My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.

Hi all-- Molly and Melissa, you reminded me of new TV stuff....am eager to see the next bit of the series called Rectify....hope they tell us who the killer is......also, eager to see the Netflix doc about Amanda Knox.....

Am not as eager for the next episode of the series called The Presidential Debates.

You know who Donald Trump reminds me of?

A grown-up Gerber baby!

Those puckered lips!

Last night I made a from-scratch angel food cake....turned out great...it's so fluffy....

Next is French macarons...(thanks, Spellcheck, for recognizing this and NOT turning it into macaroons..two entirely different creatures.) I had to buy almond flour for it.

But all the recipe folks on-line say one should measure ingredients by weight and not by volume---and I thought, wait, I have to buy a kitchen scale for this also?

Phooey!

But everyone says get a scale!

Get a scale!

Get a scale!

Then today I was rooting around in the boxes of overflow stuff I have in a storage closet, looking for those spare packets of bladder control pads (all this coughing leads to bladder spills, especially if you happen to be sitting down when you cough a lot......whew...it's like having your period and suddenly a big flow occurs....).

And here was the little diet scale I got at Walmart last year.

And thankfully it lists grams as well as ounces! 'Cause all the recipes list ingredients by gram weight.

Are we Americans EVER gonna learn metric???

So onward to the macarons!

DisneyGirl, yes, I'd also love to go along to one of these ghost hunts! I have a feeling that nothing would happen, though. I was watching more of Ghost Adventures last night and wondered how many empty hours had to pass before they got a "hit"....I read a debunking site that says the "spirit box" sweeps radio signals--or something like that--and could be picking up things off radio stations--words, sentences, etc--but that's hard to figure as the things the ghost adventure people share with us seem so clear and discrete. They sorta pop out. Still, editing can achieve a lot! The Lizzie Borden house was creepy....the psychic woman who was in the seance said that one theory as to why Lizzie killed her father is he was abusing her sexually...how did that idea get formed? Never heard that before...

None of the network shows are calling to me....am sad about that....Judge Judy still has drawing-power...she never fails to amaze me at how quickly she can zoom into the facts....the other judging shows seems tame by comparison...Model-T's to her Corvette...

Lori--

I hope you check in here now and then as you go through chemo, because I want you to know that Pantaloon and I think of you daily. We love and care about you!

t

Hi JBeans--

Wow, what a wonderful daughter you are! Your mom's so lucky to have you.

I know from my own experience how difficult it can be to help an aging parent who doesn't want help, either because they can't perceive that they need it or fear change or out of pride or a combination of those plus other factors.

My mom also just didn't see that she needed help as she became more and more demented. I was living at home with her and my two brothers at the time. Mom would turn to me for everything. Demented, she'd be up all night, calling her doctor, coming to me upset that she hadn't taken her medication--she had--and when I'd finally get her calmed down, get up and start the whole thing over again half an hour later...this went on all night and pretty much all day..... Her memory was shot, which was a huge part of the problem.

Mom was seeing this wonderful therapist who then became MY therapist. She made me see that as long as I was living there mom would turn to me. Between us this great gal and I worked out a little plan that when my sister and her husband next time needed me to house sit for them in Virginia when they went off to make a Nat Geo documentary that I'd go but wouldn't move back into the family home upon their return. When they did and while I was house-sitting I found an apartment to move into and did so when my sister and her husband returned. Then it was a transition to the apartment and not a return to home.

Once I'd moved out things were OK for a while but then they got worse. It wasn't till they did that mom accepted she needed 24 hour care. (There was a big storm that knocked out the lights. She took an oil lamp my brother had lit and was carrying it around, dropped it at one point, which of course created havoc. She scared herself enough that even with dementia she finally woke up to how bad things had gotten. The common-sense, strong, reliable and responsible person she'd been all her life seemed to come awake then--which was great to see, like seeing someone come out of a fog, if only for a short while.)

We located a good private care home for her and she was there two years practically to the day before going to the hospital with pneumonia and dying soon after. At the home she was happy, what her doctor called "cheerful incoherent"....thought the folks caring for her were her kids, etc. When I went to visit her she knew me, for which I was so thankful.

It's such a hard thing--facing these realities and figuring out how to cope oneself as well as help the struggling parent. I hope you have help, good counsel, and support. Do you have siblings or other family members that could assist you?

Well, I'm so sorry to hear you have this on you right now. Thank God for the bees! And the salmon! And the quizzes to grade! I was in grad school and a TA at the time and had so much going on I thought I'd go mad. Grading English 101 papers saved my sanity!

love to you and hang in there..... t

Hi JBeans--

You are so welcome!

Your Aunt and Uncle are right: you can only do your best. My therapist back then told me to write down all the things--big and little--I did for mom so that I could look at that whenever I felt like I hadn't done enough or done things right, etc. I did actually start a list and it helped to consult it when I felt overwhelmed with all that had to be done and underwhelmed at my own contributions...

So glad to hear the bees are doing fine! And your eager Beaver has a way to earn $$ for the troop. That hardware store was smart to come up with that idea!

Miss Panty has only seen a few flies in her life but each time has gone after them like a little tiger. When we take hall walks down the the trash room, sometimes a fly will have gotten in and off Miss P goes after it--whereas I hadn't even spied it yet! Sorry to hear you have that problem in your kitchen...

The macaron experience is daunting. Six batches and only one seemed right... But they all tasted good. I'd call them confections and not cookies, though. Hah.

t

Hi Leslie--

Yours are such wise words!

You are so right---the newly-diagnosed should avail themselves of the bounty of things out there these days and learn, ask questions, solicit information, check out the many resources available.

FIND OUT, FIND OUT, FIND OUT!

Then FIND OUT some more!

And, yes, there's a lot TO find out!

But a year ago to me that seemed an almost overwhelming quantity of information to digest. So much so that a part of me wanted to run for cover.

I had my choice:

Either I could hang out in the Fear Desert, full of swirling horrors, OR

Put on my reading glasses and tackle the Mountain of Cancer Material.

The one seemed icky, the other daunting.

What helped?

A DATE.

A TIME.

A DOCTOR.

AN ARTICLE TO READ.

A LIST TO MAKE.

A FELLOW CANCER PATIENT TO CALL.

Gradually, breast cancer morphed from being Scarily Huge and Vague to something specific, localized,

given a name, a face, a title, a date . . .

As Dr Phil so beautifully puts it: I started putting verbs in my sentences.

The fog began to thin and relevant facts began attaching themselves to my own case.

It started making sense. . . .

I started knowing

what to do next.

And always,

always,

always,

I had this site to come to.

Like a grounding wire.

Where I could read the stories of others,

laugh,

muse,

learn.

When I wrote that post almost a year ago I knew zero. I just had a big ball of terror in my gut and a head blanked out by fear. This marvelous site came as a wonder and a welcome assist during the frantic days and weeks that followed my diagnosis. Thanks to it I calmed down and began to absorb facts and the fog of blinding, paralyzing fear lifted.

When I wrote that I was thinking of the breast cancer of my aunt's days--back in the 1950's and early 60's--when cancer was treated as this definitely terrifying but also almost shameful thing to be discussed in a hush-hush fashion, when options were limited, surgical procedures radical, and treatments a whole different experience for women.

That I ultimately decided to forego chemo wasn't out of that initial "No--I don't want to do anything" mindset, it was because I'd learned about what was on offer and weighed the pros against the cons.

I'm at peace with my decisions--both regarding further treatment and that I elected to have both breasts removed. I'll never know, of course, but there's just no way that I think I'd be feeling the inner calm I feel today had I put blinders on and elected to do nothing.

Knowledge is power. NOT knowing renders us captives of our worst, and often wholly irrational, fears. On top of having to deal with a life-altering diagnosis, now ignorance cripples and weakens us . . .

Prior to this whole cancer experience I'd often ask myself if the negative aspects of the Internet outweighed the good of it--sometimes it seemed to me it wasn't enabling the better angels of our natures one bit! But after coming here, I learned just how great the Internet can be. I really owe it to this site for having saved my sanity and perhaps also my life.

To every scared, confused, lost, overwhelmed "newbie to CA" who's going through now what I did a year ago,I say: right here is a great place to start your journey out of the fog.

Trill

Oh, sweetie, I'm glad you found this site but am sorry that you are facing this and going through all this now and know how scary it can be! But this is a great place to come and air your thoughts, fears, questions. It's a place to laugh, to cry, to wonder, to worry, to find peace and hope and wonderful people who've gone through exactly what you are. It's a place to ask questions of all sorts...so ask away!

We're a team, we're a family.

You're not alone!

I had no idea a year ago I'd be so surrounded by friends and fellow breast cancer gals.

A better, more generous and caring a group you're not going to find anywhere.

Hang in there and stay in touch with us.

Keep doing all the healthy stuff!

Write when you need to and read when you need to.

t

Miss Panty, part dos...