Illinois ladies facing bc
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Do your little bit of good where you are;
its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
- Desmond Tutu0 -
Each day is a time of great possibilities.Many experiences are before me that will inspire me on my upward path of growth and discovery.Knowing this, I greet each day with enthusiasm.An enthusiastic attitude is an energizing one.When I am enthusiastic, I tap into an inner wellspring of energy that promotes change in my body and in my life.The positive power that is generated by enthusiasm improves my circulation and helps restore health to my body.It stirs up joy within me and calls it forth into expression.Enthusiasm for life brings out the beauty that I was once unable to see. - unattributed
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Great quotes, Jackie! It's really been quiet on here. I hope that means that everyone is busy and doing well.
We are heading home next week. it has been a great winter but it will be nice to get back home again. I enjoy the Illinois springtime.
Hugs to all of you.
Rita
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We all have the potential to know balance. Simply to desire balance is to begin to know.We can start with stopping, taking a few deep breaths, and letting the nervous energy drain out of us.We can let our minds become quiet, and we can make a commitment to ourselves to seek the peacefulness of balance wherever we are.We can open our hearts and minds to peacefulness.We can let peacefulness enter through the bottoms of our feet and flow up through our bodies with our breath and aliveness.We can breathe in peacefulness and breathe out agitation. - Anne Wilson Schaef
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The art of contentment is the recognition that the most satisfying and the most dependably refreshing experiences of life lie not in great things but in little. The rarity of happiness among those who achieved much is evidence that achievement is not in itself the assurance of a happy life. The great, like the humble, may have to find their satisfaction in the same plain things.
Edgar A. Collard0 -
Creativity of all kinds focuses your mind, engages your imagination, and feeds your soul. Being creative can also facilitate understanding and encourage healing. Creativity is mindfulness in motion--intuitive, artistic motion. Creative moments and activities give you a boost and help you feel energized and good about yourself.
Sue Patton Thoele0 -
Being aware of your true self is the best way to free yourself from the controlling, manipulative behavior of others.You don't need the right car, the right shoes, the right girlfriend to be complete.All you really need is to be yourself.Your spirit is the real you.Let it guide you.Be still.Listen to your spirit say, "I am, and I am enough."In the silence, you'll hear God. -Melody Beattie
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Hi there,
I'm in the North Chicago suburbs and I went through LCIS lumpectomy a few years ago. I got some really good support on this website. I just found out my mom has Stage 2 BC found from an ultrasound biopsy (after having ABUS screening since we have dense breasts). Mammography did NOT catch this. So far we know it is estrogen/progesterone negative and DCIS (I think). She will need lumpectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. I am scared. I want to get the best care for her. How do I find the best oncologist for her (the one she saw is a hematologist/oncologist that she sees for other issues) - I think she needs a second opinion. I also want to know how she can avoid the chemo side effects. What's the best place to find information about this all? If I think about this too much I'll get so overwhelmed. Her doctors aren't too worried (I guess this isn't a "severe" case?) but I want the best for her! Any thoughts would be most helpful!!!!
Thanks!!
Kayla
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Hi, Kayla,
First, find out what your mom has—Stage II and DCIS are mutually exclusive. Stage II is invasive. Is it Grade 2, instead? Could very well be that, in which case it's DCIS—and about half of all DCIS is hormone-receptor-negative (they don't test DCIS for HER2 overexpression). Hormone-negative DCIS is not treated with chemo (and she would be skipping endocrine therapy as well). If they say she needs chemo, then the “DCIS" was present within the IDC (invasive ductal carcinoma) sample. A second opinion is always a good idea (I didn't get one because I felt my first one was satisfactory).
Where is your mom being treated? How far north is your (or your mom's) suburb? For years, I'd gotten my annual mammos at NorthShore Evanston Hospital's Center For Breast Health (I used to get them at Nordstrom Old Orchard, which used Glenbrook's radiology services, because they gave coupons for a free latte). So that's where I was diagnosed had my surgery & radiation and continue to get my semiannual mammos and post-op. My medical oncologist—Teresa Law--is at Kellogg Cancer Center next door (other good NorthShore MOs are Douglas Merkel—though not the warmest guy--and Elaine Wade). I highly recommend the NorthShore system (U of C/Mayo affiliated), as well as Northwestern Medicine (with which Evanston used to be part—NM is Cleveland Clinic-affiliated). I'm not sure if NM has any north suburban hospitals (NorthShore also has Skokie, Glenbrook, & Highland Park in its system), but if your mom is downtown (Northwestern Memorial Hospital) or in the w. ‘burbs (Central DuPage) are both excellent—as is the Advocate system (Lutheran Gen. in the NW, Good Samaritan in the W., Condell far N. and especially Christ in the SW—disclaimer: my husband is a cardiologist there). Rush and Loyola are great too—Loyola's top MO, Kathy Albain (who was a resident at U of I with my husband) actually helped pioneer the use of OncotypeDX testing, especially proving its utility in those with up to 3 positive lymph nodes. Rush’s Melody Cobleigh is also a good MO.
The only way to “avoid chemo side effects” is to not have chemo. Nausea is usually prevented with a shot of Zofran, immunosuppression is mitigated to a great degree by a shot of Neulasta the day after each chemo, and cold-capping (now FDA-approved but expensive, uncomfortable, labor-intensive and not often covered by insurance) can considerably lessen scalp hair loss, up to 50-75%—though not brows or lashes. Popsicles help with mouth sores, icing during infusions helps with toenails and fingernails (and fashionable dark nail polish can camouflage damage).
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The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden0 -
Hi there ChiSandy -
Thanks for your detailed reply. I do appreciate it! She is doing things through the NorthShore system. Just found out she's Triple Negative. Now not sure about the Stage part. We are meeting with a surgeon soon and I'll find out more. I am not sure if she should have a second opinion of an oncologist. I'm just still very much in shock (as I know she is). I've met Merkel before and didn't mind his bedside manner too much. I'll look into the other names you've mentioned. I'm just really worried. This "thing" they found is tiny but worried it can do bad things
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If it is invasive ductal, then triple-neg means chemo. (If only DCIS, no chemo). Peaches on this board is a fellow member of our monthly support group at Evanston Hospital (second Wed., but I'll miss this month because I'll be in London), and she got her chemo through Merkel; she did great.
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two for the price of one today.
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible. -William Coffin
Hope is the anchor of the soul, the stimulus to action, and the incentive to achievement. -unknown
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[The Native American] believes profoundly in silence—the sign of perfect equilibrium.Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit.The people who preserve their selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence—not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool—theirs, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.If you ask:"What are the fruits of silence?" he or she will say:"They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity, and reverence.Silence is the cornerstone of character." - Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman)
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We met with Merkel. He's just wonderful. She's at Stage I, Grade 2. Will need surgery, then chemo, then radiation. So this will go into the summer probably. I feel moments of relief that we at least have a direction, but feel moments of panic and back aching worry that I don't know how to stop. Will try to reach out to support group/hotline to see how to best navigate it all (and how to best support my mom). Is the support group in Evanston for patients or for family too?
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Your mom can absolutely do this! And family and friends are very welcome at the support group (two months ago, a patient’s son came along and in fact did most of the asking for his mom). In the meantime, your mom should feel free to rely on her “nurse-navigator”” (mine’s Beth, who moderated the group for a few months until we got our permanent facilitator Anisha). Wish I could be there this month, but while you’re meeting I’ll be fast asleep in London after a day at Runnymede and dinner at St. John. Hope to meet you in May!
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The keys to growth are available to us the day we are born. They include openness, sensitivity, awareness, insight, intuition, wonder, imagination, curiosity, empathy, compassion, and creativity.These keys will unlock the doors to a rich life.What I am at ninety or what you are at your age, depends upon how we use those keys. - Wilferd A. Peterson
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When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are
about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is
knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something
solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Barbara J. Winter0 -
Jackie,
An appropriate quote for me as I took my last exemestane pill today. It's the end of the five years. Done now with treatment. I thought April Fools Day was an appropriate day to stop. I am a fool to not continue? My MO thought I should stop. Only time will tell.
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Congrats to you Doxie....Whose to say -- we don't know if doing more than five yrs. or changing the kind of pill may or may not work. I'm glad your done. I have to say it did take me a while to be OFF the pill to feel relaxed about not having the comfort of taking that daily pill. It was my "protection" against a relapse and who knows, maybe at some point it was, but after a while I did learn to live life without the need of some sort to stimulus that would make me feel I was defeating a disease from coming back. It has been 10 yrs. for me and I am filled with gratitude daily to still be here.
In the interim I have come to realize that what will be, will be and somewhere in the starry Universe it is known how long I will be a contributor to life in the Earthy realm. Of course, my hope it that it will be for a good long while yet, but I know that the way to honor the life I've already lived and that which will come is to be humble and grateful for all I've learned, all I've overcome and the for the love and joy I've had, to be thankful for, the kindnesses I've experienced and the beautiful expressions of great friendships full of caring along the way. Each day is a gift and when I get up every day I hope to continue to feel the anticipation for what is in store my day.
I hope you and all of the Illinois ladies will be able to wake up every morning with purpose and meaning and enjoy every day to the fullest, being grateful at day's end and falling asleep with a smile on your lips for the gift of the day. Again, congratulations on this milestone. Hoping soon you won't miss the daily pill or question not going farther.
Blessings
Jackie
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Going to a baby shower tomorrow, for a member of the Bar Show cast and her wife—the latter is pregnant. Been 22 yrs since the last one I attended (when my sis was about to have my niece). I never had my own—the day it was to take place, I had just delivered Gordy at 3 am, nearly a month early. Not the same thing when the presents arrive in the mail.
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I no longer feel that life is ordinary. Everyday life is filled with mystery. The things we know are only a small part of the things we cannot know but can only glimpse. Yet even the smallest of glimpses can sustain us. Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain. In surprising ways it is the mysterious
that strengthens us in such times. I used to try to offer people certainty in times which were not at all certain and could not be made certain. I now just offer my companionship and share my sense of mystery, of the possible, of wonder.
Rachel Naomi Remen0 -
You are so right Sandy. Having a baby shower is exciting and pretty much is fun for everyone there. It would be ( while you'd be thrilled for the gift acknowledgement ) a bit dry if it didn't happen. I was able to delightfully experience a baby shower. My only complaint -- a huge fat belly in the way. I am 5'8" but was always slender - and I was while pregnant. Everywhere except the middle of me which seemed much bigger by comparison. I gained 39 lbs. while carrying my first and lost 37 the day he was born. Unusually lge. placenta the Dr. said -- whatever. It was difficult just to walk around with some of the un-even-ness.
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However we understand our spiritual selves, most of us agree on how to foster them:through peace, silence, and beauty, in meditation, and in what some of us call prayer.Just as every bud aspires to be a flower, and as the flower holds the secret of the fruit, so we enfold the beauty of our spirits.If we nourish the spirit, we can grow to be our better selves.If we allow nothing to hamper its growth, our spirit will unfold. -unattributed
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It need not discourage us if we are full of doubts. Healthy
questions keep faith dynamic. In fact, unless we start with
doubts we cannot have a deep-rooted faith. One who
believes lightly and unthinkingly has not much of a belief.
One who has a faith which is not to be shaken has won it
through blood and tears--has worked his or her way from
doubt to truth as one who reaches a clearing through
a thicket of brambles and thorns.0 -
Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand—an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding."That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward, we find at last within ourselves. -C.M.C.
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If you want your story to be magnificent, begin by realizing you are the author, and every day is a new page.
author unknown
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Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Leo Buscaglia0 -
To me, the essence of keeping the soul nourished is obedience to one's conscience. I don't think that the soul can be nourished unless people have a strong sense of conscience that they have educated and developed and soaked in the universal and timeless principles of integrity and service. This way, the individual's soul becomes part of the universal soul of service, contribution, and making a difference.
Stephen R. Covey0
