Dis Breast Cancer Survivors Part IV - GAGWTA

[MerryPoppins]

Going to attempt a longer post through my new kindle fire. We 'll see how it goes.

My needle core biopsy wasn't all that painful. The numbing shot wasn't fun but I hate needles. The worst part for me was having to stay perfectly still for such a long time. I had a nurse whose only job was to keep me comfortable. She was a lifesaver.

I have some sensation in my mastectomy side. It's mostly numb but has dull feeling. Sometimes I have nerve pain or itching. I didn't have reconstruction. My reduction side has more feeling but still not like before my surgery.

 

[MerryPoppins]

My mom called yesterday with disturbing news. Guess I should give the back story 1st. She had a spot biopsied twice. Both times it was benign. A number of years ago she had a hysterectomy and when her obgyn retired she told Mom that there was no real need for her to see a new doc unless she had problems. So nobody has kept close watch on this small growth in her v. (Don't think the dis will let me spell that out.) Around Thanksgiving Mom noticed it had grown and was painful. She describes it as "pulling ". But she didn't want to ruin the holidays so she told nobody.
My SIL has a cousin that is a surgeon. He is getting us an meeting with his good friend, an obgyn. Please pray that it is an easy fix. I'm more nervous about this than I was about my cancer.-

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Paintnolish - wishing you all the best today. Hope the procedure is not too uncomfortable for you.

Sha - how was your trip?

Candy - how was your trip?

Melissa - how is the house sale going?

Laurie - glad you got to spend some time with dd. Funny what you said about the regional foods. I think the tradition here is that alot of people have chinese food. We didnt do that as everyone was out etc. So we had it last night at ds24's suggestion.

Dh is sick with a really bad cold. I sure hope he will feel better by the time he gets on the plane on friday. He will be miserable anyway. He called and they sold out of business and first class seats so its the cattle car for him. When that happens he usually takes some nice pain killers leftover from his surgery and ds surgery to knock him out for a couple hours until he needs to get up and walk around.

I have been having the cramping on and off again. I still have to wait for so long for that sono etc. I dont want to go sooner as I already have the other sono to do etc. There is only so much I can take at once both physically and emotionally. If they say there is nothing wrong I think I will flip out. I am sure there is something wrong that is causing this pain. Its not normal for sure.

Dh new big idea is to take ds24 and ds21 to New Zeland in March. They will be gone for 11 days. So not happy about this. I said whatever. At least alot of the trip will be paid for using frequent flier miles to that is good.

Now dh says he will have to travel to Michigan alot for a new project he is working on. Oh joy. I hope its on southwest or american so we can get some good ff miles for disney. Maybe I can talk him into an end of Oct visit to Food and Wine. Last time I saw we could get the Swan for free with the miles.

GAGWTA

 

[snappy]

MaryAnn, I hope your DH's cold clears up. I think if he takes a does of Benedryl he may not need the pain meds. I guess he travels enough to know what works for him but that seems to me like a lot of pain meds.

Chinese food sounds like a great tradition. I seldom eat it anymore due to the sodium of most of the dishes.

Sorry to hear the pain has not subsided. I am sure it is hard not to be worried about it.

11 days for a trip to New Zealand sounds like a long time. I guess it is so far that you can't do it efficiently in a shorter trip. I understand him wanting to travel some with your sons, but there are closer places. I would be wanting to save the mileage points for Disney but obviously I have a one rack mind.

You sound down, I hope things turn around for you today and you have something to cheer you up. You deserve to have something to smile at.

Thanks for posting, Merry. I was wondering how others viewed the needle biopsy.

I have reduced feeling in the side that was lifted/reduced, but area on my abdomen where the flap came from to do the reconstruction is more numb.

 

[paintnolish]

back from the biopsy. it wasn't too bad except for one of the samples at the end. it felt like he was going to go through my ****! they said they might be running a bit behind with results due to the holiday, but i should hopefully have them by the weekend. a little sore now.
i was a mess when i got there, so the nurse explained the sono to me. remember how no one had really explained anything to me, right? she showed me the image, which looked like a mike n' ike candy, kind of cylindrical and oblong. it's about 1/2" long. she said it didn't scream "cancer" to her but she couldn't guarrantee anything. she also said nothing showed up on the mammo. dr. came in and said he just couldn't rule out cancer so they needed to check the suspicious tissue.
i got different breast feeding advice from the people there, my ob/gyn, the pediatrician, and the lac. consultant. the nurse told me not to nurse on the right for 24 hrs and just to pump a bit to relieve pressure.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

back from the biopsy. it wasn't too bad except for one of the samples at the end. it felt like he was going to go through my ****! they said they might be running a bit behind with results due to the holiday, but i should hopefully have them by the weekend. a little sore now.
i was a mess when i got there, so the nurse explained the sono to me. remember how no one had really explained anything to me, right? she showed me the image, which looked like a mike n' ike candy, kind of cylindrical and oblong. it's about 1/2" long. she said it didn't scream "cancer" to her but she couldn't guarrantee anything. she also said nothing showed up on the mammo. dr. came in and said he just couldn't rule out cancer so they needed to check the suspicious tissue.
i got different breast feeding advice from the people there, my ob/gyn, the pediatrician, and the lac. consultant. the nurse told me not to nurse on the right for 24 hrs and just to pump a bit to relieve pressure.

I'm glad it went ok and that it's over! The reason I would favor pump and dump is that if they used lidocaine in your breast today (the numbing medicine), it's not something you'd want your baby to ingest. I worked in a pediatric ER and remember a case where a mom was putting lidocaine on her baby's gums for teething pain. Let's just say it didn't end well. I would just be conservative about it if there's any question and wait until tomorrow to feed on that side (although it may be more sore tomorrow!). I'm sure the amount they used was very small but still. I hope the rest of the week goes fast for you. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but it sounds very hopeful!

 

[snappy]

Glad it is behind. you. It does seem like waiting for results is worse than the procedure itself.

I agree though with Linda that it does sound hopeful.

It sounds like the radiologist was very thorough.

Prayers for you.

 

[snappy]

Re: eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day tradition, y'all:


History of the Black Eyed Pea Tradition


"The Real Story is much more interesting and has gone untold in fear that feelings would be hurt. It’s a story of war, the most brutal and bloody war, military might and power pushed upon civilians, women, children and elderly. Never seen as a war crime, this was the policy of the greatest nation on earth trying to maintain that status at all costs. An unhealed wound remains in the hearts of some people of the southern states even today; on the other hand, the policy of slavery has been an open wound that has also been slow to heal but is okay to talk about.

The story of THE BLACK EYED PEA being considered good luck relates directly back to Sherman's Bloody March to the Sea in late 1864. It was called The Savannah Campaign and was lead by Major General William T. Sherman. The Civil War campaign began on 11/15/64 when Sherman 's troops marched from the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, and ended at the port of Savannah on 12/22/1864.

When the smoke cleared, the southerners who had survived the onslaught came out of hiding. They found that the blue belly aggressors that had looted and stolen everything of value and everything you could eat including all livestock, death and destruction were everywhere. While in hiding, few had enough to eat, and starvation was now upon the survivors.

There was no international aid, no Red Cross meal trucks. The Northern army had taken everything they could carry and eaten everything they could eat. But they couldn’t take it all. The devastated people of the south found for some unknown reason that Sherman ’s bloodthirsty troops had left silos full of black eyed peas.

At the time in the north, the lowly black eyed pea was only used to feed stock. The northern troops saw it as the thing of least value. Taking grain for their horses and livestock and other crops to feed themselves, they just couldn’t take everything. So they left the black eyed peas in great quantities assuming it would be of no use to the survivors, since all the livestock it could feed had either been taken or eaten.

Southerners awoke to face a new year in this devastation and were facing massive starvation if not for the good luck of having the black eyed peas to eat. From New Years Day 1866 forward, the tradition grew to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck."

-- Pass the peas,Please!

Have a happy New Year and eat lots of black eyes....

 

[MerryPoppins]

We always have lucky black eyed peas on 1/1. My mom used to boil coins to add before serving. You got to keep what you found. I prefer to serve hoppin John. I wonder what the reason behind cabbage is?

No call from the doc yet. Waiting is killing me.

We don't have our house on the market yet. Still need to finish some projects. It might be a while.

 

[snappy]

My mom called yesterday with disturbing news. Guess I should give the back story 1st. She had a spot biopsied twice. Both times it was benign. A number of years ago she had a hysterectomy and when her obgyn retired she told Mom that there was no real need for her to see a new doc unless she had problems. So nobody has kept close watch on this small growth in her v. (Don't think the dis will let me spell that out.) Around Thanksgiving Mom noticed it had grown and was painful. She describes it as "pulling ". But she didn't want to ruin the holidays so she told nobody.
My SIL has a cousin that is a surgeon. He is getting us an meeting with his good friend, an obgyn. Please pray that it is an easy fix. I'm more nervous about this than I was about my cancer.-

Sorry, Merry, I completely missed your post about what your mom and your family is going through. I did a double take when I saw your last post, so I went back and checked. I am sorry I missed the boat.

Hope you get some info soon. Has she been examined yet?

Glad your mom has such a supportive family. Please keep us posted.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Great story, Laurie.

Prayers for your Mom, Merry.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Good afternoon ladies

paintnolish - glad the biopsy is behind you and hope you are not too uncomfortable today. It does sound optimistic, so that is good.

Melissa - prayers for your mom

Laurie - so what do black eyed peas taste like. I think they did have them in Texas when we lived there but I never partook.

Linda - hope you are feeling better. Have you had any snow? None for us, yeah!

Anne - continued prayers for Avery. Glad he is home. Hoping the treatments go well on Friday.

Lisa - will be thinking of you on Friday

Well ds20 is back from jury duty. He got excused for 2 years as a student. So he is happy. It would be terrible. They said its 6 months every tuesday and thursday, sometimes they will call you and sometimes not. I told him that will also be bad as he will graduate then and will be looking for a job. They said if you are a student you are excused. He said he would maybe try some online courses then etc.

Oh and based on his transcripts he is sending to the possible nursing schools his gpa is 3.7, so I hope that is good enough for one of them for sure.

I told dh again how I feel about the trip, the earthquake they had there etc. I said cant you go some place closer etc. He now sees the ds are less then enthused about the trip. Maybe location. He asked them to plan things and they both just sat on the couch. I told him I would be happy with somewhere in the US. Maybe San Diego? Some place warm. Arizona?

 

[paintnolish]

I AM FINE!!!

My test site has been leaking/oozing, so I called the dr. to ask. The nurse said they hadn't received my results and it could take over a week if they had to send them out, but she would ask the dr. about the leaking test site. About a half hour later, the dr. called, which scared the crap out of me! She said sh had gotten the results and it was a back up of milk. She went onto explain what it was actually called (might have said lactating adenoma), but I was so busy being relieved that I didn't get the technical name. She said blood tinged milk was leaking out of the wound.

Anyway, ladies, thank you so much for the advice and virtual hand-holding. I know people complain about the CB, but there are PLENTY of wonderful people on here. I will say a prayer for all of you! Please let me know if there is anything I can ever do for you!

 

[luvmarypoppins]

So Happy for your wonderful news

Now go enjoy that family of yours and that precious baby boy!

Linda - you were spot on again with that as one of the possible diagnosis

 

[snappy]

Yea!!! Thanks for sharing the good news. You may not realize it but just the simple act of sharing your good news with us is one of the best things you could ever do for us. Thank you dear.

 

[snappy]

Sha, how was your weekend?

 

[snappy]

Mary Ann, did your DH get over his cold? Isn't he leaving for China tomorrow? I hope he has a safe trip.

DD16 was home sick yesterday and today with a bad cold. Not a good idea to miss too much in high school.

 

[MerryPoppins]

I'm so happy to see such wonderful news! That made my day. We are all so happy for you.

My mom doesn't see the new doc until next Wednesday. I'm trying not to bleed until shot but it's difficult.

Ran a bunch of errands today. Trying to get everything in order just in case I need to be going to additional appointments in the coming days or weeks. Just thinking ahead....not bleeding.

 

[wdw4us2]

paintnolish - So happy for your good news!

Back on the chemo roller coaster today. . .

 

[snappy]

Hope you are able to tolerate this go round better, Lisa.

Hugs to you, sweetie.