Australian Sisters
Comments
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Racy - that's had bc.
I'm on FB but I hate it - only went there to be able to see pics of our grandson. I'll send you a friend request.
Sorry I didn't join you tonight - ended up doing a massive spreadsheet of medical expenses for Steve to do our tax for last year. So much for chilling out....
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Chrissy - i sent you a friend request I think - I'm not too good at FB
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Racy, I started it as a secret group so no-one but the members will even know it exists. So to answer your question.....oh yes, it certainly is private. Hope to see you there!
Sue got your friend requests and done. you are in the group!
Love n hugs. Chrissy
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Time for bed I think - sorry for not joining you all tonight - I do have Java
Sue
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Chrissy, there's a couple of Christine Bouts. Are u the Port Pirie one?
Jenn0 -
Yes, she is
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Jenn - are you feeling a bit better now?
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Im so sorry I missed the chat. I went for a nap and just woke up now lol. Thank goodness i can blame fatigue.
I have skype rooms with peeps I play fb games with, they work a treat for online type chatting with multiple people. Also very secure with no one being able to hack into our computers etc.
I'll friend you now Chrissy.
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Felt pretty good today :-)
Am showered and creamed up and snuggled in bed with hubby and snoring dog. Life not bad tonight...
Night all, Jenn0 -
Great Lyndal I look forward to getting your request and you too Jenn. This is turning out to be fun!..lol
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Thanks for the correction Sue.
Ok Chrissy, coming to you shortly. Still call me Racy though
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Will do!
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Hi Chrissy, I just sent you a FB request too...
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Morning ladies (just a repeat of my message on FB - thanks for setting that up!).
Today is my first day back at work (but working from home today) so I'll be absent from the forums for a number of hours. Hope everyone has a lovely day!
Planning on a walk and then work from 9-5 with a 1hr break for lunch. Part of the rules for working from home are to keep a log of achievements so no slacking off today. I've woken without the nausea feeling so have just taken a Maxolon for now and not a Zofran as yet.
Glad the chemo fog doesn't seem to have hit yet because I've got a telecon this afternoon with my trial operations executive teams (oncs, managers, study chair etc)...
Jenn0 -
PS: my deleted post was the one asking which CB was the right one on Facebook. Figured that didn't need to stay public....
Jenn0 -
Well, I enjoyed the chat - until I got thrown off and couldn't enter the room again! I could see my name was on there, but it kept telling me I was already in the room so couldn't enter again.... very frustrating.
FB chats may be easier for us - thanks for setting that up Chrissy - I've sent my friend request to you.
Jenn - glad you are felling good - chemo can be quite manageable, and hopefully your next rounds will have se's that stay the same as this lot. At least you'll have more anti nausea meds, so that will help a lot. It's great that you can work from home too :-)
Trish
xoxo
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Racy - I know the threads you are talking about, I have read them with amazement.
I totally trust my onc, although I wonder sometimes when he tells me that the pain in my knees and hips have nothing to do with Arimidex - apparently it is not one of the se's - and also the sleeplessness is not something he thinks has anything to do with Arimidex either. When you read the se's other ladies on here have with Arimidex, then it's pretty obvious that that's the cause. But - maybe they are only relatively rare se's and just seem more predominant on these boards as the women without those se's don't complain about them lol
I too don't think that "Big Pharma" are out to get us and make lots of money out of us. But our system here in Australia seems to be very differnt from the USA, and our government pays so much of our scripts. I did notice that in the USA Arimidex is something like almost $400 a script, I only pay around $33, but the full price (that's printed on the box) is something like $80 - I can't remember the exact price, just going on memory which is very risky for me lol
The pharma companies are a business and they have to make their money back to fund new drugs and it takes a lot of money to develop a drug. I know that if anyone could develop a drug that "cured" cancer then it wouldn't be kept from us - they'd make too much money out of it.
The cervical cancer prevention vaccine is a good example. It would never have been released if the conspiracy theory was correct.
I just thank God that I live in Australia - we have a much better health system (it's not perfect but it works pretty well) and even though it can still be expensive to have a serious illness it's no where near as bad as if I lived in the USA.
Trish0 -
Trish - Arimidex is $180 full price. You know our herceptin treatment costs $75,000 - thankyou Tony Abbott (it was him that got it added to the PBS).
I'm not convinced about the cervical cancer drug - seems like there might be bad SE's starting to become aparent - I thought it was approved too quickly.
After adding up the total expenses for me for last financial year, it's astounding to see what it cost for the second bc. Thankyou MBF and Medicare. I was still over 6,000 out of pocket though. I remember when Steve had his bowel cancer, I was adding up what had been paid out and I think I gave up when it got to 90,000. Thankgod we joined MBF at the right time. No matter what our premiums are, we could never pay them back what they've paid out for both of us.
Sue
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Is that $75,000 per user Suzie? Well all things aside, I have to say in my book, that man walks on water.
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Yes - I know about the Herceptin costs - and it was only that someone in the Liberal Party had a relative that had bc that it was put onto PBS.
My out of pocket expenses for my bc were almost $14,000. I'm in a private health fund too. If I had chosen to go through the public system it would have cost me less than $1,500 though.
Even my $14,000 is a very small cost of the whole thing - it would be up around the $150,000. One treatment of Taxotere is around $7,000 - and I only paid $33.
As I said - our system isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than many countries. I may have waited a week or two for surgery in a public hospital, but I would have been treated and not been bankrupted in the process.
Trish
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Hi all
Jenn...How fantastic that you can work from home and good to hear that you're feeling a bit better.
Susie...we do have a great health care system here esp. if you know how to use it. Even if you have private health insurance sometimes its better to wait a little and go public for some procedures like recon. I know of one lady who was quoted quite large gap payments in the private system who decided to wait..went public and ended up with the same PS she had consulted privately and had NO out of pocket expenses. Lots of surgeons work publicly and privately.
Paying the premiums is a pain but I wouldn't be without Privare insurance.
jezza
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Hi ya goils! I'm a bad, bad girl! I slept until midday!!! OMG!!!! I don't believe it................I don't know why but when the weather is hot, and it is hot, hot, hot here at the moment, all I want to do is sleep!
Trish, you're in....lol.
Jenn, hope your first day 'at' work goes well for you.
I'm on a disability pension so my scripts are $5.80 per which is a good thing as before that I was at the usuall $33 but I was paying out close to $200 per month for all my meds. We join private health when Howard first bought in that penalty percentage. I think that was either 1999 or 2000. Yes it's very expensive per month but even though sometimes I find it hard, that usually is the first thing that gets paid. I would hate to add up all my medical costs as I think I would have a heart attack at the total but even with Medicare and Private Health, I'm still thousands out of pocket but I would not swap the Aussie Health system for any other and that includes the Brits. I am often appauled with the fact that young women in the US come to this forum is absolute terror as they have found a lump and they have no insurance in a system that sometime will not even look at you unless you have..........to me that is wrong, wrong, wrong!
I think I better get off the soap box....lol.......I'm preaching to the converted!
Hey Jezz, nice to see you.
Love n hugs all. Chrissy
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Chemo is on hold for me... I just went to the GP and I have bronchitis. I have to have physio in the morning to try to cough up a nice big ball of ..... so that they can identify viral or bacterial. He said my immune system is already compromised from the breast infection, so he wants me to wait another week. I have just rung the onco clinic and they are going to call me back. The nurses are busy.
In one way, I just want to get this chemo ball rolling but on the other hand, I really need to start off healthier than I currently am.
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Awe Kate, sorry about that but better you should know than not. Maybe this will give you a bit more of an opportunity to follow up on the port thing.................maybe it's a good thing.
I know you just want to get it all over and done with but trying to do chemo with an immune system that is really overextended is just asking for big troubles. It has a hard enough time when you start with a strong one. Give yourself the time that you need to get well and believe me, the time for chemo will be here before you know it.
Love n hugs. Chrissy
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Sorry to hear you are not well Kate :-(
I worked from 8.15 this morning until 4.30 this afternoon, with a one hour lunch hour. I used my first half of lunch for food and the second half for a NAP!!!! The tiles around my desk chair seemed to be littered with hairs when I finished :-(
Looking at my computer screen all day was obviously hard on the eyes - they feel irritated and I've put in drops...
Working from home again tomorrow and then going into the office on Friday.
Emailed the breast nurse today to follow-up my phone conversation with her yesterday about the nausea. Got an email to say the onc has prescribed Zofran with 5 repeats :-) I will pick it up on Friday when I go into work.
regards Jenn0 -
Yay Jenn you did it!!! Day one down! Sorry about the hair fall but be prepared for it to speed up.
Glad you got onto the Breast Nurse about your nausea and Yay for your doc and the script he has left you.
Rest and refresh now so you are ready for tomorrow!
Love n hugs. Chrissy
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congratz Jen, bet you sleep well tonight
Commiserations Kate, but as Chrissy said you need to be healthy before starting chemo or you will find it harder to recover between each course. Best of luck in beating the bronchitis asap and hopefully getting the port installed. 3 years later and nurses who's only job is to draw blood still find it hard to stick a needle into a vein on my arm thanks to not having a port from the beginning. Cannot stress how much better a port makes the whole chemo experience
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Kate - I saw a story on telly one day regarding a man who approached Tony Abbot as his wife needed herceptin (she was a later stage) - it was that man that convinced him to get it approved under the PBS - yes it is $75,000 for the year of treatments.
Trish - I paid absolutely nothing for my chemo as my onc does not charge a gap. I was admitted every time to a day hospital, so MBF covered everything. Love that man.0 -
Oh Kate - sorry to hear your news, but you are better off waiting - especially if you have broncitis - that's not good.
Jenn - well done for working a whole day on day 1!!! You did much better than me, I couldn't manage a full day the whole time I was on chemo. Make sure you pace yourself, the fatigue is cumulative and will get worse as you go on.Sue - you are right - I sort of got it half right - Arimidex is $180.18 lol I just checked my packet. You are lucky you could get your chemo through your health fund. I could have done that and gone to one of the private hospitals here in Canberra, but at the time I worked for the Australian Medical Council - they know exactly who is a good dr and which hospitals are the best etc. I was told in no uncertain terms not to go to any of the private hospitals here. The Canberra Hospital was the best outside of Sydney. It wasn't my onc who charged - it was the hospital pharmacy, but if I had hardship there would have been some arrangement made.
Trish0 -
Trish - I do remember you telling me that about your treatment situation.
Time to cook dinner I guess - sigh
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