MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish
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Greetings, 6doggies (from one "little pink doggy" here.) Since everyone is of a different mindset, there is right or wrong, no normal or abberant time frame to feel anything associated with this disease. I am glad that you can fee you are moving forward so soon. Some do not get to that place as quick. Are you in some kind of denial? Heck no! Your mind is probably just taking charge again so that you can enjoy life even while going to your daily rads. and that is probably the healthiest course of thought/action the mind can take, IMO.
Now, can I quiz you a little? Did you have the Oncotype DX test done and get an intermediate score? What was your ER+ percentage? Are you under age 50? I ask because I am surprised that you had the AC/T and not just the TC. You had a pretty strong chemo! On a lighter note of interrogation...what kind of hairdo are you sporting these days?
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6doggies, I was like that, too. I really felt like I was handling it all so well, taking it in stride, and so forth and so on. Looking forward to getting on with life. Then, after treatment was essentially over I went through a period of obsession with all things breast cancer. I'm kind of in the middle now, sometimes I don't think about it at all for days or even weeks, but then I'll start up again, reading, visiting these boards, etc. I think I'm afraid I'll miss something new (research, development, etc.). I'm hoping I'll reach a balance soon.
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el, are you saying with
my diagnosis, that I missed out on a chemo that i should have had??? Is that why, when my stupid previous breast surgeon finally remembered to take a look-see at my non cancer tit, and saw clustered linear and branching micro calcifications, she about messed her drawers, and said that my onc must have given me the wrong chemo. (she was part of the tumor board, and must have known exactly what she was doing...HA) . That's why she is 'previous'. Earlierier today, I saw someone misspell it to pervious, and now THAT is my favorite word of the day.0 -
Tommie, You must have had some chemo. Are you saying that you had TC alone? I hate to call it "chemo lite" but many early stagers seem to get 4 rounds of that as "insurance." I would think you might have been given something "heavier." The Adriamycin portion is a heavy-hitter and, yes, quite a few with your Dx seem to get that combo. I'm just making observations, generalizations. I do know that the docs review the best course, but sometimes it seems to follow no set of rules...to me, that is, on the outside looking in. So, those questions were just me trying to make some sense of what I think of as major league chemo.
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elimar, she did want me to do chemo first to shrink it, but as I knew nothing, and hadn't found BCO yet, I refused. Maybe that was the one they were going to give me first (Adriamycin, or Adriamycin and Cytoxan). But, I thought I would get rampant infections, (it happened to 3 people I know!), so all I got was 6 rounds of what they called "serious" amounts of TC, plus a year of Perception, even though I was equivocal by both tests, for that. I do hope it was enough, although part of me wishes I would have got to do just hormonal treatments at first! Especially for the fact that it was a scant decade or so ago, that with as many nodes as I had just gruesome with cancel in them, and bursting out of them, i would have been labeled and treated as stage four.
Spell check called it perception instead of Herceptin, so I am leaving it that way.
Come on you guys, only a handful of days left!!! Then we will come and throw a celebration for elimar, for all of us!
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O my goodness! That was EXACTLY the look I had on my face!!! But then I went home and licked my boyfriend.
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Glennie, thanks, yes, the antibiotic is working. We found another doctor, who convinced dh to check himself into the hospital today for 24 hours of further tests. Basically, there is a blockage at the base of the right kidney. Problem is that they can't easily see what it is exactly, even on the CT. It may well be cancer, but it could also be something else. So, the hope is that with some more tests they can at least make a correct DX. The doc we found last night seems excellent, so I feel he is in good hands now and that we are starting to get some answers.
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Momine, Hope that all turns out well for your DH and that it is nothing serious at all.
Re: back in the day, when you would hear someone had a cancer diagnosis, and you would say and think how horrible, and if you were a praying sort of person you might say, "I'll be praying for you(her,him,them)." and then you just sorta forgot and didn't. That is so how I USED to be. Now, I don't say I will pray unless I follow through. Now, I usually don't say anything out loud like "oh when I went through cancer....." unless I am asked in relationship to the person the topic is about. Now, I feel bad for the diagnosed but I also know that there are all kinds of treatment options, etc. I think, pre-cancer, I thought all cancer was chemo'd and possibly radiated immediately. How much we learn when it is us, not someone else.
BUT.....I am VERY happy that BC doesn't occupy my every waking thought and moment. I am VERY happy that my diagnosis led me to these discussion boards and this one in particular. After I'd had my lumpectomy, chemo and radiation, I knew I was going to be put on a medication. My 2nd cousin, who had had the same diagnosis as me, had been put on Tamoxifen, so I found a thread re: that lovely little drug and lurked. While on there, I saw posts from a gal called "Elimar" who literally had me laughing out loud more than once a day, so I checked her member profile and saw she was the starter of this thread and I wanted to read more from her and so that's how I ended up here, just a couple months after the birth of the thread. I have to say, it was the best "googling" I ever did on this site. This thread is about the only one I check on a regular basis and I have come to "know" and love so many of you. I can't wait for the thread's birthday celebration!!!!!!
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6doggies--there is no "right" time line for feelings and reactions to getting a bc diagnosis and going through treatment.Whatever you are feeling is normal for you.Could there be some denial going on?Sure. Denial is probably the mind's most powerful and useful coping mechanism.If that's what is going on it isn't interfering with you getting treatment, so it's no problem.There's no known benefit to constantly being aware of, thinking about and emotionally reacting to having a bc diagnosis, anyway.It takes a lot of energy to go to rads every day and for your body to be constantly trying to repair the healthy, cells getting damaged, why waste any on worry or whatever.It is common, just so you know, for women to go through a rather intense emotional reaction time after treatment is over.It's like the mind shunts the energy from the emotional to the physical during treatment, then re-directs the energy to processing the emotional impact.But that may nor may not apply to you.
Momine--glad to hear you are finally getting some answers and are in good hands!
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elimar, I'm still sporting the "wig" look, my hair is about an inch and a half long all over, I work in Sales and don't feel comfortable showing my short short look yet, but today was the first day that I didn't have to do my eyebrows (happy dance), they finally decided to grow and are full enough that I didn't need to add to them, now if only my lashes would grow faster! Yes, I did have the Oncotype test done, came back at 32, Estrogen is 93% and I'm 47, diagnosed when I was 46. The MO said that he wanted to make sure that I lived a long life and was going to do everything that he could to make sure that happens.
SDM000, I have researched so much about BC when I was first diagnosed, as I am sure that we all do, that I feel pretty educated on the subject, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty more for me to learn but I feel comfortable with my medical team and my treatment plan. I may feel differently come September 11, when I complete radiation. I still have the "what if's" sneak up on me from time to time but I try to push them aside and focus on the here and now.
NativeMaine, I have to agree, there is no right time line for any of our feelings, we feel what we do when we do, no right or wrong. I had a very wise man tell me that worrying is like a rocking chair, it gets you no where! LOL I also have had the great opportunity to meet some wonderful older ladies with BC at the treatment center that I go to, they are always upbeat and happy, the one told me that it ain't nothing but a thing and she isn't going to waste her time worrying about the what if's in life, she also said that her daughter gets mad at her because she doesn't take BC seriously.
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Momine: thanks for the update. Hope you and DH get some answers soon. Hopefully nothing serious, maybe a stone is causing the blockage.Welcome 6doggies. I think you have a great attitude. And glad you have a lot of upbeat ladies at your treatment center. Who needs the Debbie Downers? And do you have 6 doggies? Pics are always welcome. *hint*
Elimar: LOVE the doggie pic!!
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A reminder for all of us:
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6doggies:sounds like good advice from those ladies!
Loral--good to remember, thanks for posting!
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Hi glennie19, I hope that you had a great weekend. Thank you, I think that a positive attitude goes a long way in life. Yes, I do have 6 dogs and here they are....
Hannah and Precious
Harley 
Zee (he is waiting on dinner)
Zion 
Logan
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Will this throw us to the next page? Funny but I seem to be OCD about watching for that marker.
Oh well, the answer was no. Perhaps I can come back and post more after my water aerobics class.
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Love thedoggie pics!! They are all adorable!!0 -
I think we might make it to 1000 pages, but that we might not make it to 30,000results. Is it funny to call them results? Now I have to go look that word up, not sure now what it REALLY means...
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I love your Leonard Cohen quote, Tomboy.
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So - I go to water aerobics 3 times a week. Past summers I've always loved the class and really pushed. It felt so good to get & stay in shape. Missed last summer entirely due to tx. Now I never want to go. I know, I know - I need to keep it up. I wear a compression bra/vest and compression sleeves in the pool on the advice of my PT since I have mild truncal LE. The exercise does help w/range of motion on my ALND side, which severely contracted after rads when it took 3 months of PT to get the arm moving again. You'd think that the stretching pains would eventually fade, like every other time I've done any exercise program. This time the minor arm & chest pain never really stops. I can blame BC for that. If i sit on my butt & do nothing, there's rarely any pain, but that's not an option. I'm not taking tamoxifin or other drugs since I'm not ER/PR+ so I guess I have to blame the R knee pain on my age. Sigh. We'll the next class isn't until Wednesday night. Thanks for listening to the bitching.
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Tomboy - only 111 "results" to make 30K. I don't know what a result is. One post? One sentance? One paragraph.
Testing testing - at the start of this post it was 29889.
Editing - a "result" is one post.
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Love the doggie pics!
MinusTwo--I've got some damage to the muscles from rads, if I don't keep up with the stretching in that shoulder and arm my fingerseither hurt like blazes or go numb and clumsy and the range of motion in my shoulder goes down.I was hoping that would not still be the case 8 years later, but it still is, and apparently is a lifetime gift from the rads demon.I know I'm lucky to get off so lightly with the truncal LE and muscle damage.And I know I need to start walking or doing some kind of exercise if I want to stop being tired all the time.Gotta love the "gifts" from bc treatment!
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If I feel my shoulder joint acting up, I go to the gym more and increase the stretching. So far that works for me. I had tons of chemo, extensive surgery and massive rads, topped up with surgical menopause + femara. There are definitely after effects of the onslaught, but steady exercise and a sensible diet have kept it all within the realm of mangable so far. It is probably part dumb luck and partly because I always had back problems, so I am sort of used to these kinds of annoyances
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Six years later, I am still tight on the treatment side. Only 2 nodes out, but whatever scar tissue I have in that outer breast/pit region just is not as elastic as regular muscle fiber. I can't really complain because I do have full range of motion. The tightness is a minor annoyance, along with the twinges and mild soreness of that side. Don't worry, I have had the same soreness in all of my follow up years and it has been viewed many times and nothing truly evil at the cause of it. Collateral damage of treatment.
This year: I just got my letter in the mail and for all the twinges, and I got an all clear on my mammo results. Woot-woot!!!
Okey-dokey. Now, I've set my sights on 10 years and then I will feel as "cured" as anyone realistically can feel with having had BC. At that point, I will also be six years out from CRC, which is also considered "out of the CRC woods." I never stop pinching myself that I could have faced this disease twice and yet may be be able to live out the rest of my years cancer-free. How did I manage to be so unlucky (and yet maybe so LUCKY!)
Of course, the irony is that it will be very unlikely that I am posting in 20 years when I get my radiation induced _______ cancer (fill in blank, but I always think bladder, which I hear hurts a lot.) Sorry, for that pessimism,(*) folks.
(*) Whenever faced with the prospect of whether the glass is half full or half empty, I have to counter, "How the heck would I know...I'm swiggin' straight from the bottle!"
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I finally made it back to the gym again,,, don't want to comment or think about how long it's been,,, but I think the treadmill walking is helping my morning low back pain. Now to keep it up. It's hard to stay motivated.Pass the bottle, Elimar!
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Elimar - GREAT news from your mammo. That does call for a celebration!!!
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OH, I missed that somehow,,,, Congrats on the good mammo, Elimar! And love the new pic ! Very colorful.0 -
I go tomorrow for my Mammo...Elimar:
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Hi Middies, mid afternoon, just getting up after my 8PM to 6AM shift last night. Tonight, I do it again and it's my "Friday" so then I will be off until Saturday night at 6pm. It is a bit mind numbing but I am enjoying relearning the dispatching job. In some ways it's like riding a bike; in others, it's like WTF????????????
E, please pass the bottle my way. I haven't really indulged much over the last 20 yrs or so, but recently began enjoying a cocktail or 2 in the evening (whatever time that may be in my context), once or twice a week, however, I recently had some labs done and my liver tests show high, so my doc took me off the statin drug I was on, had another blood draw last week, and have an appointment on the 20th to see what's up. Not excited! So all drinking virtual for a while anyway.
I have to call and get mammo scheduled now that I have insurance again. Thanks for the reminder.
Off to walk the dog. Have a good rest of your day, whatever time that might consist of.
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PS I like the bird photo in the header!
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After this, just 100 posts left to reach 30,000!!!!
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