy much these days and everybody is grown and on their own, so I don't go out. Today I finished my Christmas cards. Tomorrow they will go to the post office. It was just too cold and rainy today.

San Antonio has a lovely holiday Riverwalk Christmas Parade on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving where the floats really float. They are constructed on the regular river barges that usually carry tourists up and down the river. Some barges have small bands. Everything is lit up and pretty. Usually around 200,000 people come downtown to watch. This year it was cancelled at the last minute because the winds were too strong and the rain was coming down in buckets. What a shame. We will go to the Riverwalk at least once this holiday season. It's so pretty with bright twinkling lights hung in the trees. The barges have choral groups going up and down the river so there's music everywhere. Sometimes we take a barge ride even though we've lived here for nearly 30 years. It's just so pretty!

People who take the risk make a tremendous discovery: The more things you care about, and the more intensely you care, the more alive you are. This capacity for caring can illuminate any relationship: marriage, family, friendships--even the ties of affection that often join humans and animals. Each of us is born with some of it, but whether we let it expand or diminish is largely up to us. To care, you have to surrender the armor of indifference. You have to be willing to act, to make the first move.
Arthur Gordon

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.

Mary Jane Irion

hello ladies!

I just found all of you and although I do not want to think of myself as "older" I think this is great fit.

I have felt in a different category than most of the chemo Sept 2015 group, which has been great but must are 35-50. I'm 62 and when I was still 61 I felt 10 years younger....but a few days before my birthday, the week I retired from teaching, I found out I had BC. (This was this past May 26th)

I had a lumpectomy in early July and started chemo in Sept. Four AC completed and after Tues I will have two Taxols left. I can see the end in sight (Jan 30) but am hoping I keep some energy thru the holidays.

My question is whether radiation on top of chemo is necessary. I just cannot get my head around it. I see the RO Wed but if all the cancer was removed (both the surgeon and the MO said those words- "you have no more cancer") and I have chemo running full force through my poor body to "kill" any escapees, why do I need to radiate the empty hole? I did get the PA at my MO's office to agree that rads are only for local issues. Can't I just watch my boobs with mammos and jump on it if there is something suspicious?

Is this (radiation after chemo) just protocol? One size fits all? If I was 10 or 20 years younger, I'd probably figure overkill is good but I'll be on AI's for a long while too. I had a PET scan and MRI of my breasts and nada evidence of any other cancer. (So thankful)

Any thoughts on this? It is a totally different issue for my sister and friends who did not need chemo - but doesn't chemo kinda trump radiation?

Thanks ladies!!

SailorGirl -- welcome. I'm mainly jumping in to make sure ( sometimes we are slow here ) you know that someone is reading here this afternoon. Not sure I can answer your questions satisfactorily, but I do think most people who do radiation do it because there could be a stray cell or two lurking around. It is just a little more insurance that you have done everything possible to eradicate ALL that you can. The lumpectomy with clear margins would have gotten the largest part ( tumor ) of the cancer and removed it. The Sentinel node or nodes if clear tell you that it is VERY likely the cancer did not exit the tumor site, but there is nothing much to tell you that a stray cell didn't perhaps get into some area around the operative location.

This is why so many do the radiation and many of us take a 5 yr. pill as well. I took Arimidex. It was explained to me this way --- if you didn't do ALL you could right at the beginning, you'd be likely so remorseful for 'allowing' the illness to regain another foothold. You and your Dr. ( and you can always get a second or even third opinion ) are the only ones who can truly decide. Everyone it seems has a slightly different reaction to chemo, rads, 5 yr. pills, or whatever they choose to do.

As for myself, I wanted to do all I could right from the get-go to eradicate as much area as I could from any growth or re-growth. These are the things that have had a proven track record for people.

I don't necessarily look on chemo as trumping radiation. I look on it as another tool ( like buying extra insurance ) so that you are taking less chance than you otherwise might. I did the rads ( radiation ) and the 5 yr. pill because I didn't want the shadow of "what if" sitting on my shoulder for the next five yrs. or so which is about what it takes to claim you really are NED. It is a personal choice. I was much more confident doing those things than I would have been had I not done them.

We all do what we need to feel confident that we have covered all our bases. We support any and all no matter which choices you make. Hope to see you come often.

Blessings,

Jackie

Thanks Jackie and Wren!

I know that lumpectomies w/o chemo seem to include rads but I'd love to see research for those of us 60+ with lumpectomies, small tumor and only 3 lymph nodes (which were in a little clump, the other 3 including two sentinels were clear) who had full shot of chemo. I wonder if other countries do it differently? I did read some info where they discussed 1-3 nodes vs 4+ nodes. Seems some docs look at these cases differently and treat them differently.

I also get that the radiation is necessary for one cell that might be roaming, but I am pretty sure chemo is taking care of those rascals! (And if not, that's pretty misleading because that's why they told me they do chemo.)

I agree that I want to do everything to make sure but I also wonder if some of this over the top!

I love your responses and will keep you posted as to what I learn and what I decide.

Thanks again. Looking forward to caching up with more if you.

Doing nothing for others is the undoing of one's
self. We must be purposely kind and generous, or we
miss the best part of existence. The heart that
goes out of itself gets large and full of joy.
This is the great secret of the inner life. We do
ourselves the most good doing something for others.

Horace Mann

Good morning all,

Sailorgirl, First let me say welcome to our group. I had the same questions as you even though our diagnosis were different. I had stage 3 IDC which was HER+. And I had triple the normal amount of cells. My cancer was so aggressive, my team at Emory University in Georgia decided to do chemo before surgery. When they did the CT scan after the chemo, I was NED. There was no question in my mind that I would have a double mastectomy anyway. But the need for radiation at that point confused me, and my family. I asked the RO why, explaining that I was not trying to back out, just didn't understand. Her response is they do not treat what is there at the time, they treat what was there at your diagnosis. They are doing everything possible to destroy the area where the cancer started, so it has no where familiar to latch on again.

We are all free to make our own decisions, and each case is different. Although my children were a great support to me, this was the first ever major issue I had to handle on my own. My husband of 42 years had passed 13 months earlier. During his many years coping with diabetes and all of its ramifications- eye problems, heart problems, kidney failure, etc, we made decisions together. Now i was on my own. I just knew I wanted as much time with my children and grandchildren as possible, and decided not to leave one stone unturned in pursuit of that. One granddaughter was only 3 months old at the time of my Dx, and I wanted to get to know her. Two years later, I am still NED, and I have two more grandchildren on the way- one in March, another in June, which will make a total of 8, but my youngest son is getting married in June, so who knows how many more?

Talk to your Drs, look for threads here that give you other women's stories, pro and con, then go with your gut. You know your body better than anyone else. I am sure there are women on every side of this issue- those who had radiation, and have remained NED, those who didn't have Rads and remain NED, and those that made the same decisions and have had a re-occurrence. Which decision will give you the most peace of mind?

All of us on this thread. will support whatever decision you make, and will listen to your concerns, fears, etc. We will also rejoice in every step you take to bring your "normal" back, although it will be a different normal than what was. Educate yourself as much as possible, then trust yourself and your doctors. The only real caution I would give you is to stay away from Dr Google- that tends to cause more confusion. Use sites like this one, where there is solid medical information, and lots of individual real- life stories.

Anne