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

Chilly here in the Philly suburbs......yesterday no water....car door would not open.frozen shut.......I’m tired of winter already and it hasn’t even barely begun.......

Souls, like animals and plants, need air. Do our lives have enough empty space in them to nourish our spirit? Living in cities, plugged into networks of jobs, friends, and projects, we sometimes neglect our standing-and-staring needs. Blessed idleness!Blessed inattention! When we slip back into the groove, we're refreshed by our passive interlude. Let's remember the recipe and find some time to stand aside and stare. -unattributed

Chevy, Glad your DH is getting better. That must have been really scary. And bless your heart for taking care of the animals. Leaving a Chihuahua out in 12 degree weather would get the owner a big ticket here. And possibly they wouldn't get the dog back.

Annie, at the moment the forcast for our area is only 1-3 inches, though we may get a wind storm after and white out conditions. Of course if the storm moves closer to shore again this can change!

Oh I'm sorry Anne!  Yes, Anything can go bad, even when it is not expected.  They first thought DH had Sepsis, or cellulitis... then something else, but my Orlando Daughter's neighbor who works in ER knew right away what he had, when I sent the picture!  I had never heard of such a thing!  Don't know WHY the ER Doc here in Denver didn't know what it was!   Just knew it was a bad infection.........

No, Husbands are not easy to deal with.... but this time I just felt so BAD.... and helpless, seeing him go through so much pain!  And all the pain pills, and antibiotics were really doing a number on him!  He thought he was losing his mind....  just started crying one morning.....  I just held him.....   Funny, how things bring you so much closer to each other....

All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded upon our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows that person, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows that person, like a shadow that never leaves. -Gautama Buddha

Sitting here in my warm house watching it snow. We aren't supposed to get the high total, that is further east! Plows just came thru. Hoping when the wind picks up that the power stays on, as it is still in the teens here! Hoping to start putting away some of the Christmas decorations since we will be staying home. Hate to put them up, but then hate to see them go, love the tree lights. One year, when we still cut our real trees, I left it up for quite a while as it was growing shoots, not drying out. Ended up with 4-6 inch shoots. Have some pictures somewhere. Oh well finally did what I never thought Id do and got a fake tree, now a table top. Call it my Snow Baby tree! Got lazy and didnt do my villages this year! Hope everyone stays dry and warm today!

Carole, Made a trip to SAL's with shoes and purses yesterday, this year I parted with a lot of things that will never fit again! Still need to get rid of a lot more. DH gave me some new luggage with spinner wheels for Christmas, cleaned out my other set, which is still in good shape. May see if the resale shop will take that.

Took some of the Christmas decorations down. I'll do that little by little, as I did the decorating.Still snowing here, probably have 2-3 inches, so far. DH says the snow blower isn't working, even if it's light , don't want to shovel if it gets very deep! He usually plows the drive with his old tractor/loader and I shovel.When The snow ends it is supposed to get quite windy. We shall see.

Definitely older than dirt--scored 18. Only one I don't remember contemporaneously is the movie newsreels, though I've seen footage of them on TV. I've heard of Green Stamps, but our grocery stores gave out Plaid Stamps instead. But here are some other things I remember:

Cartoons before movies (even for adults), double features, Matrons with flashlights patrolling the aisles of theaters on Sat. afternoons, "shushing" talkers, ejecting litterbugs, and warning the older kids who "necked" during the movie. Being able to walk in on a movie at any point and staying through the next show until "this is where we came in" and leaving. The Good Humor (and his rival, Bungalow Bar) Man, who wore white uniforms and drove little trucks with mechanical bells (rather than a recorded repeating tune); to sell you your treats, they had to get out of the truck and open the freezer door in the back of the truck. Being limited to only "dixie cup" single-serving ice cream cups with wax-paper-wrapped little wooden spoons, until we were old enough to demonstrate we could eat ice cream bars and other utensil-free treats without dripping them on to our clothes.

Walnetto penny-vending machines on NYC subway platforms; dime-size subway tokens; wax lips; candy buttons on strips of paper; little ice cream cones with marshmallow as the "ice cream;" the fruit-and-vegetable peddler with a horse-drawn cart; charlotte russe vendors in summer and hot knish/pretzel/chestnut carts outside the schoolyards the rest of the year; coal deliveries to my apt. house; corner combination candy stores/soda fountains/newsstands (especially the stand-up-only ones outside the elevated subway entrance stairways--in NYC, all rapid-transit trains were called "subways" even if they were elevated, but in Chicago all rapid transit trains are "the L" even if elevated or at grade level).

Rough-wooden-plank-floored A&P stores, with an entire aisle dedicated to their own coffee beans and giant-sized DIY grinders. Malteds & milkshakes served in a glass, the excess served in the shaker in which the machine mixed them, with a large plain cookie called a "wine cracker" on the side; nickel candy bars, ten-and-twelve-cent fountain sodas (and 12-and-15-cent chocolate egg creams); 15-cent ice cream novelties or single-scoop cones; dime Popsicles; school supplies, pink rubber "Spaldeen" balls, yo-yos (and replacement strings), wooden tops and Fli-Back paddles sold at the candy store; corner toy stores (all named "(insert owner's name)'s Toyland"); Betsy-Wetsy and Patty Playpal dolls; late-night TV test patterns; freestanding cabinet tube radios. Having to watch "film strips" in class. Not just mimeos, but spirit duplicators (aka "Rexographs"). They printed out in blue wax on paper textured much like early fax machine paper (both loaded on rolls), and I can still smell the fluid. 78 rpm and monophonic records. "Toni" home perm kits. Metal curlers that fastened with elastics.

Before the advent of supermarkets: shopping at the baker, the deli, "appetizing store" (a separate deli for smoked fishes, cheeses & candies), butcher, fishmonger and greengrocer for perishables; grocery stores sold only canned & boxed foods--maybe he had a small freezer too. "Dairy" stores that sold milk and eggs in cartons (if the bakery didn't carry them)--they, luncheonette candy stores/soda fountains, ice cream parlors and bakeries were the only food stores allowed to be open on Sundays. (Milkmen didn't deliver in mostly-tenement neighborhoods). "Blue laws" mandating that all stores other than those mentioned above be closed on Sundays--and police cars parked outside Fortunoff's discount stores on Sundays, collecting their hourly "protection" money so the stores could remain open illegally.

Single-door fridges with teeny little freezer compartments barely big enough to hold a quart of ice cream and a single ice tray. Fishmongers with live-fish tanks. Live-poultry butchers--you picked out your chicken or turkey, and came back a couple hours later to pick it up: killed, plucked (but you always had to go over it at home to get the stubble), and wrapped.

"Raleigh" coupons (enclosed in several brands of cigarettes--my mom saved enough to buy the USS Missouri). Fake doctors in TV commercials urging "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet." Black-&-white TV sets in tall wooden cabinets wheeled into classrooms. TV repairmen who made house calls, carrying metal boxes full of vacuum tubes; doctors who made house calls and seemingly treated every cold or case of "the grippe" with a penicillin shot; clamp-on over-shoe roller skates (and graduating from beginners' to ball-bearing wheels); dentists who gave out pencils or assorted tchotchkes as a reward for enduring a visit; lever-operated voting machines; a demo tabletop lever-op. voting machine in the school gym the day before elections, for kids to use;

We've been having a heat wave: three days in a row with highs in the low teens (albeit one of those highs coming after midnight). We keep the cold tap trickling in the basement laundry sink whenever it gets down to single digits, and a warm water trickle from the master bath faucet whenever it gets below 5F. Yes, we do pay for our water (it's metered now), but it's still a helluva lot cheaper than dealing with a burst frozen pipe--even if insurance covers it. Last year we had a leaking toilet tank bolt which soaked the kitchen ceiling below. Though insurance picked up most of the repair cost, we paid a $2K deductible; it was a colossal PITA to live with during the project--took nearly a week for the remediation and the better part of 3 days for the restoration. Not going through that again if I can help it!

Chevy, so sorry about DH's dental infection--sounds really scary, especially for those of us at risk of ONJ from our bone treatments. Also about losing your nephew so young.

I remember visiting my great grandmother and having the ice man bring the huge ice square that kept the frig cold. If we were lucky, he would chip off a sliver for us to eat.

Hi all,

I’m new here, and I’m following two other threads but I thought I’d ask all of you if anyone has had CMF chemo. I’m 65 and diagnosed in September 2017. I’m interested in knowing what experiences people have gone thru on this therapy. I will get 8 total treatments and I will have my 3 rd treatment 1/9/17. I was doing every three weeks but if my blood work looks good on Monday I’ll start every other week beginning the 9 th. Following chemo I’ll receive 16 radiation treatments. My oncotype score was 26. My oncologist said she was surprised my score was so high and she felt like my health status was very stable and the CMF therapy should be tolerated well. So far I have done well with the exception of constipation and reflux. And of course the shock of the whole thing and fears we all have about dreading each treatment and worry over the success of the whole thing. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. I am in upstate New York and we are in a deep freeze. Hope you all are warm and safe. Kate

Hi, Kate. I don't have any feedback for you since I was lucky (I think!) not to have chemo thanks to a low oncotype number. Good luck to you and feel free to join our thread.

We didn't run a trickle of water last night and it's supposed to get into the 50's today. DH may play golf. I'm about to go to the gym and later will follow my usual Saturday schedule and go to the nursing home and wheel my mother to bingo.

She has been on hospice since March but the company is discharging her from hospice. She has not been declining but instead has improved. I think the hospice nurse, Janet, gets a lot of credit. She has been supervising my mother's meds and taking her off meds with the approval of the hospice doctor. My mother is pleased except for losing her hospice CNA who gave her a bed bath three times a week. Now my mother will have to go to the shower and be transferred by a lift to the shower chair. She had her 95th birthday in December and is clear-minded for her age. She can no longer transfer without the lift.

I am watching my diet closely and using the WW app. WW just changed its program as it does fairly often, for marketing reasons, I figure. The daily points for foods consumed is lower but there are more "free" foods. The psychology is nudging customers toward healthier food. I use a lot of WW recipes, which are usually quite good. Last night I made a WW German potato salad that was about as good as the old BH&G recipe I've used for years in holiday cooking. I'm trying to keep the menus varied for dh's sake as well as my own. He is eating whatever I prepare for myself for dinner. Other meals he's on his own.

I refer to WW as AA!

Happy Saturday to all.

Beautiful sun out this a.m. It is zero outside so we need that sun. Makes me feel like if I don't put a lot of mental attention on it that I'm a bit warmer. It will go higher during the day, but not all that much I don't think.

Carole, so good to hear of your mom's progress. It is VERY true that some medications for older folk can have quite an effect on memory, ability and even temperament. Glad her hospice nurse was able to get her on either better meds, or in some cases less. I do recall my last patient getting meaner than a snake for awhile and it was due to one of her meds. It is a difficult balancing act for the older citizens as older bodies process meds differently and when you are 'old' enough sometimes I think it might be harder to tell if reactions are normal aging processes or actual 'reactions'.

Good for you too on the WW. The Nutrition Class I've taken ( and just re-done for any new info that may have come out ) is one where the instructor is more into much more healthful eating rather than focusing on wt. loss. For most, I think the theory is that people have a set weight for their body and it will adjust pretty much given mainly the right foods. As well, of course, it depends somewhat on age. The older you are, the harder it can be to actually lose weight -- and even our coach Linda lost 10 more lbs. than is her 'normal'. She let that wt. come back because she said she just never felt comfortable or at her best.

That may be good news for a lot of people -- was for me. I also have known many overwt. people who were very healthy because they were very active despite the wt. That does not mean I wish to be too overwt. which I am right now after holidays, etc. but just to say that maybe trying hard to reach a certain point on the scale may set you up for frustrations you don't need to have.

Hope you all have a really good day and that despite any temps. you have some sun if they are cold ones.

Just so ya'll know.......

Cloudy today but a bit warmer ( 23 degrees ) than the mornings have been starting out. I have lots to do inside, but will go later to feed the feral cats. Got huge amts. of things done the other day ( and well into the night ) so we really are fairly good here -- but it is never the end. There are always those refinements to put into the mix -- like changing shelf paper etc. We have no snow on the ground and not sure we will get any. The cold snap ( could it break soon, that would be nice ) is plenty to handle for now.

Hope you are all staying safe, warm, and not too busy. If cold where you are, I hope you have sun to make it seem warmer.