Dis Breast Cancer Survivors Part III - GAGWTA!

[luvmarypoppins]

Elizabeth - how is Carter doing in the new school?

And how did you guys do with all that flooding and the tornadoes?

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Fine, and fine, thanks!

The tornadoes were a couple of miles west of us. Closer than they have ever been before, but no damage in our immediate area.

Cheryl, CONGRATS to DD! I can't wait to hear all about her experiences!!

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Cheryl - I was actually thinking about you and the Smoky Mountains, but good you have lots of great stuff at your house.

How are your dogs? Any pictures??

That is so wonderful about your dd and the college program. Does she know what area she wants to do?

My youngest ds actually just looked at this. He specifically wanted to do lifeguarding since he already does that. He was shocked by the pay. I told him the cost of living is so much lower down there than here in ny and he couldnt believe he had to pay for his housing. He just thought Disney would give it to him for free. Yeah, right, wake up ds, this is the real disney world. You are not in fantasyland anymore.

A christmas trip sounds great!! We will be there Dec. 7-12 or 13th so far at the Yacht Club. I am looking forward to the Candelight Processional and the Osborne Lights for sure!!. Love the holidays at Disney.

 

[CherylDan]

DD is thrilled......she applied thru the culinary program, will be working somewhere in quick service food, but wont know where or what until she gets there. The pay is not much better than min wage, but on the other hand, it IS a paid internship, and one that will look really great on a resume, so that counts for a lot. From what I've read, the pay is enough to cover the housing cost and give them enough spending money while there, but thats about it. Heck, I think she'd still want to do it even if there was no pay!

I love Disney at Christmas.....we will be there Dec 23-1st. Staying offsite in a rental house that is pet friendly. Yep, we are driving down (1200 miles each way) with our doggies. My mom, DD and a friend are flying down to meet up with us. Mom is coming along to doggy sit at the house while we are at the parks. She didn't have any desire to go to the parks, but a week in warm weather sounded good to her, and it works out great for us!

Elizabeth, glad the tornado stayed clear!

 

[PatsMom]

Good morning ladies!

Hope everyone who is celebrating a birthday has/had a great time. Cancer does make you appreciate each birthday you get.

Feeling much better this week and looking forward to my trip to WDW - arriving on the 19th for a week at Bay Lake Tower. Then most likely coming home to chemo. Will know more after my doctor's appointment on Wednesday.

I am bringing my best friend with me. She is a 50 year old Iraq war veteran with PTSD and a breast cancer survivor. I am going to have to warn my urologist not to mess with her - just answer her questions. We don't call her Seargent Suzie for nothing! She is very analytical and will help me sort through my options. I am leaning toward the chemo based on my research - my husband wants me to just go ahead and get the bladder removed since that is the safest approach. So it is a tough decision.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. Hope you have a nice one. The weather here in northern NH is awesome - typical fall day.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Good afternoon ladies

PatsMom - I hope you have a wonderful trip with your friend. I am sure its hard to sort out all your options. Hang in there!!

Linda - hope your birthday celebration went well

Lisa - how is your testing going?

Laurie - how is your shoulder doing? Glad your dh is working out. I am sure that helps things with his levels etc.

Its gloomy,cold and misty here from the week end.

Our church picnic was inside a bldg. Not too much fun. But I liked talking to everyone. One of the teachers sil's is going to Afghanistan next month. He has already been to Iraq too. She lives on a base in LA and will come home here to NY and live with her parents. That must be so tough.

DS18 is still adjusting his schedule. I think he is now dropping calculus and try to get in statistics. There was only 1 seat left. I also saw a job for a physical therapy aide that I told him about and he was very interested, so he will work on updating his resume asap.

Tomm. night I have my school council meeting. Things must be going better, ptl because the 2 people we were suppose to lay off are now working, so the enrollment must have gone up in the nursery school. Yeah! Thurs. is my endo visit.

GTAGWTA. Have a great day everyone.

 

[snappy]

Thanks for asking, Maryann, I have been doing my shoulder homework exercises like crazy, swm in my sister's endless pool twice over the weekend, but am dreading the first real PT session tomorrow.

Advice anyone?

I am on strike for cooking though. I am trying to heal up my finger where I sliced it and I am milking it for whatever I can. LOL.

 

[CherylDan]

Laurie, hope your PT wasn't too bad today. My mom had PT after a broken bone just under her shoulder. She said it sure wasn't fun, but it did help.

PatsMom, sounds like you have a great trip planned with your friend. Nothing better than a little Disney therapy to help with the stress. I hope it helps you sort out your choices.

Anybody have any experience with Reclast? Found out yesterday at my 6 month checkup that I need it. Otherwise the checkup went ok, I think. IDK, just got a weird vibe about some things. Like being sent for a chest xray right then (no symptoms??) and then the tech having to retake one of the views. Which I know happens, but it just put me on edge I guess. I'm going on 4 years next month, and still kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop, but trying very hard to ignor those thoughts. Just better at it some days than others!

GAGWTA!!

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Good evening ladies

Cheryl - do you need to take the reclast for osteoporosis? I just had the bone density scan and the endo will talk to me about it thurs. The tech said mine was on the low side. I take a prescription vit d once a week. The high level of synthroid I have to take to supress any cancer cells does a number on the bones I hear. Wishing you all the best

Laurie - how was your physical therapy session? I rememer using rubber bands, weights and pulleys and only about 10 minutes or less of hands on by the therapist.

My meeting tonight is cancelled until next tues. That stinks since dh will be away and I will have to see if one fo the ds can take me.

Good news. I saw an ad on craigslist for a physical therapy aide job and told ds18 about it. He sent in his resume today and they callled him already for an interview tomm! Amazing and then I went to show him the ad as they stated different hours in it with a reposting of the job and there now is another job for a p/t aide at a place closer to home. So he just sent that resume in. He really didnt want to go back to the bowling alley unless he had to. And now he had to change his college schedule and now has to take a sunday morning class. So he will go to another church sun. night that he goes to until the semester is over. I will miss him at our church for sure.

GTAGWTA.

 

[snappy]

Wow, Sunday morning classes??? Never heard of such a thing. Post Katrina, once classes finally resumed in the spring, DS22's college did not even have Friday classes, and this continued for at least 3 years. Now they are back to a 5 day week.

PT was not bad. The PT did massage my arm pretty strenously for about 10 minutes I guess (seemed longer). That was the worst part as I did not have control of how far it went. Then about 30-40- other exercises. I was shocked at how far I have to go. I took heart though, another patient had been at it for 6 weeks and is now very limber, she told me when she started she could not move her arm at all from her side.

I am not nearly that restricted. I just got to stick with it. And ice packs are my new BFF's.

Cheryl, those chest xrays used to unnerve me too. I went to a different facility once for the sei annual xray and the blasted dude took so many views I almost lost it. I think he was just incompetent because every other time when I had them at another facility it was just 2-3 frames.

Try and view it as cautionary and best that your are being watched carefully. Not easy but a glass half full kinda thing.

MaryAnn, good for you for finding a potential job for your son.

When you had PT, was it for your shoulder too?

I think I am lucky the therapy facility is close to my workplace. I am very upbeat about the whole thing now. Knowing I am leaving Saturday on a 12:10 flight to Orlando is helping my frame of mind as well. It will seem wierd to be in software training classes most of 4 days, but it is nice that a lot of my expenses are going to be covered by employer.

My friend Cindy and I have traveled together before a number of times but never for this long (nine nights). We are both beyond excited. It will be nice to have the bonnet creek 2 bedroom to spread out in, especially since one of her sisters is driving up from Tampa to join us for several nights.

Hurricanes, stay away!!!!!!

 

[KJ Luvs Pluto]

Hello everyone - hope this day is bringing joy.

Laurie - keep up the good work on the PT. There will be a turning point when you realize how far you've come rather than how far you have to go.

Cheryl - Happy to hear the good news of DD's job.

PatsMom- hope you have a great trip. Relax and enjoy.

MaryAnn - How is your wound, is it healing? I'm not in countdown mode yet. I'm waiting until 30 days out. Although I'm getting very excited.

Monday I have my first Mammo since my diagnosis. A little nervous but just realized a benefit of the mastectomy is that I only need to get squished on one side now . There are so few benefits of this stupid ole breast cancer that I get very excited when I can find one . Going from waist length hair to no hair to now just a little bit has saved me money on shampoo/cond. and electricity for blow drying so that's been another benefit -. There are more but I don't have the time to list them and I'm sure you don't care to read about them anyway. Sorry for rambling this morning.

GAGWTA.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Good afternoon ladies

Lisa - did you have the pet scan yet? Hope all went well

Laurie - did you make any good adrs? You know how I am obsessed with the food!! And yes they have lots of sunday classes here, its ny so they accomodate everyone.

Well it ended up dh didnt have a meeting last night either. It got cancelled to next week. Oh well. He was at work anyway and couldnt make it and speaking of work..dh says the fight is continuing abot him. I am so sick of this as he is also. The one boss told him..go home and talk to your wife. Oh yeah, like I am going to tell him what to do. He makes the money, I just want him to be happy and still have a job. The one boss is telling him the other project is not goig to get funded that he is going to???? Now this other boss is going to go to England next wek while dh is in china, so I guess that means dh doesnt have to go to england or denmark? he said he wants to get to russia definetely before nov. They already had 3 inches of snow in siberia.

Ds18 said the job interview went well. They will let him know by friday. Its only going to be 15 hours that is enough with school work etc.

GTAGWTA.

 

[CherylDan]

So...I just got off the phone with my onc. Apparently my blood work the other day, in his words, is NOT GOOD. Tumor marker was usually running around 30, he said it is now 80. Going to schedule me for a CT scan. I think the other shoe just dropped.

 

[KJ Luvs Pluto]

Cheryl - I'll be keeping you in my thoughts. Many to you as await the CT results.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Cheryl, I am hoping for a good outcome! Maybe the marker was just squirrelly.

 

[snappy]

Oh Cheryl, I am sorry you have to go for more testing. I am hoping all is well. Please let us knows the date of the scan.

I am keeping you in my thoughts and prayers tonight.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Cheryl, praying. Hang in there and let us know.

GAGWTA

 

[wdw4us2]

Good morning, everyone. Sorry I have been AWOL from the thread lately, but a lot has been going on and none of it good.

I had my PETscan and, once again, something showed up - this time around my navel. At first they thought it was scar tissue from my Oophorectomy, but the surgeon decided it was something else and that it needed to come out. I had outpatient surgery yesterday. He was able to remove the mass and said that it was not near any organs, nor was any of the surrounding tissue effected. Now I play the waiting game again while we await the biopsy results. This surgery was a bit more painful than the two procedures I had in June and I'm having a little trouble getting around. I'm not in a good place emotionally right now. We opted not to tell the kids about this procedure since I feel they have been through so much already and there's nothing they can do about it anyway. DD is coming home from college tomorrow afternoon for a doctor's appointment, so I have to make a speedy recovery before then or she'll know something is up.

Along with this bit of drama, life has been getting in the way as well. In the past three weeks our lawn tractor has broken down, my cell phone is kaput and we had no water in our house over the weekend because of a problem with the water pump (we have well water). The silver lining was that DH and I spent the weekend at the local Hampton Inn while DS stayed with a friend. It was a nice break.

Trying to stay positive and keep the Faith!

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Cheryl and Lisa:

My heart goes out to both of you. My thoughts and prayers are with you both. I am wishing you both all the best with your tests and biopsy results.

Hang in there and fight tough sistas!

Sending you both lots of

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Good morning, everyone. Sorry I have been AWOL from the thread lately, but a lot has been going on and none of it good.

I had my PETscan and, once again, something showed up - this time around my navel. At first they thought it was scar tissue from my Oophorectomy, but the surgeon decided it was something else and that it needed to come out. I had outpatient surgery yesterday. He was able to remove the mass and said that it was not near any organs, nor was any of the surrounding tissue effected. Now I play the waiting game again while we await the biopsy results. This surgery was a bit more painful than the two procedures I had in June and I'm having a little trouble getting around. I'm not in a good place emotionally right now. We opted not to tell the kids about this procedure since I feel they have been through so much already and there's nothing they can do about it anyway. DD is coming home from college tomorrow afternoon for a doctor's appointment, so I have to make a speedy recovery before then or she'll know something is up.

Along with this bit of drama, life has been getting in the way as well. In the past three weeks our lawn tractor has broken down, my cell phone is kaput and we had no water in our house over the weekend because of a problem with the water pump (we have well water). The silver lining was that DH and I spent the weekend at the local Hampton Inn while DS stayed with a friend. It was a nice break.

Trying to stay positive and keep the Faith!

Lisa, hoping and praying for good results.