Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
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Our perfect fall weather has gone away. We turned on the a/c yesterday afternoon. This morning it was quite foggy when I got up. That means the temperature and the dew point are the same or close to same.
The news is full of reports on surge of Covid in European countries. People have to learn that there is no going back to "normal" in the present time regardless of Covid fatigue.
I have no appointments today. I will do some chores around the house and go to chair exercise at the gym. The name of the class is misleading because most of the exercise is standing and a lot of marching in place to get the heartbeat up.
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Interesting day today. Had to go to my job in Sandoval and then directly from there to get my mammogram done. I will get a ltr. from St. Marys Radiology Dept. in a week or so. They first sent all results to my pcp in Mt. Vernon. I have high hopes that all will come out fine.
From there I went back today to the house of my friend who needs someone there while she takes a bath. Got there too late for her to bathe, but she will do a basin bath will Friday. Should be there at the right time then. I had a lot of work to do to catch things back up to where they were when I left. Still, I go through it all and got home just after 1 p.m. so I could fix something for Dh and I to eat.
Have to make out a grocery list and stop by the store on the way back from Sandoval tonight. Tomorrow ( nothing extra ) it will be a better day and I will be able to relax in-between jaunts here and there. Looking forward to it.
Had rain through the night and it was really damp, gloomy looking and cold ( 46 ) when I left the house. It hasn't gotten much warmer either and won't today. Not my favorite since I am a sun ( not as in sun-bathing sun ) person.
Hope you are all having a good day.
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We are set for our winemaker dinner at Cellars on Thursday evening--possible the only evening this week that will be warm enough to dine on the patio under the tent. But I'm biting my nails (ok, just figuratively) because the city's positivity rate has jumped to 5.4%, same as the state's; and the city's health commissioner has warned we might have to regress to Phase 3 of mitigations--which means no indoor dining, and severely-restricted outdoor dining even if weather permits--despite the state's criterion for that is a positivity rate >8% for 7 days in a row. If those restrictions were to go back into effect, I'm hoping it wouldn't be until Friday, since that's always the day when new city COVID regs--whether imposition or relaxation of restrictions, or adding or removing states to the city's "no-no/quarantine when you return" list--take effect. Fingers crossed. The owners are meeting with the landlord Nov. 1--unless there's a new PPP appropriation, they will be closing (not even doing takeout) for the winter, from the week before Thanksgiving till outdoor dining becomes practical again this spring. Sounds better than throwing in the towel entirely come Nov.1.
But Chicago's premier pioneering Michelin-starred restaurant, Everest, will be closing permanently Jan.1. Chef Jean Joho has run the place for 37 years, and says he's ready to retire anyway, pandemic or not. We last ate there on my birthday, with the kids, in late January. Gordy & Leslie announced at the table that they were going to Spain for Leslie's 30th birthday in June. Sigh--we know how that turned out.
I missed my mani last week because I was quarantining--and will likely have to miss next week's mani-pedi if the city reverts to Phase 3. (My hair color's a lost cause anyway).
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This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples;
no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
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Cool here again today. I hope no more rain even if cloudy. At least my car got washed off. Big news....sounds like my lady friend will get to come home this week-end. That means I will have to go into overdrive. I have two appts. to keep this week, but hopefully can work those in okay. I will have to prepare some food to have on hand, and get some microwavable items for her to have while I'm running around maybe. Next week will be the hard one. I have my scope ( have to be asleep ) on Thurs. and Dh will have his back surgery on Friday. I think ( hope ) there will be a neighbor or two who can fill in those days.
So onward we go. I'm also ( re-started yesterday ) going to the other lady friend's house so she can have someone there while she has a bath. I was hoping she could get along, but she doesn't sound ready. Well, we will see what adjustments can or need to be made.
Elsewise, things are progressing normally I think. Just keeping one foot in front of the other.
I hope you all have a really good day.
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Hi ladies, I made it through my covid test today. I had it done a UCSF Medical center and it was very easy. I asked if I could hold one of the technicians hands and she said yes. It really helped. Now, on to my dental appointment on Thursday (with a negative covid which I will find out tomorrow).
Illinois, thank you for your Dalai Lama post.
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Jackie, sending good vibes your way for your scope and DH's back surgery. Cowgirl, fingers crossed that you test negative. (All of us--except the movie premiere's host--have, whew!).
Nonetheless, I'm not going to do my weigh-in in person, but keep it a telephone visit--that way I can weigh myself & measure my waistline buck-naked. Late-night carb snacking has not been my friend, except that it does make me sleepy enough to ignore my pulsatile tinnitus and (with earplugs) Bob's snoring. Mon. I have a visit with Kellogg's melanoma MO (to whom my bc MO referred me); and on the 28th my rescheduled antibiotic-allergy challenge test.
Will be video-recording the other Bar Show scene I'm in, either late tonight or some time tomorrow. I don't have a solo, but the music director did include my harmony vocal overdub on the last chorus. Not happy with my solo vocal in the one I recorded last week; hoping that the music director can drop my "new & improved" version into the finished audio track. It was in the key of F, with a range of middle C up to high D. It's either too high or (in the lower octave version he put in the interim track) so low I couldn't hit that low-low C. So just pay attention to my acting.
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IllinoisLady- best wishes for your scope and dh back surgery.
Cowgirl - negative is the word I hope you hear.
I took my sister in for a Bronchoscopy for a spot on her lung. She gets checked every 6 months, 50+ year smoker, with COPD. Dr contacted me after the procedure. He took many samples and cultures, but noted he also took 1 lymph node - said it was larger than the others. Some results in 2-7 days, but cultures can take several weeks. Hoping she hears negative too.
I'm tired, school early hours wipe me out. And my plumbing is wearing me down too. The owner came by today, thought we solved gurgling - new pipes were put in for my washer, he thought no water in the trap - did a load of laundry. But hours later, toilet flush and a great glug glug glug in the kitchen sink. I'll call again tomorrow.
I see endocrinologist tomorrow late afternoon. Checking to see if I can stop taking weekly pill and instead get Reclast or Prolia; or who knows, he may feel I'm fine w the pills.
Supposed to hit 73 tomorrow! I'm quite surprised. Hope you all have a good day tomorrow.
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That has been my personal relationship with God--a connection with the powerful, loving, wise energy in all of us, in all creation. It is the life force itself. We can all have contact with it each moment in our lives, but it takes commitment and practice. We must be willing to move through all our deepest fears, doubts, and misunderstandings.
Shakti Gawain0 -
Good morning, ladies. I had good day junking with my BFF at a thrift store going out of business. My best find was a Stone Mountain leather purse that look brand new for $0.25. YAY
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Absolutely petite. Double Yay. I have gotten a couple Stone Mountains ( had to pay $2.50 for each one though ) at Good Will. Also went to Salvation Army here one day when it was half price day and got a nearly new Coach purse for $2.50. Also found a Coach at Good Will that I only paid $4.00 for. It was an older, plainer style ( hobo -ish, but a bit more sleek ) and I adore it. I don't always use it just to make sure it lasts for me.
I hate to admit it, but this yr. I never changed from my winter purse. So -- I'm okay now with no need of changing since we are close to winter again.
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Hello ladies (or should I say bargain shoppers) 👍🙂. Sounds like some very nice deals. I too hit some sales at Chico's today. A nice treat after getting my (finally!) Annual diagnostic mammogram today. I always treat myself, usually in a small way, after medical appointments. After I got the "good word" I had a cappuccino and a baguette at a small french bakery near the hospital then picked up a few nice sale items. Tonight I'm exhausted probably from the tension so should sleep better.
This hasn't happened in a while but it felt like the machine kind of dug into my breastbone at one point. An eventual bruise there would not surprise me. All worth it.
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I will greet this day with love in my heart.
And how will I do this?
Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again.
I will love the sun for it warms my bones;
yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit.
I will love the light for it shows me the way;
yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars.
I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart;
yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul.
I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due;
yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.- Og Mandino
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Petite and Jackie, great buys on purses.
I have no use for fashionable purses these days. I bought some nice clothes at Chico's last spring and have not worn them. I could get by easily with a small closet of clothes instead of a walk-in closet.
I have a lunch date with two women friends today. Golf was the common interest that brought us together initially. One friend, Norma, just celebrated her 86th birthday but you would never put her in that age category. She looks great and is still a good golfer, much better than I am at my present level of playing golf. I am buying her a birthday lunch today. The other friend is a year or two older than I am (I'm 77). Her golf game has gone downhill, too, but she has won the weight battle and keeps herself very thin after a period of weight loss some years back. I admire her discipline but I enjoy food more than she seems to.
I look forward to some conversation in person with both of them. The restaurant is at Carter Plantation clubhouse. The dining room is spacious and the tables were spaced apart prior to Covid. I'm not too worried about the Covid risks. Always in the past the food has been good.
The weather folks on tv keep commenting that our October weather is unseasonably warm, like late summer. So I guess there is no escape from Louisiana heat and humidity. We can't stay in MN past early October without having to deal with their early winter. Thank goodness for a/c.
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Jackie: Good luck on your procedure and your DH's procedure. Fingers crossed for great outcomes.
Does anyone on this forum have tinnitus besides Sandy? If you do, can you please share what has worked for you? I have hearing loss associated with continuous tinnitus (ringing) post a cold last March (2019) and while it hasn't progressed, my ENT keeps pushing for hearing aids. Since these are a major investment, with no guarantee of success, and most likely not covered by insurance, I'm looking for alternative options. Thanks for any help.
Today we are supposed to hit 76 but it is foggy so not sure we will.
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No cure, getting used to it can be a chore. Just have the self-discipline to ignore it in favor of real sound. Music is good. Right now I am paying attention to the refrigerator running and my fingers typing.
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Once I started wearing hearing aids, most of my ear sounds went away. I've noticed some muted ones lately, but I also know I have some wax build-up in my ears. I will have to see a Dr. to get that out which I think will calm the noises back down again. I have hole in my eardrum that I elected not to get repaired as it would not change my need for hearing aids -- just one of the aids is set higher to compensate for the hole. So I can't so the standard ear flushes to remove the wax.
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Mary or Jackie: Do you use hearing aids for tinnitus? The ENT MD claims the hearing aids he is recommending will in 8-10 months rid me of the ringing by resetting the brain area responsible for the tinnitus. Claims it is 85% effective but with BC I have always ended up with what my mother used to refer to as the "sh*tty end of the stick" so if this holds true, I would be in the 15% with no relief bunch and out over $3,000.
My hearing loss supposedly is in the "dog whistle" range and since I am not a dog, I really don't care about that loss. The tinnitus has times when it is overwhelming (especially if I am stressed/tired) and others when it is barely there. There is a company that sells a neural modulation unit called Desyncra developed in Germany that looks like a large ipod and uses music to knock it back but I do not know of anyone who has used it. They are in DE and crossing state lines is still an issue in this area. Would love to know more about the unit.
Thanks for sharing.
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I don't use my hearing aids for tinnitus -- I just noticed it was gone after I started wearing them. No one ever told me that it could be "cured" that way. Hoping some one else will chime in for anything that works for them.
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My non-pulsatile tinnitus has been lifelong and thus far is normal background noise. I do notice that manganese (10 micrograms daily) does suppress it somewhat, but I haven't needed to take it in over a decade. The pulsatile tinnitus, though, is untreatable (it's an uncorrectable anatomical defect, my blood vessel touching the internal auditory canal)--fortunately I don't hear my pulse when sitting up, only when lying down. Best I can do is get good & sleepy enough to not be able to stay awake; sometimes I need to resort to an app, bluetoothed to an earbud (replacing one of the earplugs I wear to muffle Bob's snoring), that generates a combo of "white" and "brown" noise to drown it out. The constant whoosh, unlike the whomp-whomp-whomp, doesn't intrude to the point of keeping me awake.
Had a good virtual visit with the weight-control NP today. Weight holding steady (1/4 lb. less than last time) and I even lost an inch off my waist.
Yay for the normal mammos, ladies!
Tonight will be the last time it's warm enough to dine outdoors till spring--and it's the last winemaker dinner Cellars will hold before they begin hibernating for the winter starting the week before Thanksgiving. I suspect it may be our last dinner out, period, because of new COVID-necessitated business restrictions (taking Chicago back to Phase 4a) going into effect at midnight tonight. I doubt we'll have anyone over for Thanksgiving or go anywhere for Christmas, either; and if we can even get a table for Everest's New Year's Eve swan song, they will have to stop pouring after 9pm and close at 10. Obviously, not having anyone over to ring in the New Year after we get home.
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I can hear my blood if my ear is blocked by the pillow. So far, moving has fixed it. I hear a background noise of static when there's no distraction. It's not very loud. A couple of times I've heard a tone but yawning cleared the canal and it stopped. Right now we're living between 2 construction projects, so back up beeps are the real annoyance.
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I've been wearing hearing aids for decades. Needed them long before I broke down and got them. In University they were horrible - flushing the toilet was like Niagra Falls. This most recent set is from Costco - their brand and are very reasonably priced. I used to only wear in my right ear but now both. Mild loss in left ear but severe in right - I barely hear in my right ear. I remember having my first hearing test as a little girl - in high school during the routine hearing screen, I told them I would fail it and they didn't believe me, till I did fail it!!! If someone is on my right side or behind me and I don't have my hearing aids in, I literally can't hear them.
The weather turned really cold!! Not getting an after dinner walk in as it is raining - snow in the forecast for Sunday - sure hope we get enough to help manage all the wild fires - Colorado is literally on fire.
Number are. rising here too. Everyone stay safe.
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Spoke last night with a longtime friend (Bob's H.S. buddy) in Colorado Springs--thus far they've been spared the fire, but haven't had a drop of rain in weeks. Their COVID numbers are rising too. He's retired from the Air Force Academy (Lt. Col.), but still doing consulting work as a physicist. His wife is retired, but keeps busy with online church.
Bob is deaf in his R ear from childhood measles. My singing partner is deaf in his L for the same reason. Our "stage plot" is therefore highly specific. Good thing we're both righties, or the pegheads of our guitars might crash into each other (as I discovered once duetting with a lefty).
Dinner tonight was lovely--started out a bit nippy, but it actually warmed up to the point where we were perfectly fine sitting in the open on the sidewalk against the building wall.
Right now, dealing with the solar-cell motion detector light over my garage's side door flashing annoyingly. Not going up on a ladder in the dark to change the battery. It'll have to wait till morning.
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Just watched the 10pm news....there are so many evacuations near Estes Park, Granby it is so sad - but people are rising to help - a ranch with 200 horses had to evacuate for the 2nd time in a week and people showed up with trailers to take the horses. Two fires near Boulder too. I think this is the latest in the season for so many wild fires in Colorado. We've been bone dry - and windy. Praying for snow to help and rain. So many disasters to cope with.
Everyone stay safe and healthy.
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Petite - Congrats on the purse find! I love thrift store shopping. My two 14year old grand daughters love going and are always asking me to go thrifting. It may be because I buy them lunch. lol
Karen1956 - It is so hard to believe all of the devastation from the fires. Saying prayers.
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This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, and not loss; good, and not evil; success, and not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it. -unattributed
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Hugs and hope for all those in Colorado dealing with fires. They are creating havoc, but there are people out here who care about you even if we can do very little but send up a heartfelt prayer. They are on the way.
Wonderful warm day yesterday. So-so today, but then some really coolish times begin. Brr in the next few days.
My lady friend got home yesterday afternoon with her daughter and son-in-laws help. They will stay for a couple days. Then we will be on our own.
Hoping all have a good day.
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My first Bar Show video went live today. Barshow.org or Chicago Bar Show FB page. I'm the one in the tinfoil hat singing in a key way too low for me, but it's all about the acting. Recording the second vid. tonight or tomorrow.
Back on the roller coaster again. This morning, Bob got a call from Union Health that his sec'y was exposed earlier this week, tested Wed., and her results came back positive today. He last saw her Tues., both of them masked (and him with an eye shield too) the whole time. So the entire clinic is closed till Mon., when there will be a PCR testing tent set up in the parking lot. Nobody but that sec'y has been advised to quarantine yet (and she has to flat-out isolate), but it's recommended that if possible everyone awaiting results quarantine from Mon. till their results come back negative. However, his other hospitals still refuse to do testing on doctors & nurses unless they're symptomatic, and expect them to show up to work unless they test positive or have symptoms. Otherwise, the hospitals would have no staff. He will be staying down in Oak Lawn tomorrow night, as his days are significantly lengthened by having to use the Epic computer system for just about every report or order and he wouldn't be getting home until after 1am.
Bob says he's had far longer and far more direct exposure to COVID patients since this began in March, and that this exposure was more distant and shorter than the exposure three weeks to Gordy's friend,
Nonetheless, I'm going nowhere for the time being, except to the early-voting drop box tomorrow to submit our ballots and maybe to pick up brunch for myself on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, playing phone/e-mail/portal "volleyball" (more like the old playground game of "keep-away") with the melanoma specialist at Kellogg and my ocular onc at UIC. I have an appt. for an initial consult with the former Mon. morning, and his nurse called me today to ask where are my records from the latter. Somehow, I managed to get them both each others' phone & fax numbers (it wasn't easy--the guy at Kellogg is not listed as one of my "care team" until I actually see him so I couldn't access his office via my portal; the number his nurse called from this morning is the "outreach line" that doesn''t take messages; my team at UIC insists on communicating only by e-mail, and said I have to get my records from UIC's Medical Records office...which closed at 3pm and won't be back until 8am Mon.). The Kellogg onc's nurse finally said they got enough info from the UIC ocular onc. for me to keep my Mon. morning appt. Of course, none of it is in either my UIC or NorthShore portals.
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I had an appointment scheduled with my PCP this morning, but she cancelled. Just a bunch of problems, mostly arthritic. Then an oncology followup and mammo next month. Feeling sad, but I think it is situational.
The leader of our quilting group is developing severe brain fog. She is half-blind, half-deaf, and has battled scoliosis for years. We have pretty well decided to work at home, have work-groups of two or three, and not have any full-fledged meetings until COVID is in control. It is all a matter of waiting, we know so little about the future, other than we are destroying our planet.
I am so burned out with politics, but compulsively keep watching the news. Management finally sent out the note that all off-porch political signs must be removed, or maintenance will remove them. Finally!!
I spent last night putting plastic film on my front window. Seven pieces!! I wish I would have had the courage to remove the plastic frame and just apply it all in one piece, but at least I could slide a bit under the frame. I don't know why I did that all in one session, when I have been working on making this shirt for more than a week.
Yesterday it rained almost all day. It started with eerie grey-green light from the Colorado fire combined with the impending rain.
Tippy and I got back from a walk in the dark. He has a little light attached to his end of his leash, and I have a flashlight attached to one of my hiking poles. We are safe from all but the most idiotic drivers.
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My covid test was negative so I was able to have my crown and filling. I'll go back in a couple of weeks for the real crown and I will have to take another covid test (within 3 days of appointment). So now I won't freak about the test...my plan is get the test, of course, then cross the street and buy a coffee (great coffee) and just hang around and walk. It' be probably 40 years since I have been around U of Cal San Francisco (UCSF). I was there quite a bit visiting my mom in the late 70's and the street scape was almost barren, the buildings were awful. It's morphed into the most beautiful place, what with landscaping and big trees.
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