November rad girls check in here!!

It's CHRISTMAS!!! God Bless us everyone!   So good to hear that many of you Nov Gals have finished.  Don't be like me and get discouraged just because the boob starts to "light -up" like Rudolph's nose and really really hurt from the final boosters.  We all know that this too shall pass.  My heart was so warmed by reading your responses from the last time I was on that I just had to say Thank You again for being my cheerleaders, my listeners, my comrads in the microwave!!!!  I'm going to print off the letters today because of how descriptive youall have been this final leg of the race.  I want to remember you and your wisdom and humor in my green spiral bc notebook.  love and best wishes. arby

It is so good to see all of you finishing. When we began in November we were so fearful and unknowing. Now we have a new experience to say that we survived. Although I definitely would not have chosen this experience, I am very glad that I had the strength to finish. Also I am thankful for all of you who gave me the courage to go on. Now I will be a lot more understanding with people who are suffering from some ailment even if I haven't experienced the same thing. I can see how hard it is to understand until it is lived.

Connie--Thanks for getting us started, 365 messages ago. May your boosts go well and I hope you can celebrate in a way that is meaningful for you.



Kikiwan-- congrats on your upcoming completion. Have a great 28th.



Steffi

Yea! Ruth one more to go!HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas.  I did!  Our middle daughter surprised us and flew home from Texas and my youngest daughter slept over two nights.  We ate and watched movies and cuddled.

Finished my 22nd today!  Have two more and then will get boosts (techs say "to give the breast a rest").

Am very tender (sore), quite a lot of redness and the beginnings of a rash that itches.  The weight of clothes is not pleasant. 

Where to you get those aloe cloths?  Is it by prescription only?  What are others doing for itching, etc.  Aloe vera gel isn't cutting it any more.

Well, hubby bought be "Pillars of the Earth" and I'm off to be a couch potatoe and read.

Hugs and Healing to all,

neveah-

The nurses gave me domeboro powder (burrows solution). 1 packet in 1 cup of lukewarm water. Immerse a soft washcloth in the solution & wring out. Place wet cloth on the breast/underarm area for 15 minutes or so. Did this 2-3 times/day. They also gave me Carradres gel patches, but they felt icky/goopy on my skin.

Domeboro is avail OTC, but it was $16 or so. The med staff should be able to suggest & provide something. 

Aloe is fine, but it stopped doing the trick. I'm using aquaphor now for my extremely dry skin.

Oh, I also found this stuff called 'burn gel' that has lidocaine in it. I was able to use it on a couple of weekend nights when there was some pain. 

take care.

PSK07 - Like you I was done today.  Like you I gave the techs a big hug. Like you I made my 4 week follow-up appointment.  Like you, I have the same question - What do I do now?  Ruth

Congratulations and hugs for each of you who finished up this week!!!  WHoppeeeee!  What a good way to end the year and have that chapter finished.  To those who still have some burn to press on through, it will heal.  Give yourself 2 weeks and then you'll be so pleased when it really only takes 11 days for the bad hurt to leave!!!!(mine finally has and I finished the 19th)  It did help to take warm baths and just lay in the tub and soak the boob.  that also seemed to relieve the itchies.  just watch that you aren't overdressing.  Its easy for all that heat anyway to get trapped in our winter layers.  And I followed someone else's advice and quit using any of the creams 3 or 4 days ago and that sure seemed to speed up the healing.  So less may be is more.  Also thought I was allergic to the neosporinWith PaIn med.  Tonight my skin is more normal in tone so I used Vanacream just for light moisture when I stepped out of the tub. Better days ahead for all of us.  And ditto to what others wrote about the sensitivity we've gained through these 07 experiences.  God Bless you all and have a safe and happy holiday ringing in the NEW YEAR!   To Ruth and Pam you're both wondering what to do now?....take it easy, continue to rest and slowly add something you had to subtract the last 3 or 4 months.  My doc warned me not to overdo, not to diet too extreme (the body still needs more protein for the cell repair work), nor hang out with anyone who's got flu.  SO play it safe and dream about those resolutions and then GO FOR IT.  I've had my snow shoes on once, have taken snow pictures one morning, and tomorrow I'm going to try my  X-skiis after church.   Like Renee said, LIVE LIVE LIVE!   arby 

Hello Ladies:

I haven't been on this site for a while.  I just wanted to let you know, as of today my skin is through sloughing off, my breast is the same color as the other breast.  No more soreness. 

Yes, when I received my last treatment on December 17, 2007 it was the best.  I was excited and felt like a highschool kid who just graduated when I got my certificate. 

I went home for the holidays to see my family and my sister - God love her - went to give me a hug and she pulled out my shirt to look at my breast.  I was embarassed at first then I realized she just wanted to make sure all of me was OK.  She grinned and then my mom asked if she could see then the celebration began.  I know it sounds weird but my sister is also a nurse and as the saying goes, "if you can just see your loved one who is sick or hurt it makes it easier to accept."  My family was very supportive, curious and helpful. 

The girls in my office are supportive and being nurses they want to see - they haven't been around patients in our clinic that have had breast cancer of any kind.  I drew the line at seeing. 

I had skin tags around my sternum between the breasts but my doctor is cutting them off and then I be back to normal.  My husband is touching and loving me more since the skin is getting back to normal - he's not afraid of me any more.  There is life out there after a scary and tragic diagnosis.

I am so proud and thankful for all of you ladies.  God will watch over each of you and take care of you.  Put you faith in God and turn everything over to him and turn it loose.  Believe me it works.

Also, I had asked for prayers for my boss's grandaughter.  She was 3 months over and overdosed on Tylenol by her daycare teacher, who has since been fired.  They went to the doctor to be sure she was okay but her AFP (liver enzymes) kept elevating so there had to be a tumor on her liver.  She was receiving weekly blood tests and the numbers continued to rise.  She was tested for Mono in October and the lab sent the results back as negative, there was a correction to the results done in November which showed the mono test was positive.  The positive results were filed in her chart but never given directly to the doctor.  This baby was going to Cook's Medical Center to see a specialist because they could never find the "tumor on her liver" according to the CT scans.  The baby is now 5 months old still symptomatic.  She developed a fever so the mom took her back to the pediatrician here and her GI specialist.  They reviewed her entire chart and found the mistake for with the labs.  She is now getting the correct treatment and is doing wonderfully.  The teacher that was overdosing the kids on tylenol was taking care of husband who had mono and they think this is how the baby got it.  (Mono is a virus).  See God works in mysterious ways.  Just hold your head high and enjoy life.

I have read on some of these sites that some women have gotten DCIS in the other breast or it has returned.  I pray we all have success stories and no more cancers.

Just to give an update:

I finished in December with radiation but over this past weekend I found more lumps / nodules.  One area had 10cc;s of fluid withdrawn and the other areas are of concern but may just be the changes from radiation.  I will see the surgeon again Feb. 5 and we will re-evaluate at that time unless something else occurs sooner.  This gets scary or maybe makes you more aware. 

Skin is all normal now but I still have pains that shoot throught the breast.  Kind of embarrassing when your giving a speech or leading a meeting and the pain hits and before you realize your face sqwashes up and you're making an ugly face.  The audience looks at you like you're crazy and you just make a joke.

Have any of you guys had anything come up like this after just completing radiation>

Terry and dink,

I still get the shooting pains. I'm telling myself they're regenerating nerves.

Still haven't come to a conclusion about tamoxifen. My cycles have been off for the past couple of months. Since I had to drop BCP when I was dx w/BC, I figured it was just a combination of hormones and stress, especially since it looked to be 'old' blood/tissue.  Well, it started like that on 12/24, and didn't stop. Nothing heavy, but after it hit 2 weeks, I decided to call my PCP. So, I spent  the morning having a pelvic ultrasound, including my first experience with a trans vag one. Lovely. Not.  I should get results in the morning. Nothing serious, I hope. But anymore, who knows....

On the rad side, everything is healing up fine. the boost spot is slowly fading to tan. 

Pam

Terry:

I got the test results back at lunch about the cysts that were drained and they were negative for cancer cells of any kind. 

I'm scheduled for June, six months after my treatment.  They say to wait six months so all the tissue can settle back into place after the radiation.  February 5, I'll go back to the surgeon and as long as there are no changes and nothing new I will wait until June for the mammo/ultrasound.  If there is something there that he still questions then I'll go from his office over to have the mammo/ultrasound.

I wouldn't be scared or nervous about checking for the lumps or nodules.  You really need to because you are the best judge of any changes and the sooner it is detected the sooner something can be done.  I have four little grandchildren that depend on me as well as their young mom.  I have to be here for them to grow up so I really can't afford not to stay on top of matters.

I got my results - probable adenomyosis and hemmoragic ovarian cysts. Adenomyosis is like endometriosis, only it is inside the uterus' muscle. There may also be a fibroid in there somewhere.  It's possible that one of the cysts burst, which could explain the odd pain I had one night last weekend. Maybe all related to going off of BCP, but that is tbd.  I'll see a gynecologist next week. (That ought to be interesting. I've never seen a 'real' gyno - always Family Practice or Internists, even w/my babies.)

At least what I've read say these are non life-threatening, benign conditions.  I don't know if they will have any impact on using Tamoxifen, though. As Emily Litella said, "It's always something."

Terry - I see my surgeon for a follow-up at the end of March w/a mammogram and possibly MRI. Or the MRI could be at the one year mark, I can't remember.  I did have a mammo before rads started and it was ok.

One thing about my messed-up cycle - if you do BSE at a certain time in your cycle, and periods are coming and going at weird times, it makes it very difficult to either remember or to notice changes. We all have to keep up on it.

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted here. Sorry it's been so long.

I finished my rads on the 13th December had 34 including 5 boosters.

Had a bit of a hard time with it. My skin started reacting from day 2.

By week 2 I couldn't wear a bra and was generally very sore and uncomfortable. I went though heaps of sorbolene cream, wore pads and a special boob tube they gave me, and was using cortizone cream from week 3 as the itchiness was driving me mad. I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to scratch until my oncologist saw how red my skin was and asked if I'd been scratching. When I said yes, he just stop short of slapping my hand. That's when he put me onto the cortizone cream.

My skin was just short of breaking under my breast.

My skin is peeling now and I've been able to wear a soft bra for 2 weeks.

I still feel some burning especially around my scares. I've also noticed alot of brown spots and moles have appeared that weren't there before.

I am still getting very tired and easily wornout.

I am now on Arimidex and having a Zoladex implant injected each month.

But on the 15th Feb. I am having my ovaries removed because of my high risk of getting ovarian cancer. I go for my post rads check up with my oncologist on the 23rd. Jan..

Hugs to you all