Chemo in Sept 08
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Wow Genia! 3 to go!!! Woot!!! How wonderful!!!
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What a day! Farrah Fawcett AND Michael Jackson passed away, I was interviewed for the Women's Digital Imaging Unit (the one that was postponed from two weeks ago), my eyes are old enough to need readers, and I got a tentative date for my hysterectomy-BSO (July 10).
I miss you guys...and I know it's my own fault, not posting as much as I was during active treatment. I hope y'all know that I still love you and that I still consider you my sisters.
Summer's started out H.O.T. here on the shore of Lake Michigan! The humidity is like walking through soup...not that I've ever waded through a bowl of soup before! I have weddings all summer long to put together, and at the flower shop, we're getting into the event planning business! I'm psyched! It's called "Affairs at Bela Floral". I'm working on getting certified, and getting advertising on the internet up and running.
We're grilling every night, walking out on the breakwall or through the state park...Summer's glorious, and I hope that all of you are enjoying yours!
We're all...ALL...almost done!
I love you all...
Robin
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Hi Robin! You sound so good! Congrats on your interview! I saw your update on Facebook too!
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My hot flashes are less hot and less frequent since I started the Effexor. Now if I could just get rid of the stinging.
Robin - good to hear from you!
Genia - yay! almost done!
I'm very sad about Farrah. Her last 2 years were hard. Cancer sux.
hugs
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Down to 2, Genia. I'm countin' with ya!
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Yep....off this weekend then two more next week!!! Thanks Jane.....love you girlfriend
Look what was in the Columbus Ohio newspaper yesterday.....this REALLY makes me feel so good!!! NOT............. Portsmouth is where I live...
20 times higher......that's just ridiculousMost-toxic air in southern Ohio
Ohio River stretch near Portsmouth suffers highest cancer risk, EPA says
Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:41 AM
By Randy Ludlow
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCHFederal officials who measure toxic air pollution paint Ohio's would-be "cancer alley" as coursing along the Ohio River from Portsmouth to beyond New Boston.
The risk of some Scioto County residents contracting cancer is nearly 20 times higher than the national average, according to a new study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Those breathing the air largely tainted with emissions from foundry coke ovens have an additional cancer risk of 612 in 1 million -- the seventh-highest rate in the United States -- based on 2002 figures. That means that if 1 million people breathed that air for a lifetime, 612 additional cancer cases would be expected from cancer-causing toxins.
The average cancer risk across the country from toxic air pollution is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment released yesterday.
Despite high numbers in parts of Ohio, the state's additional cancer risk was 33.3 in 1 million, below the national average.
The federal study attributed 95 percent of the potentially cancer-causing pollutants in the worst area of Scioto County to coke ovens used to form and melt steel and iron. The river valley also traps bad air.
The county's overall cancer-risk rate was 59 in 1 million, or 21st-highest in the United States. Scioto County's cancer rate from 2001 to 2005 was about 5 percent higher than the statewide average, according to state figures.
"It's where we are, it's what we do," Dr. Aaron Adams, Scioto County's health commissioner, said of the area's heavy-industry employers. "People need to be concerned, need to be aware," Adams said of the county's figures on cancer risk from air pollution. "We need to make the air safer, the water cleaner" and work with polluters to curtail emissions, Adams said.
Paul Koval, an air-pollution toxicologist with the Ohio EPA, said both Scioto County and the state have seen "marked improvement" in air quality since 2002, the baseline year for the federal study.
Overall toxic-air emissions in Scioto County, for example, have declined by 21 percent, with the closing of the New Boston Coke Corp. in mid-2002, Koval said.
Franklin County, like most urban areas, also suffers under air pollution that slightly increases cancer risks. Some of the worst air, resulting from vehicle exhaust, is in the Downtown area, with an extra cancer risk of about 93 cases in 1 million.
However, the county's worst air-pollution cancer risk (166 in 1 million) extends in an east-west swath near and north of Whitehall, with most of the city itself receiving a 125 in 1 million added cancer-risk rating.
The EPA study blames chromium compounds, apparently from area metal-working industries, as the biggest component of toxic air pollution in the Whitehall area.
Portions of Butler (176 in 1 million cancer risk) and Hamilton (189 in 1 million) counties in southwestern Ohio also had some sections with the state's most toxic air. Butler County's overall rate, 50.4 in 1 million, was the 42nd-highest in the nation. Lawrence County, east of Scioto County, matched Butler's number.
Officials say cancer threats linked to air pollution have been dwindling but remain too high in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the nation.
Parts of Los Angeles and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation -- 1,200 in 1 million and 1,100 in 1 million, according to the EPA data.
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
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Yikes! Genia, that is awful... and I live near Los Angeles!
hugs
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Yea I thought so too. A friend sent me the link....I hadn't seen it!
Heck Juli we might as well start diggin our graves.......lol
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Genia,
I grew up in NJ and my girlfriends and I always teased that "we glow" from all the toxic crap. So many of my old "play mates", now grown men and women, have cancer.
It does make you wonder... it really does.
Spring.
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There's a really high incidence in the valley I live in, too. We don't know if it's from the landfill that used to be here (we even had a dead body (Donna Peyante - murdered by an inmate) get dumped there as well as toxic waste, plus thousands of us have worked at a State facility for the mentally retarded where the buildings were full of lead and asbestos and the people have been exposed to all kinds of toxic substances. The facility (and all our homes) all get water from the ground which could be full of toxins from the dump. We all wonder, though. There seems to be a really high incidence in the particular building I work in (which used to be used as a hospital for the patients, complete with OR and morgue).
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Yikes! Jane! ewwww!
I'm hibernating 'cause it's hot outside...
hugs
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back in GA where the humidity is AWFUL tonight. I am so glad to be able to sleep in my own bed tonight and i have to say that even though we mad a major melt down 30 mins from home the kids did awesome on the 14 hr ride home.
I am butt weary and exhausted so i will fill you in later.
Hope everyone is doing well!!
Genia and Mina- where are we on the count down or are you done??
HUGS to all
Lisa/BG
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Lisa, 14 hours in car. YIKES!!!
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Yeah... I live in a county where cancer deaths are off the charts, and have been for close to 50 years...Dow-Corning is here, along with a metal processing plant that spews foul things into the air. You would think that living on the coast of a fresh water lake would be a healthy place to live....but then I remember that Wisconsin is only 60 miles across the lake. haha...
I'm hibernating inside, too...where it's cool!
On long car trips, my parents would give us each a dollar for every hour we were quiet. As a child, we amassed a small fortune that we got to spend on whatever we wanted when we got to where we were going. The "promise" of being stuck in the trunk was also a motivator for peace, I imagine! LOL
Glad that summer is going well for everyone! Genia...I love you...only two more to go, and I swear, that less than two weeks after finishing rads, you won't even have an open sore. I turned brown, then peeled. My boob doesn't even look like it had anything done to it. I think the skin's even softer than before. Weird.
love you all...
Robin
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Robin - Your parents were geniuses! A dollar for every hour you were quiet! I love that! I will tell my boys to use that when they have kids. Might have to be more than a dollar though! LOL
hugs
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Love you too Robin.....and I wished I had been smart enough to think to do the dollar thing when I had 4 kids riding to Lake Erie in an extended cab truck with a screaming baby that HATED his car seat. What a NIGHTMARE that was. My kids and my step-daughter. Of course the older kids kept saying "MAKE HIM SHUT UP MOMMY".........lololol.........I thought about bailing a few times.
Actually my boob feels much better even now.......really strange. I think my skin is getting tough or something....lol....whatever it is I like it. I can handle two more standing on my head....
Hugs Lisa....glad you are home.
Love you all
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well let's see where to start...it was a LONG week and i am kinda glad vacation is over. Don't get me wrong there were some really great moments and then there were those two yr old melt downs and while one will soon be three and is coming out of the terrible twos the other one is going in and we better hold on to our hats cause she is gonna be *#LL on wheels!!!
We toured Philly, gotta cheesteak, took the kids to the philly zoo, toured the Amish countryside and took the kids on a buggy ride through the Amish country, stopped at a roadside stand and bought homemade bread and tomatoes and made some yummy sanwiches, bought pretzels, bought some fresh strawberries,,,part of the family went on a bus ride to NY city...we stayed behind there was no way i was taking myself and two hellions to the big apple...Jeff and i went one evening to the sights and sounds theater and saw "In the Beginning" which is a show about creation and the garden od Eden and the life of adam and eve. It was totally awesome.
I went quilt shopping and thought i had one picked out but the babies were wigging out and we left early. I got a number, and her business card and while i love what i saw i have to think hard about it... they were reasonable enough but it is a large investment.We had a decent time and the cottages we stayed at were neat and the kids saw the resident chipmunk and discovered a baby bunny in the yard. Driving home from dinner one night we were AMAZED at the tons of lightning bugs out in the fields at night there were what seemed to be millions out there.
We also took in Hershey park and bought chocolate and the kids got to ride some stuff. That was the only day the weather was a little bad and while my son got to ride all the cool coasters, every time Jeff tried to get on one they shut them down for lightning. I told him it just wasn't meant to be for me to have a quilt and for him to ride the coasters.
Once we got back last night we had to clean out the rental van to have it back by 9am this AM!!UGH...But we drove to augusta to take it back and got a brunch at cracker barrel and headed back home to begin the laundry thing. The garden has suffered with this heat. We have been having 100's for days and i had forgotten how bad humidity was until we came back last night..once you have been somewhere where it isn't so bad it takes a while to readjust.
Anyway it was good to be away and while there were some very trying moments will all of us being together for so long and riding for so long it is beautiful country. The fileds are so green, the cows so fat and the food sooo good. It is a reminder to slow down and enjoy life a little more and it makes me thankful for the beautiful creation earth is.
Genia- so glad you will be done this week. I will try to recover to do a happy dance for you
Mina- what about you???
If we had offered money for them to be quiet i don't think they are capable of it. The two of them are always in a competition, and they play off of each other. All in all they did good to be babies, but i had to rethink WHY we thought they would handle this trip well...it was a little much for them. They did enjoy the horses, cows and the zoo...they were disappointed that the elephants never came out while we were there..seems we missed them by about 15 mins....WHAT ZOO doesn't keep them out???????? Anyway they got to see a lot of other animals but we were a tad disappointed for them. I guess we will have to drive to atlanta one day and hope they are allowed to "come out and play" while we are there..
Take care everybody..gotta go put on some cooler clothes.
Have a great week.
BG
PS re-reading this over before i posted it i realized something...we ate and ate and ate....time to get back on the wagon!!! BUT it was all soooo good!
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Lisa - Wow! What a trip! You are very brave to do all that with 2 little ones!
Colleen - Hope you had a Happy Birthday today!
Genia - Good to hear you are doing better!
Hugs
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BG - You didn't by any chance stay at Flory's did you? It sounds like it from your description.
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jane- we stayed at two cottages in Adamstown owned by the same people who own Adamstown Inn- if you google adamstown inns we stayed at firefly and dragonfly cottages. It was neat.
When we went to Philly someone told us the cheesesteaks were better in town- we would have had to go to south philly to find Pat's or Gino's they suggested Sonny's...it was good but maybe i should have gone true Philly style and gotten cheese whiz instead of provolone- but it was good.
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I'M FINISHED WITH MY RADS................YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They had me come in early this morning because they are trying to work in all their Friday patients this week. So I was in and out by 8. So happy I don't have to do anymore of them.
Love ya girls...and thanks for hangin in there with me
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Yay GENIA!!!!
Happy Dance! Ginia is DONE WITH RADS!!!
My DH and I just celebrated 25 years of marriage yesterday! We took off and went to the beach!
This morning I got an email from an old friend that her husband just left her.
I swear. Life. ups and downs.
Lisa, what a trip!!
Spring.
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Girls,
I haven't time to read off to boost my boob
lol but sharing what I just buzzed past on twitter...http://webpartner.com/BreastCancer
http://twitter.com/BrstCancerNews
two more next week then DONE! Genia you left me...:) Good on ya.
back later to read...
hugs
Mina
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Almost done Mina!!!!
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Sorry Mina.....it won't be long now sweetie!!! It got easier for me towards the end. I think my skin finally toughened up and bought the bullet..........lol.
Sooooo glad to be done.
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Genia, You will likely feel this EUPHORIA!!!
ENJOY IT!!! I think I was stupidly happy for about 6 weeks after finishing rads and being done with all treatment. And your hair comes back. It is a GOOD TIME!!!!
Hold on to the glee. You so DESERVE IT!!! You too Mina!!! Not long now.
And What Robin says was true for me too. I was bright red with an open sore in my arm pit one Weds, and the next, I was a nice tannish pink color!!!! You will be AMAZED at how fast you heal up! Just praise God for the healing in our bodies!!!
Spring..
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I do praise him Spring......he's been my rock!!!
You should see my HAIR.....it's hilariously funny. It was straight and looked like my old hair.....then as it got just a little bit longer.....it has sprung into these wild curls and go everywhere. I've NEVER had curly hair since I was a baby....so I have no idea what to do with it. I just moussed it the other day and dried it in the sticking out all over your head Bozo look...........got compliments on it.......at least I didn't feel like a cancer patient anymore.....lol
I don't have to see my Rad Onco for a month.....and my Med onco is the end of this month. I don't know what to do with myself without GOING somewhere every day.....lol
I may be moving out of my house. My husband is getting his disability.....but in the meantime.....they discovered they have been over paying me by me getting my SSI. I had to sign a waiver that stated I didn't know about the overpayment....otherwise I would have had to paid it back to them. SOMEHOW they thought I was supposed to live well on 380 a month. That's what I would have recieved if I hadn't gotten the SSI by mistake. Even WITH my husbands disability.....we are gonna be making even less than I was making alone. So we are gonna have to move. I can't afford the mortgage payment on this place.....and it's just too much for either of us to take care of.......two stories and a basement. Hopefully....I will be able to go back to work partime.....soon. I can't work fulltime because I don't really feel like it.....plus I will lose my insurance and I can't do that!
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Hi Girls,
Genia, Congratulations on finishing rads, thank god it is over! Well done you!
Sorry to hear that you might have to move, it may be good for you to have a new start, without being reminded of cancer all around the house. Maybe it is mean to be!
Spring, contratulations on your 25th wedding anniversay, wow what a long time, you must be a wonderful wife to be with.
I have been busy with work, graduations, visitors and planning for my summer in the UK, I leave in two weeks. I will have to have my next lot of checks next week. Just a manual check to make sure there aren't any lumps, a blood test and I will ask for a bone density test too, as I have been on tamoxafine 6 months now.
Take care girls, Singapore Chris x
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Genia - Here's to you!!
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Back for a moment girls,
I'm so glad you're finished Genia....happy times all round:)
I unfortunately had a serious raw skin break and my nipple is shedding. I had loads of pain off and on this weekend-- level 8-10-- that is now down to level 3-4 and not unbearable any longer, It it seems my four boosts did it. arrrgh!!
My doc is unhappy; she put me on Aquafor, then Vaseline impregnated Guaze over that, and Telfa over all. I am allergic to all tape and clear sticky dressings so I'll probably have to add to my Vaseline Guaze Friday. I'll keep my Vaseline Guaze in the Freezer the way they do in Radiation to make my boob cool and happy. I also have to continue with her healing moisturizing cream over the Aquaphore.
I wasn't supposed to see her today because Boosts usually are problem free--or so she says--but my good friend Lopez and I were practicing having me go down on bended knee to ask my doc for 2 treatments a day tomorrow and Thursday to finish by Friday July 3, 2009. We were cracking each other up practicing the bended knee routine: she asked to see my breast to OK the increased treatment schedule.
OH well...No Radiation today, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday the dept is closed, then back Monday after my doc checks me out may have my last 4 boosts.
. When she checked my breasts, which she missed doing last week, because I was going to start these harmless boosts, her face looked surprised and very very unhappy. Hopefully, if I follow her instructions given me today, I will have no infections and no boob scars in that area.
Please my friends have a Happy weekend and a Happy Fourth of July.
A really mad lady let it rip about Michael Jackson in Radiation today...so I told her my grandma never let me speak ill of the dead. Good grief, I wasn't going to deal with so much negativity especially with my dangly boob hurting. So many deaths this week...The celebration of Michaels is still going in at the Apollo but I'll enjoy it from home...I watched part of Farah's on television.
love you all v.v.v. much
sorry I missed so much news but I'll return... I do love your business ideas Robin.
Spring have fun in the UK.
Genia, I'm sorry you have to move. I feel as if I'm being forced out of NYC but the benefits are pretty good and my mom left this coop for me and I want my son to inherit it....but it costs hella lot of money to live here.
Seems Michael was using very strong drugs to sleep and for pain. The person on Larry King says Michael wanted to sleep...reminds me so much of dear Heath....OMG... tired now...
love you all,
Mina
No one suggested acupuncture to either of these men or alternative treatments to help him sleep.
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