Stage 2 Sisters Club
Comments
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One drink, or even two, a couple times a month is not going to make any difference. If a person feels that they won't be able to stop with that, then they probably shouldn't be drinking at all anyway (worried about cancer or not). I think we just have to be more mindful of what we choose to do......which is actually something everyone would be better off doing
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I know. Bad news about the drinking! Before bc I liked my daily glass of wine. Not drinking now though.
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I'm not a drinker, neither is my husband. I have a glass of red wine every two or three months. The last few times that we've gone out with friends, he's ordered and I've sipped from his glass. We have a wine cooler at home that houses about 30 bottles and never drink. It's really for guests.
I will share the article with friends, thanks.
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well sangria is only 6% alcohol ...just sayin' ...
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Just my 2 cents.... We all came to this crappy disease from different backgrounds. Some are athletes, some not athletic. There are marathon runners, cyclists, stay at home moms, vegetarians, vegans, people raised on a farm with grass fed animals, some drink, some never did....I think you get my point.
This article says don't do this, the next month it's ok to do that.... You can drive yourself crazy!!!!!
We are all different, have different disciplines, diets & regimens - but we all have BC. It sucks & there is no way of knowing if all this diligence will make a difference (not that we shouldn't try).
Ok I'm done.... Sorry just had to get that off my chest.
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When I was first diagnosed & sitting at the computer desperately doing research, a blurb came on the news about how exercise (which I have always been religious about doing) was THE magic key to cancer prevention. I started screaming profanities and threw my shoe across the room at the TV. So NOT FAIR! After my first chemo I had to resist the urge to ram the car of the obese woman next to me at the stoplight......there she sat with a Big Mac in one hand, a cigarette in the other (and I wouldn't surprised if she had a beer between her knees!). So NOT FAIR either! Of course, the moral is that some things just happen and don't necessarily have anything to do with fairness at all. My take on it is; absolutely clean up your life style if you need to (for your overall health as much as anything else), but don't let cancer suck all the enjoyment out of things either.
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Amen Ruth!!! I agree 100%
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so true Ruth!!!!
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Yes Ruth, so true ....and if we let cancer suck the enjoyment out of life, then cancer wins...
LIVE...LOVE..LAUGH!!! Rosie
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Yes! I can keep drinking my glass of wine! All in moderation, of course : )
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PS - ruth your post did make me laugh out loud a litte - even though at the time it wasn't funny... But we can look back on some things now with a little humor. Your posts are always pisitive and very helpful! Thank you!
My now funny was when I said bye to my family, was wheeled into pre-op & this very asia nurse yelled out " is that MJ" we answered yes... "We're not ready - you take her back". So I went back to my family for all of 10 min & had to say bye again. One my 1 year anniversary 1st thing that morning my fiance says "is that MjL - were not ready take her back" We were cracking up!!! Scary at the time - funny now
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Good morning ladies. I am now 6 months post-op - and although I am dealing with possible LE in the breast (at least right now, its just a little ..). I have a seroma near my incision that hurts now .. but nobody calls me back to check it out. My radiation oncologist "took off" at my 3 month appointment 2 weeks ago and left me standing in the hall waiting for 2 hours .. my medical oncologist just never responds to me or writes "I will get back to you".
But - regardless, I am smiling.
The sun is out - and I am sitting here enjoying a cup of tea, listening to my birds (have 3 with a new little baby bird arriving on Friday as a gift to myself), and my shih tzu's playing on the floor. Sons are sleeping and all is quite and peaceful here.
My life, regardless, is good. And I am grateful to be here ..
Before my DX, I ate super well. I am more veggie than a meat eater (although I do eat meat, love a burger etc - just love veggie food). I do not drink alcohol, or smoke. I would not exercise religiously - but I am 5'6 and weight 130 lbs. I did and still do, work hard to avoid the "big bird" syndrome the women in my family have (big chests, big bellies and thin legs). So when my DX hit me, I thought, wow .. what else could I have done to avoid it ?
I still watch what I eat. But if a "filet-o-fish" craving comes on, I will go get one. I look at my mom, aunts, etc .. everyone eats what they want, they are not tiny, some smoke, some drink, but I am the only one in this family of women that got BC.I started a new job in January and I spend a LOT of time running around - stairs, running back and forth to the production side, etc .. so that keeps me going and possibly, helps with keeping any joint paint SEs from Tamox on the sidelines
So yeah, we can change a gazillion things in our lives .. but sometimes we were doing things right the first time. I think we need to dose ourselves, allow ourselves to breathe and enjoy, because goodness knows we have done good and fought hard !!!!!Oh, and I took the bull by the horns and got referred to a new hospital !!! I meet my new med/onc team next Monday and I am very excited. I am not the type of person to sit around waiting for answers so I moved forward and did my homework. And the hospital is 20 mins from home as opposed to the drive into the city.
I am still here - fighting this fight - and I don't intend to stop. BC doesn't define me - nobody at work even knows my situation. But it did make me a stronger, prouder and remarkably, calmer person.
Ok - have to wipe some stupid tears that seem to flow easier these days and get ready to go to work.
Have a wonderful day ladies !!!
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All of you are wonderful and an inspiration for me! Love reading your posts! There is no answer as to why some people get BC and some don't. Mary Alice and I have change our eating habits, no more junk food, more organic when possible. Less alcohol, more exercise. But we have to enjoy ourselves. Moderation, that's it. Sometimes we get that urge for KFC and gotta have it!
We are planning to go to Ocean Grove this weekend to do a walk for Mary's By the Sea. They host women cancer patients free of charge for weekends. I know some NJ women on this thread have gone. Maybe we will meet there!
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I like a dark beer a few times a year. I'm not giving that up. According to other reports, my coffee every morning is more detrimental to my health and you can pry that cuppa joe from my hand if you really want to get hurt. It is always something new that is bad and the stress of what to avoid this month is more than I am up for.
Have a friend who was stage 3 and rad due to so many lymph nodes involved. That was 7 years ago. Had a nice long talk with her this morning and, just like here, it is nice to hear from someone who has been where I am.
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Great topic and one you can always find people taking sides on. If you do that or you should do that...or that's probably why YOU got BC and someone you know who drinks, smokes, doesn't exercise and on and on doesn't. My Oncologist said you just got an unlucky draw. That plus the fact my Mom had BC and now my sister does so its likely she and I got it because our Mom did although 70% of BC cases are not genetically connected. Regardless, we have it. BTW my sister and I two completely different lifestyles. I am of the opinion of living by everything in moderation. I didn't ask for BC of course but by the same token I won't allow it to turn my lifestyle upside down either. Oncologists will tell you they simply do not know why some women get it and others don't. There are contributing factors but at the end of the day they really don't know. I have altered my choices a bit but I still have a drink when we go out and eat red meat and sugar but again in moderation. I did step up my exercise but I have always been an active person and in fact have trouble sitting still most of the time. Stress brings it on too but who doesn't have stress in varying degrees. I love when they say avoid stress...really? How do you do that?
So we will all do our best and God will decide whether it was enough. Diane
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I ponder this a lot too. Of all the people in my family you'd predict would get breast cancer I'm at the bottom of the list. I've been the healthiest eater, exercise, kept my weight at a reasonable level. I do like my wine though. So yeah, I was so pissed off when this happened to me. I'm still gonna try to be healthy just because it's better but I can't make myself crazy.
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Can I just say that I love this topic of "We can't blame ourselves for getting BC...none of us did anything wrong to get it!!" All of you ladies are such fighters and I am right there with you. Like my MO recently told me "I don't want you to think that you did something wrong". Hugs0 -
Ruth, I laughed out loud at your post. I also compare myself to people who I see abusing their bodies and think why me? We will never know the answer.
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I love the attitude on the thread today. I'm another one...I do like my red wine, but I never weighed more than 120 pounds, ate healthy (and insisted my family did too), stayed active (I'm a teacher, which is definitely not a sedentary job), etc, etc etc...and here I am. I do wonder if my love of perfumes, lotions, etc. had something to do with it, but I have decided, 11 months post-diagnosis, that I will stop blaming myself for having gotten BC. Period.
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Happy Mothers Day to all my sisters - moms , aunts, god mothers & step moms!!! Hope you all have a great day!!!
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Wishing everyone a belated Happy Mothers Day! I have limited internet access but didn't want to miss the chance to remind ourselves how lucky we are to keep celebrating Mother's Day and Every Day!
May each and all of us be here next year to wish each other more and more mothers days.
Hugs, Nisa
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So, one of the lymph nodes came back positive for cancer. Dr. told me to decide if I want her to take the rest of the LN on that side. She said with my type of cancer responding well to chemo/hormone blockers that she is not recommending one way (keep nodes) over the other. For some reason this is harder than deciding to do a bilateral mastectomy.Next week I have a bone scan and renal panel to see if the cancer has spread.
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Missingmercury- that was the decision I struggled most with.
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Sorry to hear about the positive node, missingmercury. I wasn't given a choice on the nodes. As I recall they said they needed to do the ALND to make a decision on radiation. If I could go back and do it again, I'd ask that they not take so many, but instead I left it up to the docs. I trusted their opinion and still do, but I'm still struggling with the side effects of the node surgery. Good luck with your decision!
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Man, I don't have a suggestion, back when I was diagnosed, not taking the nodes was not an option. Maybe you want a second option? And ask the doctor the question I have asked mine in various situations: what would you recommend if I were your sister or mother?
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As a triple positive with a positive SNB I was not given the option - both my MO and BS insisted that I have ALND. My BS is not a old-school reactionary - he is one of the pioneers of SNB, so didn't take the decision to remove more nodes lightly. I had a much larger positive node (the size of a stage 1 breast lump) further up that would have been missed if I had not done the ALND. My docs felt the Her2+ was the decision maker.
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This is (happily) a long time ago now, but because of the size of my tumor & how quickly it had come up (6 months after a clear mammo), my surgeon was not at all comfortable with doing a SN either....he did not think it would necessarily give him accurate results. A friend who was diagnosed at the same time with the same stats and treatment as me, but who had a SN (on her surgeons advice), later had a recurrence and sadly has passed away. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered; but maybe with an ALND, they would have found something more & they could have taken care of it right from the start. I guess I would rather be aggressive the first time through, in hopes that it will make it be the last time through!
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It is scary. She said being her2 positive meant my cancer responded well to treatment, where as years ago that was not the case at all. The side effects scare me, but so does the chance of cancer sitting there in my nodes. She said the biopsy of my breast showed that my decision to do the mastectomy instead of partial was a good decision. I made that decision based on taking away as many areas for cancer to come back as possible. My sister in law died of BC. It is scary. I will need to talk to her more for sure.
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Found this. It actually helped a lot.
http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/results/summary/2013/axillarydissection0413
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