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

My housekeeper's friend passed away this morning in hospice--she was not in pain, acc. to her partner. She was only 59. She did have TNBC and was diagnosed Stage IV from the beginning.

There have been studies recently showing the average age of bc dx among white women is mid-60s, with Luminal A (ER/PR+/HER2-) being the most common; but for Black, Latina & Asian women the average age at dx is late-40s, diagnosed much later, and with ER/PR-/HER2+type and especially TNBC being more prevalent among Black & Latina women. So the ACS' new guidelines for beginning mammography screening are 50-55 for white women, 46-47 for Black & Latina, and 48 for Asian women. (It ought to be 42 and 45, respectively). Of course, this site is full of women who discovered lumps long before the age recommended for initial mammo screening.

They can play all they want with statistics, e.g., so many thousand mammos need to be performed to save one life, that there are too many false positives, or that too many women with DCIS or LCIS are being "overtreated" (and some even say that some IDCs might never metastasize w/o treatment), but how many statisticians (mostly male) are willing to roll the dice or sit on their cards when it comes to them or their loved ones? What if I'd never gotten my baseline mammo till 55, and thereafter had only biennial followups till a lump appeared?

Hi Fromgrammatomom. I went through what you are going through now last Oct/Nov. I admit I'm not afraid of much, but that was scary. I remember lying face down having boob MRI sobbing my eyes out. Tech kept telling me to hold still, but I couldn't. I got through it all, we all did, but it is scary. All the testing is important so the Docs and you know the big picture and how to best address. But where you are now, the unknowing, is the worst. Soon you will have the answers and THEN will have to make lots of decisions. That was overwhelming too. Have faith. This is a necessary 'evil', but is the first step to the cure.

Please continue to rant and vent at your leisure. We're here for you...

Laura

Overcome obstacles - grow and bloom anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Certainly have had this experience.....

Sometimes looking deep into the eyes of a child, you are
conscious of meeting a glance full of wisdom. The
child has known nothing yet but love and beauty. All
this piled-up world knowledge you have acquired is
unguessed at by her. And yet you meet this wonderful
look that tells you in a moment more than all the
years of experience have seemed to teach.

Hildegarde Hawthorne

Gorgeous outside and I think we will get to 55 or so today. Usually -- we go a little over more than under their prediction. I'm just glad for the sun. I will have to do a good dusting of my car. Washed yesterday but some mud around as well as some dust. Its okay -- soon enough I will be able to get out and wash and detail my car myself so it gets done the way I like it.

Not much going for today. Have to go out and get a few supplies. Have a present I want to get for my Aunt and give it to her later on tonight. She is 98 and still able to live alone. Sure makes me hope for my "later" on yrs. We are going tonight to my cousin's 50th. anniversary dinner. She married a guy I graduated with back in 1963 and they had one son. Would have like to have had more but it took 18 yrs. of attempts to get their son and the Dr. told them they had he felt been fortunate to have managed and that he recommended no longer looking to have any more children. My cousin ran a home day care for yrs. so did end up having lots of babies and small children around her. Finally, feeling too old she closed her doors on that and went to work at our local hospital. Now she often takes care of her grandchildren. Most of the time ( though maybe nothing like you dreamed or expected ) life goes on and works out.

aterry - Had cataract surgery on both eyes in June 2016, but I had the "normal" type of cataracts. It was 2 weeks between each surgery. Wore glasses for distance & readers prior to surgery. Implanted lenses corrected distance - still use readers - this is the "standard" cataract surgery that was fully covered by insurance. Very happy with outcome. Off work a week for 1st eye, which was the "worst" of the two & a little harder to recuperate from. Could not believe how bad that eye was! Managed driving with the 1st eye no longer needing glasses, but was very careful. Babied myself & also took a week off after the 2nd one.

I've worn glasses since I was 8. I was myopic & astigmatic. My distance vision improved as an adult and I skipped glasses for awhile. (And allergies put the kibosh on contacts--followed by pregnancy changing the shape of my eyeballs anyway). They removed the "corrective lenses" restrictions on my driver's license decades ago. Then at 39 I started needing reading correction--but astigmatism made drugstore reading glasses unpleasant to use (grids looked like wavy rhombuses...rhombi?). So I got progressives, which made my "legal" 20/40 distance vision sharper for driving, gave me a reading and middle-distance (computers, dashboard) correction, and corrected my astigmatism. Was diagnosed with ripening cataracts in my 50s, but they were not a problem until they blurred my night vision, no reading correction seemed strong enough, and anything backlit looked like featureless silhouettes.

I got my cataracts replaced (two months apart) with single-vision distance correction lenses. Turns out the astigmatism was due mostly to irregular lens, not eyeball, curvature. I still need reading correction, and I like the distance correction though I don't really need it other than for driving (especially at night); and a very slight and optional astigmatism correction. I didn't get multifocals because they were expensive and not covered by Medicare; and I chose distance over reading correction because cataract-replacement lenses don't stop the progression of presbyopia (worsening near vision due to eye muscles stiffening with age).

My husband got capsular clouding about a year and a half after his first surgery in 2009--all it took to cure that was a painless in-office laser zap; and he drove right back to work. He got his other eye done in between my two surgeries, and is fine. (Too stubborn to wear those wraparound protective over-shades the eye doctor gave him, too cheap to buy prescription sunglasses or photochromic lenses).

I still wear glasses--they've always been my "signature," and undereye concealer doesn't work without making me look like a raccoon in reverse. I really think I look younger in glasses, so long as the frames' shape, size & color are both flattering and fashionable. (Few things look more "aging" than wearing way-out-of-date frames). I kept (and updated the lenses in) a rimless pair (think Elizabeth Warren) for performance & formalwear, which never goes out of style, but I still find fashionable frames more flattering.

So here's what I did glasses-wise in the 2 months between surgeries. My surgeon said most people just remove the lens from the frames on the "new & improved eye" side, but it looked really weird, so I had a blank put in. I didn't drive until my binocular vision & depth perception adjusted itself (about a week). For sunglasses, I just used nonprescription "fashion" ones--or the really dark plastic overshields that the eye doctor gave me just before surgery. Then after the second surgery I had a blank put in the other side--I didn't want to go without glasses or wear too strong a prescription on one eye for the six weeks until I could reliably be refracted.

I have a wardrobe of glasses now thanks to cheaper Warby Parker ($95 frame+single-vision lens) and (much, much, much cheaper--starting at $7) Zenni frames. Those base prices include anti-glare single-vision lenses, with an upcharge for progressives ($195 extra for the Warbys and only $29 extra for the Zennis). Before I discovered them, I would go to LensCrafters--where a pair with anti-glare photochromic lenses ($100 upcharge everywhere, it seems) ran me close to $600. Same setup on the Warbys are $200 cheaper. There's a Warby Parker shop near me (they send the finished glasses by mail--and if you can't or don't want to go there, they'll even mail you up to 5 pr. of frames to try for free) and I get my Zennis online (I "try" the frames on by superimposing them on an uploaded headshot, and upload my latest prescription). Of all the sources of glasses I've used, Zenni tends to fill my prescription most accurately. My two Warby Parker pair have photochromic lenses (which filter out blue light at night); for $5 extra I got the anti-blue coating on a couple of my Zennis. My cheapest Zennis (plain pink frames, progressive, just the included anti-glare coating) cost me $36--$7 plus the progressive upcharge.

I'm being refracted again in a couple of weeks. I suspect nothing but my reading correction will change, and I can now wear non-prescription readers. (But Zenni readers are even cheaper than the ones at CVS or Whole Foods). I might have the progressive lenses in glasses I wear most often swapped out at a neighborhood optical shop (about $75, vs. so much at Lenscrafters or Warby Parker that a whole new pair would be cheaper. Zenni doesn't replace lenses). True, it takes 7-10 days to get Zennis or Warbys and Lenscrafters in an hour; but half the time there's always some glitch at Lenscrafters requiring an extra day or even a special order. My neighborhood optical shop takes one day (except if Shabbat & Jewish holidays intervene).

I already needed glasses for reading and used the drugstore ones until they drove me crazy taking them on and off. Once I had the new prescription, I ordered new glasses from Zenni. I've bought about 3 pair from them and have been happy with each one. I'm wearing progressives which have the tiniest little correction in the distance and readers. They're cat eye and I love them. I think it's time to have the second eye done because there's a big difference in color between the eyes. Not good if you paint. I share the undereye circles which make me look like a raccoon. I make sure the glasses frame covers that line. The circles are still dark after concealer.

Thanks for the responses regarding cataracts and how to handle prescriptions between & after the surgeries. It really helps to have this extra information. ChiSandy, you're really good at providing detail!

I had cataract surgery at a younger age than usual and it was miraculous for me. I opted for distance vision and still need readers. A year ago when I was due to renew my driver's license, I had an eye exam and got the least expensive glasses available at the Walmart vision department. Now I wear the glasses for driving because they sharpen up my distance vision. I've also started wearing them to watch tv. I thought I was seeing well without any correction but I see much better with the glasses. Maybe at some point I'll try the more expensive glasses with the "graduated" lenses. I'm just afraid I would spend a lot of money and then not adjust to wearing the glasses.

My 75th birthday celebration was what my 95 year old mother called a "hen party." My sister Linda and I picked my mother up from the nursing home and took her to sister Michelle's house. Michelle's daughter Rebecca was there. My dh brought seafood dinners from a favorite local restaurant and we all feasted on fried shrimp and oysters and mac and cheese.

I am home alone today. DH got up very early to attend an all-day wood turning class. Aside from doing a couple of large loads of laundry, I have been relaxing and enjoying my own company.

Over the years I have come to believe that life is full of unchosen circumstances, that being human has to do with the evolution of our individual consciousness and with it, responsibilities for choice. Pain and joy both come with life. I believe that how we respond to what happens to us and around us shapes who we become and has to do with the psyche or the soul's growth. -Jean Shinoda Bolen

We just got a few flurries despite it being 41F (or so my watch says). Snow showers predicted tomorrow. After that, I'll start some yard prep work.

Few things make one more aware of the march of time than one's adult child passing certain milestones which you clearly remember achieving. Gordy is now as old I was when I was pregnant with him (and already married 13 years). And he has finally conceded he needs glasses--in the family tradition, he's myopic and astigmatic. (Fortunately, doesn't need reading correction yet). He had Warby Parker send him five pair to try on. When they arrived, I asked if I could see them on him--and he said, "I promised Leslie first." (She's his girlfriend--I suspect the real reason hasn't moved in with her but stays with her on the weekends and most overnights now is that she doesn't have enough closet space). About an hour later, Leslie texted me five photos--and all three of us agreed which pair looked best on him (black plastic, rectangular, a bit narrower than those John Oliver wears). Like mine, Gordy's face is narrow at the temples and most frames stick out past the sides of his face. Bob liked the silver wire-rimmed ones (he wears rimless drill-mounts). Seems millennials prefer bolder frames--they proudly "own" the fact that they need glasses, but men our age want their frames as unobtrusive as possible.

A lovely sun outside this morning which as you all know just MAKES my day in almost every way. My little office looks very nice though as usual I will have refining work to do. Also got a call back from someone I needed too. Her office phone doesn't say that it takes messages so I was leaving then on the off-chance. It did -- so finally I will get to straighten out some of my V.A. issues ( not bad things ) and clean up something else that was hanging out.

I have been looking for some women over 60 as I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer January 2017 at age 66. I have had 2 lumpectomies starting Feb 2 2018 and the second was February 16 as there was still some cancer left. I will be starting radiation in April .

I was told the 2 surgery would be easier but it knocked me on my Butt. My breast is still very sore 3 and 1/2 weeks later. Has anyone had a similar experience? I am normally very healthy and excercize consistently