EachDay

I love the show but I'm still not sure about how this season is progressing.  Might be more interesting now that Foreman is back with House...but we'll see.

Cydnee, first of all...congratulations on completing all of your treatment!  That is a monumental achievement!  As for where do you go now?  All up to you.

I'm only 6 months from finishing all my tx (chemo/rads/herceptin) and going through the process of reclaiming my life, rediscovering who I am.  Some days aren't so great, most of them are good.  It takes time, and patience and there is much to be said for getting to know yourself.  I've done support groups, I've talked with my primary care physician.  I read a lot on subjects I didn't know anything about, I have done some cognitive thinking/work to help me understand what I want, where I want to be.  If you think it took you 35 years to get where you are now, you can see moving forward doesn't happen overnight.  It can be a very rewarding time in your life and if you are feeling good about yourself and excited about life that has got to carry over into relationships, sexuality, etc.

Embrace it if you can and I'll be sending you many warm thoughts.

Glad you are feeling a bit better.  Anything really unusual or not covered in list of side effects they have told you to expect don't hestiate to call the doctor or nurses.  If you didn't experience this with the first treatment, remember you are building up with each treatment so your body is absorbing more and more of the AC (and then the taxol when that happens).  Listen to your body...if it's shaky and feeling weak, make sure you are resting.  The first 2 weeks of a 3 week cycle are usually the worst, with the 3rd being the one you feel more like yourself.

I like how you ended your last post...that you hope you can look back on this and see how strong you were.  I'm here to tell you that I'm betting money you will...and I hope you'll come here and tell us just that when all the treatments are over.  It is by no  means easy, but if you keep up your spirits as best you can and keep that attitude, it is amazing what the body and the mind can do with the spirit.

I think this is an excellent question of valid feelings, worries and fears.  Issues such as breast cancer, and all the other things that seem to hit us with this (or the cancer comes after other life changing, traumatic events) disease.  And we question our faith.  I think this is normal and perhaps even necessary.  If we have become complacent our faith is shaken so that we can re-examine and re-evaluate our lives, our belief system.  There are times when we seem to be left on our own and abandoned.  It has been my experience that those times are when I am meant to look inward instead of looking out...to find what I have, what I can do, where I fit and what I am made of...so that spiritually and through faith I can reconnect with better understanding.  I'm very much impressed with Joel's response.  He and I are on the same path here but he has said it so much better.

Juli, it's true that when a doctor says "just live your life" and you're waiting for answers, having more tests...you wonder "is this a subliminal message?"  "are you telling me something?"...the thing with doctors...they don't always think before they speak.  So they say something and it can be taken out of context (naturally) by us.

If you are doing all that you can, then do try to relax, live as if you have only today...(regardless of how many you do have) and do your best to put worry and stress on the highest shelf (the one you need a ladder to reach!).

I talk about all of it with my non-bc friends/family.  This is part of my journey, what my life is about.  Those who are closest to me are interested and know why this involves me, why this is what my world is.  And they "get" it.  Last year, this very weekend was my MIL's 90th birthday.  There was a party for her and just as I was to leave to go to that I learned about a woman I knew who had passed away from her cancer.  I was late to the party because I needed to have some time to absorb this, grieve it and assimilate it.  And everyone understood because it is the "what if" if our lives.  So I just do it, and if others don't get it, or react like there is something wrong with me, too bad.  It's part of what my life is now as a part of the breast cancer society.

Excellent question by the way.

My heart just breaks to read this news.  You had come to tell us about the pneumonia and we all hoped and prayed that she would overcome this.

My deepest sympathies to you and your family.

My prayers to the angel that Stacey was and is, and may your "pixie dust" gently guide you.  Her beautiful smile will stay with you for always.

Oh Janet, please do not cancel!! I had one node and needed rads too.  I cried and I was upset the first day of rads, not when I had the markings, it was the first day I had to go and be "zapped".  I was fine with chemo but rads threw me for a loop.  I was panicky and upset and I almost ran away from the hospital while I waited.  Not exactly sure why other than, looking back over a year ago, maybe I was feeling that the rads was "specifically" hitting the breast, whereas the chemo "went into my arm".  It meant being at the hospital every day, 5 days a week for 6 weeks.  Being constantly reminded day after day that this is breast cancer I'm coping with.  Chemo was once every 3 weeks.

Just hearing you say "I DO NOT want to do this" sounds just like me a year ago February. 

Know that you aren't the only one who has felt this way and hopefully you can hang on to that and get yourself on the table.  The zap takes a few minutes only.  The entire time the zapping was going on I pictured cannons going off, blasting inside my breast.  It helped me to feel more in control and empowered.

Looking back now, I'm glad I did the rads.  I felt like I had conquered a small mountain of my own fear.

I feel the same way you do Beth.  I'm old enough to be her mother and I feel like taking her under my wing and helping her to pull it together.  Living life in the lens all the time she's a cross between wanting attention and not knowing what to do with it.  She needs help and she needs people who care about her helping her get it.  To lose her children?  A blow most assuredly, but for now, lets hope it is the right move for the children first of all and for Britney to get her lifle back into order.  It's really heart breaking.

It's a pretty scary place to be right now, hearing the new words in your vocabulary like "mass" and "consultation".  Your mind goes all over the place and you find it hard to focus on any one thing.  Seeing the surgeon this week will give you and your mother some answers.

Right now, breathe deeply, focus on your mom and help her get through this week.  You can be her strength and her support ~ but only to a degree.  She will need a lot of different support as no one person can do it all. 

Once you have definite information, one way or the other, than you can proceed and if you need to come back here and ask questions or vent or just worry and be concerned, that's a good thing for you.

Positive thoughts to you tonight and through these next few days.