Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
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That's a good one Jackie! Hard to stay true to yourself, but its important.
Chevy: The snow must be beautiful...not always that much in Denver. Kids are in from Vail and are frankly glad to be away from it for a change. We're going to give up our annual ski trip:(...just made the decision to stay home and continue our treatments that we've begun...vitamin infusions for me and chelation for my boyfriend with MS. I could also be doing rads right in the middle of all that. Can only do so much, and health is a priority this year.
Nice party last night with one group of kids...lots of laughter and exchanging of gifts. Xmas Eve my DS (single) will come over and go to church with us, and then on Xmas day, we go to DD's where the entire clan gathers for dinner and santa... for the kids. The adults do a white elephant exchange (crazy gifts) which is a lot of fun. I'm feeling almost back to normal, but not pushing myself.
Another beautiful day in S. Florida. It's why people come here this time of year!
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Good morning everyone. Very cool outside right now, but then when the leaves of Fall are on the ground winter is not usually too far away. Didn't get a change to watch the weather report...hoping it lightens up a bit or ..... I'm in for another gray day --- my weather depression days. The minute I get some sun.....I'm a changed person.
Your get-togethers sound wonderful Kaara. It is really about sharing a special time of yr. with the ones we love. What great memories and smells, and warm, fuzzy thoughts and feelings in general. As kids, even when there wasn't even a tree ( our house did not lend itself too well ) we had a wonderful time.
Good that you are feeling mostly normal, but good to hear as well that you are not going to over-do. Slow and steady always wins the race --- no matter where and when you get across the line.
Chevy -- yes learning this computer feels like the equivalent of running into a wall at full speed over and over. I'll get there but its tedious right now. The one thing that I can say with total genuine meaning is, it seems like it is going mach speed and I'm wondering why I waited so long to upgrade. So.....if you hear any strange sounds.....it's probably me....hitting the wall again.
I'll be checking in after work. See you all then.
Hugs, Jackie
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Wouldn't life be worth the living
Wouldn't dreams be coming true
If we kept the Christmas spirit
All the whole year through?
~Author Unknown0 -
Happy holidays everyone! A special thanks to everyone who has made it possible for me to get through these challenges I've faced the last quarter of 2011. I couldn't have come through this with my sanity intact without your comfort and support!
May God shine his blessings on you in 2012 and beyond.
Much love,
Kaara
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Merry Christmas to everyone.
I had a busy morning with food preparations for tomorrow. My mother (89 on the 27th) requested a shrimp mold so I made that. I always have a little problem "unmolding" it. My younger sister requested creamed spinach/artichoke hearts casserole so I made that and will heat it gently tomorrow. I also grated cheese for a macaroni/cheese casserole. Tomorrow I will make it and will also make yeast rolls. DH and I will pack up the food and go to my sister's house around 11 or 11:30 am.
She and my middle brother are also preparing dishes. I'm estimating we will have about 17 people, 4 children and 13 adults. With my family you never know. There have been Christmases when the weather interfered with travel. Tomorrow there's a 40 per cent chance of rain. I hope it holds off until evening.
Tonight we're invited to an open house at our next-door neighbor's house. They cook big pots of chicken gumbo for a help-yourself type of party. There will be other foods, too. It's convenient just to walk next door. I hope we won't need the umbrellas.
Last night DH and I watched a music program on PBS featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was really good.
2011 was a good year for us. I hope 2012 will be as good. It will be started off with major dental expenses for me. On Jan. 3rd I'm scheduled for a bone transplant and 4 months later for two implants. This will all be out of pocket since we have no dental insurance. DH has an appointment with his cardiologist in Jan. He did not "pass" his stress test and echocardiogram last week. We're both concerned. Several years ago he had surgery for 2 stents.
Again, I wish everyone a joyful Christmas day.
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carole: Love that chicken and crab gumbo! My grandmother could make the best...have never been able to duplicate it. She got the recipe from her SIL who was born and raised in LA.
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Wow !!! the food sounds so good Carole. I went to a small party this early eveing and took Broccoli Salad and Cranberries in the Snow. Will be sending those recipes to Rose via email after I'm done here. I consider at least the Broccoli salad almost an everyday food for me --- but Rose ( she is close to my age of 65 ) had never eaten it before.
I will keep your husband in my prayers to the Universe that whatever may be going on their is an easy, gentle fix for it. I had heard that stents only last so long.....
Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve tonight and a beautiful Christmas Day tomorrow.
Hugs, Jackie
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Merry Christmas everyone! I just opened my first present tonight! My oldest Daughter gave me a Nook reader, from Barnes & Noble....I just don't know what to do with it! I am charging it on my computer, but it says I have to have a wi-fi connection...which I am assuming is different than being connected to my desk-top computer?
I opened up an account with BN, but that's about all I can do...I think. I'll have to wait until at least Monday to call them.... DD said something about I might need a "router" to get on a wi-fi network?
I just wish I could figure this out on my own, & with my computer...Can any of you help? Thanks, xoxo
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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson0 -
Good morning everyone. What a fine day yesterday turned out for us. We treated ourselves to a light breakfast, opening a couple of personal presents, then just mainly lounged around doing whatever we felt like. Early afternoon, I went out to feed the feral cats, came home and had a nice and satisfying left over light lunch.....then off to the matinee at the local movie theater. Saw "We Bought A Zoo" and it was pure delight to watch. The little girl in it was so cute, and so good. Her facial expressions always "got" me.
Ate light because when we go to the theater.....we buy the biggest bag of popcorn they have with butter of course. Don't do it often, but sometimes "sinning" is so delicious.
Nice to start the wind-down now as we get ready to greet the new year. As always.....I'm not sorry to see this one go ---- not because it was bad, but only that I like to look forward as much as I can, and this is the time to renew your resolve to make as much of life as good as you can for yourself and for those around you.
I hope you all had a really wonderful holiday. I'll be back later. See you then.
Hugs, Jackie
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It's ME-E-E-E-E. I am still alive. Fabulous time with friends, families, lots of dogs and cats! All but daughter and family have left and I think I will eat only aurugula for the rest of the week. Waay too much cheese, cream, beef, sugar...but it was yummy. Carol, I find the recipe....it is in Atlanta, and I'll send it.
You all sound wonderfully scrambled by the season and Jackie, that is an exquisite morning prayer. Thank you.
Chevy, I bought myself a Kindle. ....been reading like mad and then got tired of paying $12.00 for new books and started looking at the nearly free classics. I just read, for the first time The Count of Monte Cristo. It was a tome, I think 1,200 pages and took forever but was the best book I have ever read. I think I'll read something less cumbersome, easy and a little junky and then plow into another like it....like The Three Musketeers. I am very surprised how good these are. I have been painting like mad and am getting faster. I'll begin new commissions in a couple of weeks and hope to make some money. Website is being updated as we speak. Check out my new paintings tomorrow. nancydusenberry.com.
Ok then breast cancer. It is a vague memory except for the small hockey puck of scar tissue under my arm. I go to therapy on the 12th. I am hoping she will teach me how to massage the area a diminish the swelling.
I am exercixing like a lunitic just to maintain my chubbiness. When I return to the gym next week, I will be paying for the brie and the Baileys.
As always, dears, I continue to be grateful for your solid comfort during my dark days. Do we have any new scared "older women" out there who need our cheer?
xoxo,nancy
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Today was an overcast drizzly day. I caught up on laundry and ironing. DH tried putting the hard drive from his Dell desk top into my Dell desktop, but it didn't work. So he put the hard drive back into his tower and replaced my tower with his. (My hard drive died on me.) We both have laptops that we use in the living room so one desk top computer will suffice. We didn't want to spend any money on these computers because his is a 2003 and mine a 2005. Dinosaurs!
I'm happy that Christmas is over and we can get on with everyday life.
Tonight we're watching the Saints battle Atlanta. It's looking like a high-scoring game.
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Hey Nancy.....I wondered where in the world you had gotten off too. I'm am so glad you looked us up. I will have to find your website and put you in my favorites -- it is about the only way I can find anyone or anything again. You sure have been staying busy.
Yes...this cancer thing....it does reach a point where it is not consuming your whole life -- sort of comes back to haunt your feelings when you are getting ready for a mammogram, US or any other test connected to BC. But....after you sort of drift back into not having to use great blocks of energy on it again. Glad you are back to living a good life -- it is out there.
It's been drizzling here -- may even get a little snow out of it during the overnight hours though it feels fairly warm out right now. It would I think be very little....more like a dusting. Carole computers are the pits -- but I don't know how well I'd get along if I didn't have one. It is like when Dh insisted I learn to drive....I was 29 and wondered why I had to endanger my life, that of my children, and absolute strangers. Still, he insisted. I had a license since 1975, nary a ticket and wondering why I ever resisted. My computer is almost the same exact story.
I too am glad we have done the Christmas thing -- glad you said it first, but I was wanting too. You know what comes on its heels though....all those New Yr. things.
Saying hi to all you wonderful women....and Nancy -- don't be so much of a stranger.
Hugs, Jackie
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Good Morning gals! How fun to hear from you again Nancy! I guess a Nook is about the same as a Kindle? I asked another gal about a "router" since I don't have wi-fi, and she told me about a Linksys...also found out my DD who SENT me this Nook has the same kind!
We now kindly refer to this as that 'damn Nook'! Ha, ha! DD knows how I am trying to get it "set up" and getting wrong information from one B&N employee, trying another store, and she told me more over the phone...than this guy who was supposed to KNOW how to set one up. I don't think he even knew his last name.
I've downloaded a few "free" books, like Tale of Two Cities, A Santanjelo Story by that tramp Jackie Collins, and bought 3 more for 99 cents...No Time Left by David Baldacci, and Pride & Prejudice....also His Indecent Proposal, by Lynda Chance...
Carol, there are some of your books also! I didn't know WHICH ones were the best...can you recommend?
So now after I set up my router...(yeah, right!) I can upload those books to my damn Nook, and I can then read them whereEVER I am sitting. Not too fun reading them on this computer...
(Too heavy to carry around) 
Nancy, I'll check out your pictures again! So glad you are keeping busy!
Jackie....You sound so much happier lately! I think it's because you don't have so many distractions dragging your little self down. We had a fun Christmas too... Just us with DD#2...And she is much happier lately also, because she is back, (sort of) with her "dink" of a boyfriend.
I swear, it is either hot or cold with those two! But right now, today, this minute, she is happy.... that's all I can ask. (Or she was last night anyway.)
But for Christmas, she brought over a box with these HUGE green peppers, about 6 giant tomatoes, a big roll of fresh Mozzarella cheese, and a 50# bag of peeled garlic cloves!!!! All this from "Santa"....(dear boyfriend) That's all good, right? (It wasn't 50#, but darned near.)
There is just the two of us, trying to eat THAT much garlic??? On what??? I put some in Olive Oil, and I'll have to freeze the rest! Or eat it this morning for breakfast. And then book a room at Motel 6...(They always leave a light on)
Till later kids...xoxoxo
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Did you gals read this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marika-holmgren/cancer_b_1159719.html
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One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.
- Lewis Carroll0 -
Chevy, I'm amazed that some of my now-dated romance novels are available for e-books. My two biggest sellers were The Baby Trap, set on Kauai and Keys to Daniel's House set here in south Louisiana where I live. Another popular book was The Pride of St. Charles Avenue. I wrote all my books in the 80's and 90's, so, as I said, they are "dated."
My husband has a Kindle and it was super simple to set up. He just downloads books without connecting up to a computer. I bought it for him 3 or 4 years ago when they were much more expensive than they are now. I'm tempted to buy one for myself at $79, but I think I would like the one that is back lit and it costs more.
I love the story about the 50 lbs of garlic! I buy garlic peeled and fresh in the plastic jars in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Sometimes I mince the whole jarful in a food processor and pour olive into it so it's ready to use. We do use a good bit of garlic. We probably smell like garlic! The minced garlic in the little jars is reconstituted not fresh.
It is supposed to dip into the 30's tonight and we may have frost tomorrow morning. I'm planning to play golf at 9:40 so may have to bundle up a bit. But I intend to walk with my push cart so the exercise will warm me up.
I love to sleep when it's cold. We open the window in the bedroom, sometimes just a few inches if it's really cold. The thermostat automatically lowers to 55 degrees at 9:30 pm and comes on at 70 degrees at 6:30 am in the morning. In the warm weather we don't open the window if the A/C is on but we turn the thermostat down to 68 degrees.
DH and I are both trying to reduce our food portions to lose some lbs. Wish us luck. Or better still, wish us willpower!
Jackie, on this morning's news there was a woman from one of the animal shelters in the New Orleans area. She was urging people to help out with the feral cat population problem by picking up a trap at the shelter ($20 deposit) and trapping a cat in the neighborhood. Then have the animal neutered and turn it loose again. This would reduce the number of litters being born. She also had a darling white cat that was up for adoption. She urged adoption rather than shopping for a cat or dog.
Hope everyone has a peaceful evening.
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Morning! Carole...So you guys must have a WiFi network? I don't have one ... I ordered one from Amazon, but it is not here yet. I have the books from B&N downloaded onto my computer, & I'm thinking I can transfer them to my damn Nook when I get the router?
I'm thinking if I can just go to a place like Starbucks, where they do have WiFi, then I can get it going there? I have the account & password all set up....I might have to call B&N again, to ask them more questions. That damn nook turns on, asks for a password after I select some wi-fi network, but it just says "wrong password."
It would be so easy to do all this, by having it connected to my plain old (3 yr.) Dell, & do the downloading from there, rather than a wi-fi network. The directions SAY "You must have a wi-fi network connection"....Oh blah, blah BLAH!
So that is the latest in the saga of that damn Nook. I'll look up the books again offered by B&N Carole.... It would be fun to read something you wrote!
I froze a lot of the garlic, because I know it sprouts by keeping it in the frig...And I have a full jar now of oil & garlic...Ha! I used a hand-ful of those cloves & minced them with my trusty little Kitchen-Aid chopper, and cooked them with my beans & ham yesterday...I also added chopped onions & wide noodles.
You would LOVE sleeping here in Denver! You would NEVER get up!
It's 26 right now, but usually about 15 degrees. It's supposed to be "warmer" for a few days, getting up to about 50!! Yousers!!! I love to crawl into a warm bed, then shut that blanket off, but otherwise you shiver all night! We keep our heat down to 55-60 also...But it comes on during the night when it stays so cold here. There is still so much snow & ice here...the golf courses are buried, as are the side streets still! I lay little old bar towels out on the ice here, so we can walk on the sidewalk on the north side of our house! I hate to use that ice-melt, because it kills the grass near the walkway, and the salt hurts Lacee's feet. I mean I KNOW there is grass there.... somewhere....maybe. Don't think we'll see it until June! And the ground/cement/flagstone has "risen" so much...I think they call that "heaving" because of this frigid weather. It's hard to open gates around here, because they drag on the ground.Oh well, enough complaining....right? I'll just go wrestle with my Nook, to see if it's charged yet, & see if I can perform a miracle. Talk to you later. xoxo
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"Consider the misfortunes of others, and you will be the better able to bear your own."
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Good morning to the miracle worker and everyone else. Have an early day so have to run but I'll be back here later.
Hugs, Jackie
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Chevy, we do have wi fi in the house, but the Kindle doesn't use it. I'll have to get an explanation from DH. He can be anywhere with the Kindle and download a book to it.
I'm pretty pooped this afternoon. A nice kind of tired. I played 18 holes of golf today with two women friends and we walked. That's over 3 miles of territory, plus the activity of swinging the golf club, bending over, etc. As soon as I post here, I'll go and take a hot shower.
Tonight I'm making pizza from scratch, even the dough. I have a stone for the oven that I've never used. I'll let you know how it comes out. We'll also have a big garden salad.
Later I'll check in to see if anybody has popped in.
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Okay, I popped in!
We went to B&N & the guy fixed it so my damn Nook would work! It is completely working great, and 7 books are now downloaded into it! YEAH!!!!!!!! I can download the books into "My Nook" on my computer, and "drag the book" to "My Nook" and it will download it to my Nook, if it is connected with the USB cord! If I connect the router, then wi-fi, will do the same thing, only without any cord!
Anyway, I am so happy! It drove me nuts, thinking about it at night! Now I just have to READ! Ha!
Okay, yes, I make pizza, with the pizza dough in that Pillsbury tube! It's really good too...
Walking is soooooo good for you! We don't walk much lately, because of all the ice out there! Still piled up about 2 feet in a lot of places!
Golf? On grass? What's grass? Been so long since I saw any.....
Till later giflfriends! Hi Jackie, Marcha & Nancy! xoxoxo
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Hi everyone....grass -- isn't that something you smoke, oh wait, no, --- that was quite a few yrs. ago. I think now you are supposed to go to the shopping mall and walk --- no shopping allowed, just walking.
Whew !!! Long day but all is ok. I love to walk -- used to go two or three miles a day. One of those things I need to learn to re-institute. That and some daily exercise as well. All the good things that came nearly to a stand-still when I had to work daily again. I do have a mini-trampoline/re-bounder that I keep in the house and when I can't do anything else....use it.
Hope you all had a wonderful day.
Hugs, Jackie
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How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. 
George Washington Carver0 -
Good one Jackie!
I had my follow up app't with my BS today and he said I am healing very well, so that was good news. He went over the path report to confirm that my outcome was the best for my IDC, with clear margins and nodes. Now I have to see the rads onco to go over my radiation choices, and also the regular onco to review my oncotype results when they come in. In the meantime, I'm still following my anti cancer diet and taking my supplements that my integrative physician prescribed.
Tomorrow I will be packing for our cruise...we leave on Saturday for seven days...YEA! I need the break from all the stressful events of the last three months. I won't have my computer so will check back in when I return.
Have a great New Year everyone!
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Kaara, have a great cruise. You deserve, and will appreciate, this getaway. My husband and I slipped away for 2 weeks to the Caribbean between my surgery and chemo, with my doctors' blessings, and it was a special time, very much needed and treasured.0
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Wave: Yes....my doctor was thrilled that I was doing this...said he wished more of his patients would take time to chill and relax before they had to face additional treatment. I am so looking forward to it.
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Karra....good for you. Glad for the good report. Sort of a load off.....and so now is the perfect time to "see and feel" something very positive, uplifting, and a great way to start the New Yr. and to get healthy once more.
I hope you have a fabulous time.
Hugs, Jackie
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