Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
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I remember waiting weeks for my oncotype report.
Today I have to go out early shopping for a refrigerator. DH will phone parts companies in New Orleans. He has done some research and thinks he has figured out which part has gone bad. Hope one of us will have success.
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Good Morning Ladies, well today I am better.
Thanks for listening to my frustrations. I know many of you have gone through similar things.
I am so grateful that there is this place to come and share, vent, lament, seek and give guidance as we support each other.
When I call the doctor's office, I don't want to be the "cranky", or be "that lady" that is demanding, I guess I want people to do their job.
Going to see my daughter, granddaughter in love and my great grandson today... so I have to get my chores done.
Irish
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He who experiences the unity of life
sees his own Self in all beings,
and all beings in his own Self.- The Buddha
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Irish, I think one of the neatest things about being here is that we not only welcome but hope you are able to share your frustrations and upsets here in a place where no one will criticize or think less of you. Sometimes I feel like because we are ( just a teeny bit, mind you ) a bit older sometimes it seems other people feel we have lived through so much that we don't get the deep upsets. It is true after yrs. we have learned to carry on but we still feel the un-certainties and pain, high frustration and the negativity that does exist in daily life at times. So, we are here to hold hands, offer some ideas, comforting thoughts or just a shoulder to lean on for a bit.
It is nice too to hear when others are having a 'normal' day with few stresses.
Hoping for one of those today. Came home tired yesterday so we had breakfast for supper. Scrambled some sausage and eggs together with some toast and called it even. I will have to come up with something a bit better today. 60% chance of rain starting today -- I don't like the gray that comes along but it will be nice not to have to water. Work continues on our projects here. Some longer poles had to be secured for the new awning going up next to our garage. It is now about 3/4ths. done so not much more to go.
Hope you are all going to have a really good day.
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Humid and gloomy here. Heavy rain in the forecast and the sky looks like it could deliver. Don't have to do anything outside today so that's good. Tomorrow is a different story, doctor's appointments on what is supposed to be the rainiest day!
Petite, good to hear your leg is finally healing! Irish, also good to hear you are feeling a bit better, this is such a roller coaster of emotions experience.
Carol, good luck on the refrigerator front. Ours is 15 years old and I am keeping my fingers crossed... We do have a back up in the laundry room but at the moment both freezers are full.
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dbuggy - you do feel helpless when there is nothing to do but wait, but you are helping by just being there and maybe taking some over some of the responsibilities. I did not have a oncotype done, because with my type of cancer it was automatic chemo.
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Mine also, although I might have done quite well without chemo. But it probably progressed during the time between biopsy and mastectomy.
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Welcome dbuggy. For me waiting was the hardest part of the whole thing. Once I had some answers and a plan it was easier to let go of the what if's and focus on the plan. I think it's really hard to be the support person because you would rather have it yourself than watch them. Like you often feel with a sick child. I think there's a thread called waiting for results. The best advice is to stay off Google. Only the extremes seem to post, so their situation is unlikely to apply to yours. Best results for your wife and a speedy plan to focus on.
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I celebrated my 70th birthday yesterday. 18 year old grandson said "jeez, I didn't know you were THAT old". But then a friend reminded me that a 25 year old seems ancient to someone who is 18.
I had a wonderful day. Had my free lunch at Denny's with a good friend, and had supper at a Mexican restaurant that provides a free entree on your birthday. I'd designed my cake and had it made at the bakery of one of our grocery stores, and celebrated with my 95 year old dad and 4 friends that I've know for 25-30+ years.
After dinner then went as a guest to a square dance club meeting that was holding a silent auction fundraiser for our local breast cancer support group. 3 of us attended from our support group, they had us do a line dance with them and also had us join one of the squares for a dance. And they sang Happy birthday. They raised $880 that they donated to our group.
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So glad that you had a great birthday, Connie. I love your cake with the pretty bird.
I slept well last night after two nights of restless sleep following my vaccine booster on Monday. Also two days of not feeling "good."
The refrigerator saga continues. DH and I pulled it out of its niche yesterday trying to find the serial number. We didn't find the number but the movement and jarring apparently awakened the motor, again. DH and I waited for the morning traffic to quiet a bit and then we went to Best Buy and then to an appliance store where a floor model was available for immediate purchase. It was attractive and the price was reasonable but was stainless steel, which is all the fashion.
We went next to Lowe's and found a white model very similar to our side by side. A delivery date on it was January. But we could buy an updated model to be delivered in a week. DH gets the 10 per cent veteran's discount at Lowe's so we bought the refrigerator.
In my records I found the receipt for the old refrigerator and we bought it at Sears in 1996. We replaced the ice maker ourselves in 2004.
The Lazy Boy store is in the same neighborhood as Lowe's so we stopped there and bought a new chair for dh.
So it was expensive to leave home.
Today I have to start getting chores done around the house.
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Belated Happy Birthday Puffin. Your cake was a work of art! Creative bakery for a grocery store. You sure had a busy, fun day.
It must be the week for appliances to die. Our 23 year old microwave went belly up and the local appliance store had none in stock but could order one but delivery date was a big question mark. Looked on Walmart's site and sure enough they had the model I wanted and it could be delivered in less than a week. Never knew how dependent we were on it until it wasn't working. Using the oven to reheat prepared stuffed peppers and chili took double the time. Carol, glad you were able to find a replacement refrigerator so quickly. Appliance store had many empty slots and they told us getting items was a nightmare for them.
Stopped at the paint store to get some samples for the finished basement and was told they could only mix quarts of "test" colors and it would be $20 for each. So I have the paper samples and will have to trust them for accuracy. They delivered the underlayment for the basement flooring today and they are to start tomorrow on installation. They did remove more of the flooring on Tuesday with additional cleaning and disinfecting.
Busy day with derm and PCP appointments, DH gets his covid booster and it looks like leftovers for dinner. Have a good day everyone.
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Peace of mind just can't be bought. Trust me: Even if your conscience doesn't stop you from playing dirty to get what you want, once you get it, it will keep you from enjoying it. As my mother used to say, "A good conscience is God's eye." Which is why I always prefer a loss to an underhanded gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. -Patti LaBelle
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Did I ever say how much I love left-overs. Enough that I often purposely make a lot more than we could eat right away. Still with four here -- so I'm doing it as much. It is a lot of cooking to get left-overs that way. Glad to hear things are coming along with your flooring Betrayal, but a real bummer that you have to take so much if indeed you wanted a test sample. I think it is a little ridiculous, but I guess that is the age we are in now. Seems to me they could keep on hand an amt. just to mix for samples for people --hmm. Does it take too long to accommodate people ? Is it that big a loss on their books ? Doesn't make complete sense to me.
Puffin, what a fun day and I'm so glad your Dad got to share with you as well. I imagine we do seem ancient to the young crowd. I do recall a time when people seemed OLD to me and feeling like they could never have "walked" in my shoes. Count me in for loving that cake. My mom was quite artful ( with nary a lesson ) making specialty cakes so I do appreciate the artwork.
Carole, glad your fridge came back to life, but it could be fairly temporary. I do know things don't last like they use to and its a shame. I guess the best I could say about it is that we can get energy saving items to replace the older energy hogs that some things were. The down-side may be that they don't last as long. I've spoken about my 22 or was it 23 yr. old dishwasher. I would have still kept it save for having to take the front panel off every time we used it to pull out the buttons that kept sticking. At that there was really only one cycle we could still use. Dh said that the new dishwashers usually won't last 10 yrs.
Same on the microwave. I had my mom's old ( purchased when they first came out ) Amana Radar Range Microwave. It weighed a ton since hey were lined with heavy lead. It worked so well all the time. When we sold our condo ( close to Santa Barbara where we lived for several yrs. ) the new buyers insisted that the Microwave be a part of the deal. I reluctantly agreed. We needed to move ( needed better schools ) and I didn't want anything to slow down the sale progress. I often wonder how long they may have had it.
Waiting for some major rain today. SIL went out early before breakfast to see what he could get done on the rest ( so close to finish ) of the sm. carport type addition to the big garage. Enough is done Dh was able to pull two of the lawn tractors under.
Nothing much else planned -- just continual sifting and sorting to distribute items we no longer have room for or want. The used book store and Good Will should soon be getting a good influx of materials.
I hope you all have a really fine day. Again -- Happy Birthday Puffin.
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Good morning, ladies. My leg is slowly improving. The antibiotics are working.
Puffin, Happy Birthday! Great photos. Thanks for sharing.
dbuggy, hoping for the best for your wife.
Irisheyes, Glad you had a good day
Carole, Congratulations on your new refrigerator.
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Happy Birthday Puffin. I remember when I thought 70 was old. Now 90 is old. My oldest child is 62.
Our refrigerator is acting up too and we're holding our breath. DH thinks it needs more freon. I think the fan motor has a loose bolt holding it to the frig. It makes a horrible sound when it turns off.
Carole, I'm with you wanting white. I don't know who decided stainless was the thing. Obviously someone who never worried about fingerprints all over it. Dare I say male?
I have derm appt followed by dental appt today. Hope it's smooth sailing.
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Puffin, belated happy birthday. I couldn't wait to turn 70, starting several years before I turned 70. It felt like such an accomplishment and then I was really looking forward to 75 which I turned in May. I know my mom must be so happy as she only got to live until she was 56--yep, died of breast cancer.
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Betrayal - I designed my cake myself, even found a diagram on the internet for how to draw the bird! If there'd been more room I would have had a little RIP tombstone, and then all 3 of my passions would have been represented: photographing tombstones for findagrave, flower gardening and birding.
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Puffin: As the family genealogist, I want to thank you for photographing tombstones for findagrave. I have photographed many of the family ones I could find but for some distant relatives I have been thankful for findagrave. When my DD was younger she thought it was great fun to explore cemeteries with my cousin and I when we were hunting for family tombstones. While I am not a true "birder" when we were in Africa I saw birds in the wild that I had only ever seen in a zoo. Seeing a secretary bird, roseate spoonbills, vultures (several different species), pink and white flamingoes (by the thousands), plovers, weavers and their fascinating nests, penguins on the beach in SA, etc was one of the highlights of the trips.
Loved today's quote by Patti LaBelle. BTW her sweet potato pies are delicious even if on the small side. They are available in local Walmarts but not sure if they made it west.
My DD gave us her larger upright freezer and I in turn sold my older Kenmore upright freezer to a friend for a very reasonable price. It is still running and it is well over 25 years old. It was stored in my unheated garage and it is now in her unheated garage. Built to last.
Derm appointment resulted in treatment of several precancerous lesions on my forehead, excision of a painful bump on my right index finger which is either a wart or a result of an entrapped cactus spine and treatment of another keratosis on my cheek. I will know when she gets the path report what the bump was.
PCP never received reports on the colonoscopy or the path report so I had to fill her in on what the follow-up is including need for extended appendectomy. The surgeon's office called today to move my appointment on Monday from 12:15 to 8:30 AM. It takes an hour to get there so we will be up very early on Monday but advantage, according to office manager, is that I should not have a prolonged wait like I would have had if I kept the afternoon appointment.
Parakeets have chewed through one of their perches and I have not had the new cage all that long. Never happened before and it was costly to replace so I ordered extra ones because ordering more meant a lower price. Never saw which one(s) were acting like beavers but the perch remnant could be used for an arrow since it is very pointy. Wonder what they will do next? Always entertaining and quite noisy buggers.
Petite1: glad to hear the leg is improving.
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After going "natural" for four months without ever fully getting there ( the top layer of hair is a yellowish color from remaining color), I am going back to color. I can see some silver hair, some ashy gray under the top layer and the back is dark. If I had been home during the summer, my stylist could probably have helped with some enhancement of the graying process. But I wasn't home. I have an appointment tomorrow and my inclination is to go back to a light brown with highlights. I was never dissatisfied with the colored hair. Just decided on a whim to stop coloring and see if I liked the change. Turns out I don't like it. I'm interested in Sheryl's opinion.
My younger sister, in her early 60's, went natural but her situation was different. She had dark brown hair and tried to color the roots herself. She was too frugal to go to a stylist regularly. The gray was winning out so she decided to stop the battle.
It's bad enough to look in the mirror and see wrinkles without having those wrinkles topped with unattractive hair. I realize no one really cares about my reflection in the mirror except me but I could use a boost in my morale.
Yesterday I forced myself to do some housecleaning chores, attended a chair yoga class at the gym, and went to an outpatient facility for bloodwork. Today I plan to attend a senior exercise class at the gym and do some more cleaning. Tomorrow we're supposed to wake up to cooler weather. Much awaited.
Thanks for reading frivolous content!
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Today was a busy day with three groups coming to work at the house. The dryer sounds like it is eating its bearings and DH forgot to mention it the last time the repairman was here to install a new belt just about 6 weeks ago. So he came and yup, it is the bearings. So he will order them. Then the motor on the jetted tub in the hall bath went and the repairman for that is looking into what it will cost to repair. He was amazed that when we had these tubs installed we had large metal plates installed to absorb the extra weight (it took 6 guys to carry the tub into the house and up the stairs x 2). He says he sees sagging joists in other homes where they did not account for the added weight. Guess they will end up with their tubs in another room in the future like in The Money Pit.
Lastly was the floor installer who once he examined the floor decided it was beyond his skill set to install. It is a click and lock porcelain flooring from Daltile and it is heavy. I had questioned the project manager as to whether this installer was qualified to do the installation since the warranty is based on proper installation and he assured me he was over 2 months ago. Well, now he needs to find a qualified installer and we have wasted an additional 2 months! So yet another forced delay due to poor planning on their part.
Carole, there is nothing wrong with wanting to love the reflection in your mirror and I applaud you for doing the trial run on your natural hair and deciding that the best you is one with an enhancement. Bravo, we must learn to love ourselves so we can then love others.
Got my flu shot yesterday and arm is a bit sore so I could not sleep on that side last night. Only sore to touch though. Will go for foot xray today to see if pain in left foot is due to a stress fx.
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Honor, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Choice,
Vision, Action, Celebration, Unity -
The Values of an Inspired Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie0 -
Puffin- happy birthday, belated. Petite - glad your leg is healing up.
Today I ran to the chiropractor, given permission from Ortho surgeon. It was heavenly. I’m book for 11/2 as well. After that was the eye Dr appt, eyes are dilated and it’s hard to see up close. It had been gray with rain on and off all morning. But the sun’s trying to come out now and it’s killing me it’s so bright.This week I’ve seen PT 3x, the sports med Ortho surgeon, the dermatologist, had a physical, and today chiro & eye Dr. I also received letters from last weeks mammogram and ultrasound, both letters say “normal.”
Next week I’m getting my hair cut & colored. I’m not into looking at myself gray. Roots need it and sideburn area is always a bear to keep from being shiny white! So I can relate.
I purchased a new refrigerator and gas stove for my sister. We shopped local, no big box place and found the place closest to her could deliver in about 10 days. She received them today and is very happy. I like how her gas stove has the griddle in the middle. I only have electric stoves in both homes so that perk isn’t on either of mine.
I may close my baby blues for a nap and hope they are less dilated when I wake up.
Enjoy the rest of the day ladies! Op to 72 & sunny as could be
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Cindy NORMAL. Oh how sweet the sound. May it be that way forever. Hope you were able to have a bit of shut-eye. You had quite a week of appts. and a little 'rest' will be good -- and hopefully a bit better eye-sight.
We are having pour downs this afternoon. Was able to get home from work before they started. I'm really tired, but sure enjoyed the home-made ham salad sandwich and chips. Maybe a sm. bowl of ice cream later. We will see.
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Evening friends,
Well my Oncotype test results saga continues.
-Called lab today to see what the status was regarding results. - not ready, missing docs
-Called dr off, they say all info was sent
-Called lab - docs in- in process waiting on insurance
-Called insurance- no authorization requested
-Called lab spoke to manger- the prior authorization in progress - everything at stand still until insurance process is complete.
I was livid- this is all delayed because people not doing their job properly.
I will be calling the office Monday of the ordering physician to get to bottom of this.
I then had a melt down.
Thanks for listening
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Irisheyes, Just infuriating. Insurance more important than you. Wonder how slow it would be if it were them?
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Thanks wren44
Your support means so much, hubby has been great, my brother lets me talk and my daughter says she’ll make the calls.I guess the hardest part is that I worked in this part of the medical office for years- I know how it is to be done. I know when things fall through the cracks.
Better today - gotta refocus my energy.
Iris
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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 Buscaglia -0 -
(((Hugs, Irish.)))
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My fellow warriors,
I thank you for your support once again.
Irish.
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Irish, I remember how intense the first year of dx/surgery/treatment was. My salvation was a small group here on bc.org who had the same surgery/reconstruction that I did. We checked in every day and shared so much. Sadly, I'm the only one who continued on bc.org. I became friends with one of our group who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
We're having beautiful weather for a few days. Comfortable temperature and lower humidity. Unfortunately the blankety blank refrigerator is a continuing pain in the butt. It is not running this morning. I will transfer food to the refrigerator in an outbuilding near the house. I'm so hoping nothing happens to interfere with the delivery of the new refrigerator in 4 or 5 days.
DH seems to have been injected with an energy shot. He's off to Lowe's ordering a sealer for the patio and front walk, both stamped concrete. He power washed them since we got home and now wants to get a sealer on them.
I had thought I might get out into the yard and do some work today but the refrigerator calls.
I am happy to be rid of my "natural" hair look for the time being. A friend of mine says she will have blond hair when she's buried.
Happy Sunday to all.
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