STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER

I had a mammogram about a year prior through the mobile clinic & I was good about self exams. I found a small lump & was sent to have mammo & US, then biopsy. The mammogram only showed the one small lump in one breast & a tiny shadow in the other, not the 40, yes, 40 that the surgeon found upon doing my bilateral mastectomy. Apparently I had very dense breast tissue. I had a radical mastectomy with no extra tissue left for reconstruction, so clear margins, chemo, 6 weeks of radiation, then tamoxifen for 5 years & AI for one year before mets.

I am slim, active, eat well & rarely drank (then) I was busy with my own business but none of that matters, only pink ribbons & a mammogram.

Because I was a smoker at the time, my MO ordered a no-contrast chest CT before my lumpectomy. My lungs were fine, but that's how my 7 cm kidney cancer was found. I was lucky that it was perched on top, or it wouldn't have been caught. Like a lot of people with kidney cancer, I had no symptoms and even many of those with much larger tumors (double the size of mine) are caught by surprise when being scanned for something else. Thank you smoking? Thank you breast cancer? Lesson: We really don't have many clues as to what our bodies are up to. All kinds of crap can be going on in there waiting to bite us. Get the available tests for the few body parts that can be checked, and hope for the best with the rest.

Part of the anxiety of having tests/scans is getting those incidental findings. Yet, it can be a good thing when a cancer is found early as well as other medical conditions.

I did enjoy having no tests or appointments this month. Next month I will meet the NP at the BS office (she is out on medical leave), so hope that goes well. It should, just nervous since I've never met this person. Then I have to do a liver function blood panel and see GI doc Dec 1. Yuck. CT scan of lungs and dexa also due in Dec. Yuck Yuck.

Katyblu -oh no she DIDN'T. I told DH once about a random article about cheese not being good and guess who gets hassled every time she wants a little cheese on her burger. Ridiculous.

I actually did yell “I have cancer - Like real bad" Through the window screen, as someone was on the front porch selling water or something, wanted me to come out to talk without masks. DH thought it was funny. What can you do sometimes but laugh. They said hope you get better soon. Me too

Katyblu, was the sugar preacher wearing a mask? Because you could have showed her how much candy would fit up her nose...

I'm kinda mad, or maybe just fed up. All year I worked on a project with a woman, the head of a small publishing company. She asked me to write a book on a particular kind of quilt, for which I am an expert. In many ways our working relationship was very good, but there were things I needed resolved so I could complete the project, and I couldn't get resolution. One of many issues was getting an actual contract, which she promised many times, but which never got delivered to me. (She is a law professor, so it isn't like she doesn't have resources for that.) There were other points of contention, and a fair amount of chaos. Not how I like to work.

About 5 weeks ago I withdrew from the project. Not having a contract yet, no harm, no foul, right? She sulked for a while, then things had smoothed out some.

A couple of days ago she told me she needed books back that she had sent me, and that she said I could keep. (Examples/models for the type of book mine would become.) Again, she had said I could keep them.

What it boils down to is that I can't trust her to tell the truth or to be consistent. Many times while working together we agreed on something, only for her to say something completely different next time we talked. So this is not the only time, by any stretch.

I had thought that we had also built a friendship over the months, rather tenuous, but I do actually like her. But I don't trust her. I don't believe her. And I can't be friends with someone like that. So I told her that.

And I said, send me a prepaid mailer and I'll send the books back, and then we're done.

I tried hard not to be "mean," just clear. She had hit my limit, and that was it. Life is short. I don't have time or space in my life to doubt the people in it. If I can't trust you, we are not friends.

UGH

Alice, haha that was great! Maybe next time

KBL, that's what I think. I'm expecting she might ask for my address AGAIN. Which of course I gave her. For the contract, among other things.... ha. Anyway, thanks for your support. It felt better just to say it to someone besides my husband, so thanks for listening!

I think one of the main things here is, over the last few years I've learned much better how to define my limits or boundaries, both for myself and to convey them to other people. If you don't tell them what the limit is, they keep pushing. I'm also trying very hard to do that without being mean to people, just to be clear and say, look, you do this and I find that disrespectful, or whatever. And I don't want you to do it again. And when they do, just say, look, I told you how I feel about it when you do this, and you did it again. And I'm not going to put up with it.

It's really weird to get to be into my 50s and now about to hit 61, and feel like I'm finally developing the emotional maturity to do this.

MountainMia, I'm glad you cans find more support here. My husband is the only one who truly knows how I feel daily. I remember I started reading a book once. I think it was called “Boundaries." I didn't finish it, but it washow to put them in place. Most women have a tendency to want to please, so it's hard to try and change that mindset

Divine, "Me and myself: We are till death do us part."

I *LOVED* that. Such a great way to sum it all up.

AMG2 - I lost my taste for coffee during chemo. It was awful! It's temporary at least. In the meantime, have all the milkshakes.

Serenity, thanks, I am so glad to hear it's temporary. It tastes like a big cup of penicillin right now. I'm really looking forward to having my sense of taste restored and not rearranged every week.

The best response I can think of is "You know stress feeds cancer, right? Stop stressing me out!"

I'm so sorry for anyone losing their taste for coffee. Can you still be ok with smelling coffee? I LOVE the smell of freshly brewed coffee even more than I love drinking it.

Tinkerbell, just checked, and yes! It does still smell great! Maybe that's part of what makes me so mad: it smells like it's going to be exquisite, and then it's the nastiest thing ever. I'll try to just stick with smelling it until this is over.

I like your suggestion on what to say to the folks trying to police our diets so we don't get cancer. Now I want to go try to eat some candy.

Serenity, Vietnamese sounds really good, and I'll give that a try, thanks!

How about a coffee candle? I haven't tried it, but might when I'm low on candles.

https://onehoney.ca/products/coffee-beeswax-candle...