Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
Comments
-
Cami, I don't have much energy today either. I don't know why yesterday was so tiring...I didn't do anything but sit in my recliner in my pj's while others scurried all around. All the activity around me rubbed off I guess. This is absolutely the most frustratingly long recovery in history! It will be 3 weeks tomorrow. but I set myself back at least a week by doing things I shouldn't. The extra pain reminds me of my stupidity every time I get up and down or try to get comfortable in bed.
After the others went to bed last night, I enjoyed quiet time alone and got some reading done. I was up until 1 a.m. but I needed that alone time. At 10:30 this morning my husband came upstairs to make sure I was still alive! I'm usually up by 8 a.m. so he was concerned. He is the best husband! He always brings me hot tea upstairs in the morning and fixes me a plate of toast and more tea when I come down.
We had a nice little outing mid-day. We are all readers in this family and our favorite downtown second hand bookstore was on the itinerary today. My husband, daughter and I spent over an hour in the 100 year old building with creaky floors and a marvelous second floor full of club chairs and really old books. Allison found a few volumes she couldn't live without and we found three travel books that looked interesting. Then we went to an old used furniture stores. Allison loves the look of antiques and says the prices are so much higher in Chicago. She's thinking about buying some pieces here and driving them back home. It will be cheaper than buying them up there. After a quick but late lunch, we headed home. It's getting cold again so I'm back in my recliner with a blanket.
0 -
Sandra - what is the name of your wonderful sounding second-hand bookstore? I hope to get to San Antonio sometime in 2014 & love used book stores.
0 -
-
Checking in this morning and it is a really pretty one here. We will be staying warm and dry and brown for this time of year. Just said on the other thread where I post....we are so back and forth this yr. Either warm and dry, or wet, snowy and bitterly cold. I have sort of expected odd events since our weather started changing so much from when we first moved back home, but always find myself a bit surprised at just how it shows itself. Keep wondering.....what might we have as the "norm" when it finally stabilizes....even it does.
I hope you will all have a beautiful day too.
Sandra and Minus Two....bookstores. I wish I had not 'lost' the art of enjoying and reading a good book. For me that used to be almost any book. I always had one....anywhere and everywhere, and often even would be reading while stirring pots on the stove. Used to annoy my Dh who because of old neck injuries as a young person, could not hold his head steady and look down for long. To this day....though he does better with that...he has spent so many years with his recliner positioned right in front of the t.v.....we never get the chance to change that aspect. I'm not sure he could watch a t.v. if he couldn't have his chair front and center. He has ruined many of my decorating schemes over the years.
Anyway, I was one who could almost never pass up a book store....new, used, didn't matter. I also usually never visited a store ( any that had a book section ) without having to walk through it and check out the whole thing. Used bookstores often seem to exude an excitement....dusty, old remembered attic type nuances. You just feel something special is there somewhere.
Hope you all have a fantastic Friday.
Peace and love,
Jackie
0 -
Just caught up with all the posts and responded mentally to each!
Today is my mother's 91st birthday. My sister Michelle and her daughter and I plan to go out to lunch with my mother. We're going to Crabby Shack, a newish seafood restaurant that has really good food. Not fancy but the interior is nice and cheery.
The bad news about the holidays is that my weight shot up 5 1/2 lbs. About 3 of that is fluid retention. I can't slide my wedding ring onto my finger. Tomorrow morning it's back to the gym and, hopefully, by then we will have finished off the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that dh makes every year about this time, batches and batches of them. Our neighbors all get a big bag of them so they can gain 5 1/2 lbs!
Christmas is over and now it's back to everyday life! Which is FINE with me!
Happy Friday to all.
0 -
For Carole's Mom. We know she is special because we know her daughter. Hope you all have a lovely day:
0 -
Hi all.
I wonder if ebooks will change used bookstores as they seem to have caused the demise of some brick and mortar bookstores. As a kindle person, I am one of the people responsible for the changes. I buy my fiction for my kindle, but I still want my nonfiction in paper or hardback. I am giggling because I am still underlining and making margin notes in my nonfiction books as if I was still in school.
0 -
Carole, Happy Birthday to your mom! Crabby Shack sounds good ... I like crab cakes and Red Lobster has taken them off their menu.
Hi Jackie ... that cake reminds me of my childhood birthday cakes from Dudt's in Pittsburgh.
0 -
Minus, this one is an old musty Half Priced Books just north of downtown on Broadway.
The floors creak, the stairs creak, everything is crooked, and it's wonderful! There are several "modern" Half Price bookstores in town, but I don't bother with them.
The other place that is so much fun to explore is the basement of the Central Library downtown. They have a bookstore where every hardcover book is $1. It's called the Book Cellar.
http://guides.mysapl.org/support
0 -
Sally, my book club friends have all submitted to the lure of e-readers, mostly because they are all travelers. One Kindle or Nook beats lugging a ton of books on a cruise. I was really sold when I was sitting on a beach in Cozumel, browsing in the Kindle bookstore. I saw something, ordered it, and was reading by the time the cute little boy in the shorts brought me my next drink.
I still go to the library, in fact two of them, every single week. There is still nothing like holding a book you love in your hands. (The Shadow of the Wind, Snowflower and the Secret Fan, The Good Earth, To Kill a Mockingbird.....) What I do now if I find something I love on Kindle, I order it through Amazon Prime. There is a special book shelf for all my favorites and another book shelf for things I've gotten but haven't read yet. (It's twice as big.)
Happy 91st birthday to Carole's mom. She's lived a long happy life and still appreciates the good things in life like seafood!
0 -
Hi everyone,
The talk of bookstores reminded me of our local treasure here in the NW.....Powell's Bookstore in Portland Oregon is a veritable treasure trove for bibliophiles...They even have an online store.
Yesterday was a laundry day for me too.....yes Chevy....laundry can be an indoor sport! I woke up Christmas morning to discover that (because I had left my dresser drawers open all night) my bedroom humidifier had 'soaked' my lingerie drawers(2) so I spent Christmas afternoon rewashing, drying, folding and all day yesterday doing the rest of my laundry. Doing laundry soothes me. It's a visible sign of order when internally I am distinctly 'out of order'! Too bad that I can't feel that way about ironing. When I was a kid in Northern Illinois, I was the designated 'ironer' in my family. Remember sprinkling your clothes (all cotton), rolling them up in thin kitchen towels, placing in the crisper to marinate and then spending hours in the basement ironing?? Now if I mistakenly buy a blouse that needs ironing....it hardly ever gets worn
Have a great weekend........:)
0 -
rabbitvelvet, I remember the sprinkling routine.
Does anyone remember putting their angora sweaters in the refrigerator so that they wouldn't shed?
0 -
Happy birthday Carole's mom! Enjoy the seafood! I myself grilled shrimp...on the deck...in the freezing air...in the dark! Grilling in December is sooo out of my comfort zone. But we had some shrimp leftover from Christmas and I had to do something with it. Did I mention that my feet were in a little snow pile while I grilled!
Love reading and bookstores. I do love my Color Nook and really do enjoy e-books...a lot! Just finished a gone one "A White Wind Blew" about the TB epidemic in the 1930's. Really enjoyed it. Now finally reading The Hunger Games second book "Catching Fire". There is a restaurant here in CT that you get to take a book home before you leave. There are bookcases everywhere. The food is so-so.
Went to three Pier 1 stores today and I finally found one that still have some LiBien ornaments at 50% off. Every year I give them to the girls. Now I will just put the four of them away for next year. Love those little velvet boxes they come in. A.C. Moore had 60% off on all the Christmas baking things. Got a snowflake cookie cutter and some of those little boxes to give cookies away in. Love bargains!
Sandra...I loved "Snowflower And The Secret Fan"!!!
0 -
Jackie: Your past reading habits sound just like me.
Sandra: Thanks for the bookstore links. I have a problem w/Half Price Books, but will make a trip to this one just to see the 'bricks & mortar' & smell the old books. I too have a Kindle but I only use it on overnight trips. I even take "real" books to the hospital or the chemo chair.
Sally: Glad you haven't given up paper entirely. Several of my favorite used bookstores are talking like they won't be around in a couple more years. Sad.
Rabbit: Oh how lucky you are to be around Powell's. I have them on my favorites and look there on line all the time.
0 -
Carole, Happy Birthday to your mom. I hope she enjoyed her special day! You are lucky to be able to celebrate this special day with her.
0 -
Life is made up of a series of challenges designed to bring us
to fullness of growth. Meeting them with hope in the future
is the real test of the spiritual person.
Joan Chittister0 -
I haven't been here for a while because I've been in a major funk. Not giving a rat's patoot about anything. It is so nice to come back here and read all your uplifting posts.
Carole, I am/was a sailor, too. In 2006 we retired aboard our Saga 43 named Sea Fox. We bought her in Houston in 2004 and then sailed her to Annapolis after Hurricane Rita. That was our jumping off point at retirement. We had dreams of seeing the world but soon realized that we started about 10 years too late - we just didn't have the stamina for long ocean passages. We sailed up and down the east coast from Maine to the Bahamas until my husband had a near-drowning accident that left him with even less stamina. We're now CLODs (Cruisers Living On Dirt) in Vero Beach Fl. I hate to think of what my situation would be now if my cancer occurred while we were still nomads.
Thanks everyone for your continued support.
Happy New Year!
0 -
Maryfox, Good to hear from you. Are you still getting chemo? A lot of women have a funk at the end of treatment. Up to that point you're fighting BC every day. Afterwards, it's like what's next? Hope you will emerge from your funk and enjoy the new year.
0 -
I am 67 and I had breast surgery ten days ago and my right breast is still swollen.the surgeon is waiting for the swollen breast to harden so that he can use a needle to aspirate and draw out the fluid I can not use my right arm without a lot of pain.This seems to me to a long time after breast surgery am I being Too much of an alarmist ? I was told the swelling should reduce within a week..
0 -
Mgster - I'm on my 3rd Kindle Fire HDX and reading Dean Koontz's Minus Two"One Door Away From Heaven"...thought it was a new release but it came out in early 2000ish....loving the story.
Minus Two... maybe you can someday visit Powell's...it's well worth the trip...Then you can go to Voodo Doughnuts to have something to eat while you read your latest.
MaryFox - thanks for the giggle:) "CLODs" ....Hope you feel better soon
Jackie - thanks for your continuing reminders of goodness and hope. Have you ever read Catherine Marshall's book..."A Man Called Peter"? It's about her husband Peter who was the congress's Chaplin and excerpt's of his sermons are wonderful.
Sally S70- mentioning Angora Sweaters reminded me of winding angora yarn around my steady's class ring so that it wouldn't fall off my finger.....and then changing the color of angora yarn to match my daily outfits! Kids today have nothing on us!
I frosted cookies with my 12 year old granddaughter yesterday and introduced her to the movie, " Gone with the Wind". We are to the burning of Atlanta and she is really enjoying it
0 -
Sally... Maybe I could try that with my dog? I mean she is a shedder...Ha! I never had an Angora sweater....
But I used to love my GF's sweaters that she wore to school.... It had those stitches around the short sleeves? But I DID have Crinolines! To wear under my full skirts! I even had a Poodle skirt, and Saddle Oxfords...Ha! And remember those Bobby-sox? We would cut the tops off of old ones, and put them on over our socks, and roll THEM down.... Like a veritable spare tire around our ankles!
Our Pencil skirts were almost down to our ankles, and we were "cool!"..... Nothing like the short little "skirts" they wear now! We could hardly even WALK in them, much less climb stairs....
I remember starching our crinolines with starch and clear gelatin.... I think we were high maintenance.... Ha, ha!
Jangela! Time to call a Doctor! I mean I would! The weekend is coming up, and then the Holiday, and just make someone listen to you!
Tell them if it was THEIR breast, YOU would try and fix it! I'm sorry about the pain..... call now~! Even if you have to call them over and over!
0 -
Welcome Mary Fox I am someone who believes in a good "funk" now and then. Especially when it comes as we are dealing with this drat-awful disease. Don't know why it just grabs the starch from your sails before you know it and it is quite the climb getting back. Have mainly thought though that many of us ( our age here anyway ) here are old enough to recall a time when it was an almost whispered about only, disease. I don't know but seeing it take place when there was little help for a person diagnosed.....just seems as though there is something taken from you once diagnosed and knowing life might never be the same --- it takes a lot of time to come around.
It gets better over time.......and we move on determined to find the same joy and spirit, and grace, and determination, and love that we once had along with the innocence that fled at our diagnosis. For so many of us......this is big time major loss. I did not get my innocence back and I suspect most people don't. Over time we just learn to accept the huge crowd of people we are and we learn to adjust our sails.....even on dry land and go on to live a worthwhile life. This is nothing I ever wanted to happen to me, but then again.....why not me.
In that spirit, we do keep things mainly on the light-hearted side here, and share things about our everyday life because in time, even though we call it a new normal, you do want to be "normal" again. We are here so we still have something to give to each other, and to the world......and having had someone drag me along, kicking and screaming through my treatments....made me determined to stay here hoping to help someone else....because we all know what it is like here.
Hope you will come often here to a friendly loving place with the been there, done that, and hope to never do it again group resides.
Many healing hopes and wishes for you.
Peace and love
Jackie
0 -
Happy Saturday everyone!
Chevy: Personally I would have rather eaten at Cracker Barrel....not as healthy but a better value:) A farm to table restaurant is one which all the ingredients are grown locally and arrive fresh and ready for prep. The place was packed so someone saw something that I didn't, and apparently they don't have a problem spending $100 per plate...I would never go there again unless handcuffed and blindfolded...lol!
Today was our anniversary (one year) so we headed out to lunch at a new restaurant in town and it was very good. We came home and listened to oldies but goodies on the TV (music channel). This time last year I flew to Greenville to BF's home to stay for a month, so we're calling it our anniversary. Actually we met in August of 2012 for the first time. Time flies when you're having fun!
Carole: I'm with you on the diet...I've not been able to get into any of my smaller size clothes since returning to Florida, so it's back to the gym and my low carb diet come January. Too many sweets for me, and I know better:(
Jackie: Loved your quote today!
To everyone having problems with pain and/or depression I send you prayers and positive energy for the new year.
0 -
Oh Kaara I would never think it's that long alreadt. It does travel fast and u've had such a nice year--Good for you.
Jangela whenever y feel like something is not right lease just call u'r Dr. Don't every feel like u don't want to bother anyone--I'm not saying u should worry I'm just saying put u'r mind at ease. It's much better that way.
I got home a little while go so I have to really read things here. Just so tired.
0 -
Rabbit: Thanks for the memory. "A Man Called Peter" was one of my Mother's favorite books. I'll have to see if I can find her copy in some of my boxes. Hard to believe - this was my 9th Christmas without her.
Chevy: And no one with any sense wore just one crinoline. I remember most circle skirts required 3 or 4 petticoats. Even though it's from a little earlier era - we were the cat's meow.
0 -
My parents and I went to New Orleans for a vacation. All those starched crinolines dissolved into sticky paste and stuck to my legs. And were completely limp. Maybe that's why they had hoop skirts in the south.
Jangela, What kind of surgery did you have? Lumpectomy? Mastectomy? Exchange? Not being able to move your right arm makes everything extremely difficult. Did they give you any advice about using ice or heat or anything? I agree about not being shy about calling. It's why they get the big bucks after all.
0 -
Janglea, what kind of breast surgery did you have? Sounds like the doctor didn't insert a drain and the fluid has built up. I don't understand what your doctor means by waiting until your breast hardens before he draws out fluid. You should not be in so much pain that you can't use your arm. I agree with the others...please call your doctor.
0 -
We had another nice day, complete with a short library outing after lunch, dinner later at our favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant, and a short visit to a friend's house to deliver a Christmas gift. We are enjoying having our oldest, Allison, come for awhile. She loves to read even more than I do so our outing to the San Antonio Main Library downtown was right up her alley. We went down to the basement Book Cellar first. Oh, I could spend the day there. I found a copy of The Shadow of the Wind for $1 which I will use to loan to friends. I'm always afraid my hardback copy will get lost. Mike found a paperback spy novel that looked good for 50 cents, and Allison found a wonderful large, thick hardback desk copy for New York's reference librarians. They have to handle calls about EVERYTHING, so this book had all the how to's, why's, what if's, and wonder why's you can imagine. She got a lot of entertainment for the $3 it cost. On the way home she gave us answers to questions we'd never think to ask, like how many unshelled almonds are in one cup? Seriously, would you call a reference librarian to ask that?
She had not seen Downton Abbey before because she was waiting for some downtime at work. She knows herself well enough to know she wouldn't be able to stop at one episode and didn't have time for marathon viewing. But I loved the show and was anxious to be able to discuss some of the characters with her. (Especially the Dowager Countess - my favorite.) First, she had to see an episode so she knew who I was talking about so I pulled up the first year, first show on my Amazon Prime, and plunked my laptop down in front of her. She loved it of course, and said she would watch more when she got home to Chicago. Temptation got to her however, and she accessed the next episode "just to see what happened" when she went upstairs to rest. That was mid-day yesterday. She stayed up until 3:30 a.m. watching all of the first season and going on to the second. This morning, after finishing season two, she swore she wouldn't go on to season three. When we got home from dinner a while ago, she said she couldn't stand it. She's upstairs watching season three now. So funny. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. I'm the same way. Allison is so funny. She comes downstairs once in awhile and laughingly says, "It's all your fault. You got me hooked. You're no better than a drug dealer!" before escaping up the stairs again.
0 -
Morning gals! Minus, that's RIGHT! I remembered I DID that, but I didn't want to say that, thinking you gals would think I was NUTS! Ha! Or else bragging! Yes! I had a white one and a red-one... They were soooooooooo pretty!
Cammi wore them alone! Just with tank-tops! She said so!
Ha, ha Minus, you said "Petticoats"..... That is such a cute word, like Petticoat Junction! I think they still make Crinolines and sell them at Western shops, like for square dancing? Or do they even do that anymore?
Where did Jangela go? Are you doing better? Have you done a "drive-by name calling" yet? Let us know...
Sandra, I've snatched a lot of books from the flea-market... A lot of them have never been read, because the book stores must get rid of tons, when they don't sell... And I get them for a dollar each! Even hard-backs... I love to get so absorbed in a book, that I don't want to put it down!
Now I just have to take the time to start reading again. It's either crocheting or reading, and I just finished another throw last night... Actually it got so big, it is like a blanket.... a comforter maybe.....
I can't just sit on the sofa and watch TV, I have to be doing something.
Hi to Jackie and Kaara! Have a great week-end!
0 -
I just sent Jangela a PM.... Maybe she lost us? That was her first and last post...
0
