Best Of
Re: TNBC MBC Stage 4
@rlschaller Oh I love the Fall foliage! There is one tree in my neighborhood that's has fabulous colors. I will have to snap a pic once it's fully changed. How nice that the family was able to get together to celebrate. Happy New Year to you and your family may it bring you peace and joy.
Ok here been spending lots of time at my mil's as she continues to decline daily. Hospice eval tonight so hoping they can get her on service. Have to jump through the insurance hoops, fingers crossed.
cookie54
Re: Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
Sandy - congratulations on making significant progress with the move back in. My head is spinning thinking of all you are handling. How much longer will you be in Lincolnwood? Happy to hear your HK will be returning next week to help.
Cindy - thinking of you and hoping today’s oral surgery visit went as well as can be expected.
Betrayal - I’m so sorry to hear the back spasms are still an issue. That really limits one’s activities. I hope the lidocaine patches offer relief. Good luck with the chest CT. Do you have another trip coming up? I’ll hope the back issues are resolved by that time.
My MRI/MRCP indicated the pancreatic cyst is stable. I’ll have another one in a year and then the GI doc will decide if I can go to having one every other year for the next 10 years. I’ll get the Covid and flu shots next month.
We signed a contract to have our pool removed. It will take the contractor a few weeks to have the permit pulled because our city likes to drag their feet. Apparently the city decides the cost of the permit on a case by case basis. Such a deal! Once the permit is pulled the contractor will schedule the pool removal. The goal is to have it done by Thanksgiving when we leave for Spain.
We officially pulled the trigger on the trip to Vietnam next March. My thought is this will be our last big trip as we are getting older and travel is expensive. I’m doing all the planning as I prefer to have control of the itinerary rather than have a TA tell me what to do. Basically I’m a bit of a control freak 🤷♀️ with travel. The airfare and hotels are booked. I can wait a few months to book tours which I will mostly do through the hotels. I did book business class airfare due to the distance we are travelling. While we’ve flown biz class previously I’ve always used miles if it’s personal travel or flown on my employer’s dime for business functions. I’m retired and out of miles so I found a decent fare and purchased it yesterday.
Waving hello to all.🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️
harley07
Re: 2017 BC Diagnosis…how are you doing?
The FES PET was approved in 2021 and can be useful for detecting ER+ cancer, especially lobular which has weak FDG signals. It is three times the cost of a FDG PET ($24,000 vs $8,000) so will only be covered by insurance if the doctor can make a compelling case for it. There are currently only 43 hospitals which do them. If you are taking tamoxifen or fulvestrant you need to go through a 6 month washout first. AIs don't interfere. As crossh said the FES doesn't show mets in the liver, intestines or deep in large bones.
It took 9 months from my MO's referral to ortho for hip pain to getting a FES PET for a tumor in my acetabulum which looks like a met on MRI but can't be biopsied without irreparably breaking my hip. They were looking for something else ER+ to biopsy but only my right lung lit up; that was my radiation induced pulmonary fibrosis which I learned has estrogen receptors. I'm choosing the ability to walk, hoping the bone doesn't crack and being optimistic that this tumor happens to be one of the 5% in this location that are benign. I've had so many rare SEs from radiation scatter that I have quit worrying and just deal with whatever weird health problems show up.
Crossh, I hope your surgery, chemo and radiation go well. It's nothing anyone would choose to do but we don't have much input into what goes wrong healthwise. As Sandy said cascading side effects lead to more medical problems to deal with.
maggie15
Re: I WANT MY MOJO BACK!
I agree with laughinggull! I am not on aromatase inh, all I did for my treatment was surgery. I chose not to go on meds or have radiation….but I am having scans every 6 mo. So far all is well. My MO is supportive of taking bioidentical hormones. I use Testoterone cream, progesterone pill daily (all bioidentical). And I use estrodiol patches twice weekly. Again, bioidentical. I would change MO to someone who understands the new info on bioidentical hormones…there are many MO's now I think who would agree with my MO.
Blessings!
Re: My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer
@intolight @candy-678 and others saying they do not have anything to contribute, I contribute different things but mostly what I make or am doing for the day. To me that makes me want to snooze but others seem to like. You can contribute anythings, books you have read or movies and TV watched. Meals you have had too. Does not need to always be about cancer, we all know what we go through.
I just got up about 10 mins ago. Not sure what today holds for me to do. I did make up a bunch of penne and added soup noodles to it. Not sure what I am putting in today, yesterday was a bit of cheese, canned ham, garlic and the beef seasoning. I forgot to break up the noodles but they are still not bad. TodayI may do a meatpie with an egg on the plate as well, make the egg garlicky as well. I will decide later. Option two sees some of the noodle mix going in with two eggs into the magic bullet with ham, garlic and bacon bits. Pour mix into some muffin tins and bake for a bit, probably include some shredded cheese. I will see what I decide to do, either option is easy, can take the baked egg bites and use those as a side dish as well to a meat pie, I will see what I decide on, post if really good.
Got plenty of laundry to get done, cat corner needs a scoop and may wash the litter mat, looking a little dingy, definitely needs wash in one of my mesh bags, plenty of bags to choose from.
As far as TV goes, still watch young and restless though super boring, have watched over 40 years so won't stop. I also watched an animated marvel zombies, really gory and fun. Based on a comics run. Also enjoy Peacemaker show as well. Also been listening to short stories by Stephen King. Listened to Gramma, listened to the Long Walk done up as a race with a commentator, pretty cool stuff.
Not sure if I am going out with DB, prefer to get my treadmill instead. I am planning to start saving for one of my own, Amazon has a lot of folding stuff online that has handles so can begin saving up for a new one. Did call SIL, she does not know when my treadmill may be brought back. Getting tired of the delay, he could borrow a son and use them to help bring it in. She's like don't buy a treadmill but eventually I will do it. I realized that I can pace the living room as well, need to make an aisle and just go back and forth so that might be an additional treadmill adjacent activity. I will see, can also wait and see about the treadmill. I am not yet ready to commit to a gym due to not wanting to travel much in the winter. Time to take mind off of repetitive thoughts.
I hope all have a good day, in pockets for those who need me.
Re: My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer
sf-cakes—"My life is important!", I like that. I need to tell myself that daily, spoken aloud as you did.
I take care of my cat, read books, attend church, etc. I am thankful I am able to do that.
Re: My Update—6 years post diagnosis
One more thing I want to share with you…..my hemo/onco doctor stated that there is relatively new info now that keeping iron levels above 100 is important. So anytime I am below 100 she orders another infusion. Maybe there is a study you could take to your onco to show them to advocate for infusion….just a thought.
Re: 2017 BC Diagnosis…how are you doing?
Oh wow. Interesting! That is good to know. Thank you for sharing that info.
Re: How long have you been Stage IV?
@livinglifenow Nice to hear from you, Pam, and it's really inspiring that you directed a play. What fun. I'm an outdoorsy type, so I've been getting my steps in. The weather has been gorgeous.
