My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer
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Candy, if you decide you want to try some money making like surveys, PM me and I can give you some sites. You would get more offers than me being in the US and there are some decent sites you can do. Spend as much or little time but it can make a good difference. I won't spam the sites here but if you pm I can tell you which to try that are pretty easy. All of it is online.
I had a nice evening with DB, SIL and niece. Went out for a burger, went to costco, forgot how busy they are. and finally walmart. Of course I had to buy more queso. It was fun going out though
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Hello Ladies~I had an ok day. Been seeing a lot and spending a lot of time with my daughter which I love. Like I thought in the beginning with the Jehovah's Witness issue, that my being patient and supportive of her choices that she would end up realizing her traditions and not want them to not be her traditions. She basically informed her DH look. I'm decorating and I'm celebrating things. I want them to be with you , but I'm doing it. She confided to tell me it was important to her. She is 25 and her mind is maturing to the mind set of future and being a parent at some point. She didn't want to tug at the child. So it's going to come down to his family. They usually shun members that leave the kingdom. That would mean he would loose his family. That hurt him so much before. But my dd doesn't want to live a lie. I am so beyond proud of her. Some of you may not remember that happening during their wedding time.
I remember Lynne man. Loved her spirit loved that this was her home also. The lynnes. We have the best lynnes for sure. Always love seeing you here 50's. Ty for the compliment on the mask. That means a lot coming from you. It makes me happy that so many of you have a little something from me. Like a real friendship can be sometimes. In real life. A part of me wanted to share with my sisters. I'm still making plenty of them. So if anyone is in need. Please just holler.
Tanya~ I adore your support for BooBoo, you have a long line of ladies who have your back. That is for sure. One of our own. Both of you are very dear to me
Candy~ I related to your post so much today it had me thinking. I miss everything also. I miss feeling like a powerful person. To make things happen. I'm weak and tired now. Almost 5 years fighting this disease. I'm worn out. DH is worn out. It's exhausting. Just being now is exhausting. I hate that I can't be who I once was to my DH, he deserves so much. Better. Makes me want to sacrifice and let him go. To find his happiness, because it can't be with me. Not with this broken person and soul I have inside and out. It's too much for anyone really. I'd rather muddle(miss her too) alone and do the best I can , then hold someone back I truly love but can't be certain things for him anymore. Cancer is mean and plain evil. I'm sorry ladies. We all go through these funks. And they suck bad...
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I write ~Always nice to see you here!
Minnie~ didn't see you sneak in there. How are things in Spain ? You apart of the new lockdown? What a shame it’s becoming scary that it’s growing again. Hope you’re doing well.
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Mae - I was holding my breath for you and now I'm letting it out with a relieved whoosh.
Candy - you speak the words that so many hearts share. It gives me chills to think of the women (and some men) attacked by breast cancer, looking out on a beautiful day knowing that they face a battle against perpetual bleakness. A bleakness that can cast a shadow from the inside out. It can be so isolating on a beautiful day to feel utterly cut off from hope and joy and carefree existence. A monkey on the back. The asshole in the backseat who may leap forward and grab the steering wheel from your hands at any moment. I think a cancer diagnosis brings a tension, a wariness to your life that never leaves. A weariness. I don't know how to help anyone heal from it. We all listen and know and hurt in our hearts for each other.
Tanya - I hope you can find something for the pain. Of course here in Canada you'd be trying some marijuana cream, which people say is quite helpful with pain management. I have never tried it although I have been investigating marijuana lately, trying to better understand it and realizing that you have to be a scientist and chemist and expert horticulturalist, none of which I am. It is a massive industry here and the people involved are not tweaked out stoners. They are EXPERTS and they are highly educated and it's quite fascinating. I am amazed at what they know and how much there actually is to know.
Rosie - thanks for thinking of me but I must not have been very clear. I know that my annual mammo is coming up and have been waiting for an appointment phone call all Oct. Now it's Nov and I'm still waiting. Hurry up and wait. The Canadian way of medicine. Let's not get in a hurry. Let's have a beer and dip our donuts in some maple syrup and watch the beavers build a dam, eh. I was supposed to have a blood test at the end of August and they gave me an appointment for Oct 5th! I have to make a fricking appointment for a stinking blood test and wait over a month for it?! So...I am waiting to be called to tell me when I go. And the waiting is killing me and makes me insane because my tension just slowly goes up and up and up. I know now that mamms can deliver life altering news. I am scared every time now and tension rises like the tide until I get the all clear. (hmm, maybe I should look into marijuana a little more closely than I have been...)
Mel, thinking of you today as I sew a few face masks for people. I hate sewing them. I make all sorts of crafty things but for some reason I find making masks utterly horrible. I admire you for keeping at it. I am going to call it quits after these next few. I'm just not feeling it. And about daughters... mine turned 28 this summer (28, good god) and finally I see some glimmers of possibility for a reasonable relationship with her. There was so much pain and bitterness between us. I hated it and she hated me. I think that is slowly shifting. But I am afraid to get my hopes up. I have been broken on the rocks before! Fingers crossed for you and your daughter and for her finding a voice and insisting that in her life and marriage there is room for her, and who she is, and what she values.0 -
Tanya,
Would LOVE to see you after Thanksgiving. I’ll PM you and we’ll pick a date, location. I am SO happy to hear that you got to spend time with your grandson. What a wonderful thing it is when families support each other. I’m hoping your grandsons build a bond that will last a lifetime. See you soon. I’ll be the one with very curly (graying) hair!
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Morning ladies.
I am up and going for the day. I will try to put on a smile.
I just logged back on and read the posts posted after mine. I could not get back online till now. Got a call from friend last night (the friend that he and his Dad had Covid). His Dad is in the hospital with pneumonia. He is doing ok, so far.
Quiet day planned for today, surprise surprise.
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I have not got much planned for today, have an echo at the hospital so that will be my exercise walking to and from and that is about it.
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We went to town yesterday for misc. items and saw this lovely friend while coming down the mountain.
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Hello LiL fella. That is so cool! Our Corresponding reporter is back! Wild life and exploration. Be safe in your travels ! Awesome shot!
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Neat Mae!!!!
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Mae, I'm so happy for you! For no lepto on the MRI, and for moving to a beautiful place with such a view, where you have to "go to town" for supplies, and you see wild burros on the way.
Candy struck a chord here when she said, “As I watch the leaves slowly fall to the ground, I want my old life back. I want what others have and take for granted.“
To start, I would like to take for granted eating and pooping, and not have to think about trying to manage diarrhea all the time. I got to thinking about the concept of palliative care, and I read the NCCN guidelines and discussion of it. Then I emailed my onc and asked if I have such a doctor or team available to me, because I am so weary of trying to orchestrate my own wellness. I have a tangle of issues that interact and loop back on each other: Diarrhea, fatigue, sleep disturbance, adrenal problems, nutritional deficits from malabsorption, lack of proper exercise. It all adds up to diminished quality of life. You would think that someone with no evidence of active cancer would feel well enough to get a modest amount of work done and have the wherewithal to enjoy the things that are left. But my days are slipping by, wasted, as I sit on the couch, not feeling up to much. I have been on cancer treatment for 9 1/2 years, 6 1/2 of them metastatic. These days I can’t even imagine doing the things I did at the beginning. Beginning with Taxol and following with the other treatments, I drove myself to teach a weekly dance class, and attended my own classes as a student. I was an involved mom. A year and a half ago, with lots of help, I did the whole selling, buying, packing, moving house thing. Now, there are many days I don’t even cook a meal. I look around and imagine how charming my little house could be if only I could finish the unpacking, purging, and organizing. I want to do it. The old me would have stayed up all night and made huge progress. I long to go outside and garden, and when the time comes, I am often too tired to do the thing I have been looking forward to.
Candy wants her job, moth wants her degree, Mel wants to be who she was for her husband, the list goes on. We have all lost so much. As Mae says, making the best of it is all we can do. Like Rosie, “I’m grabbing these mild days and trying to enjoy them.“ But there are times even that seems like such a mountain to climb. Remember Sisyphus of Greek mythology? “He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity.” But we did nothing to deserve this punishment. I still have much to be grateful for, and I want to live. But still. Ok I will stop wailing now. Thanks for listening. Who else would understand?
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Shetland, I’m sure we all get that, your statement is ours as well. I struggle with taking more meds to make the critical ones tolerable. Prior to cancer, I only ever took the occasion allergy meds, which was a shock to my MO and her staff. It was like, no diabetes, no heart condition, no high cholesterol, what? I was strong and healthy and while I plan to get strong again, all these months of starvation and weakness really knocked me back. But we’re here, doing what we can for those moments that make our suffering worthwhile.
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Shetland- YES!!!! You captured it!!!! For me, the constipation. TMI alert--- I poo, but never enough. Then I take prune juice and can fill the toilet. Oh, to just have a good BM every day. What others take for granted. But will the next line of treatment go the other way? And I will have issues with diarrhea. Sigh....
And, YES!!!! to "trying to orchestrate my own wellness". I do hope you can get involved in a Palliative Care Program. But, I just started with a group and, so far, do not really see a big change. But maybe as I go along they will be of more help. But, I had to search out the group myself. No referral from my MO. ?????
And, hopefully the scans in Dec will show stable disease for me. I hope. But I feel so icky with "stable" disease. Constipation, fatigue, pain. Good grief. What will progression feel like if this is how it feels to be "stable". One would think I would feel good and able to do more since the cancer is stable.
Edited to add---But it is just not the physical issues as discussed above. It is the mental--- the appts, the scanxiety, the thinking about the next line of treatment. I miss the innocence of not being a cancer patient. As my post yesterday said, no need to repeat it.
I will have to read up on Sisyphus. I think of my time as a large hourglass with sand. Just watching time running out.
Love you Shetland. And praying for you.
Love all of you.
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For the election I fired up a US tv feed that Other Half has been using to follow it all for the last month. Its a standard tv cable channel from some market or other, so there are drug ads, and car ads, and insurance ads, etc. You know its grim when you watch an ad for a diabetes monitor or rheumatoid arthritis, hear the list of side effects, including some truly random thing like a liver exploding, and think gee, I wish I just had RA - at least that wouldn't kill me. (I know a few ladies on here have MBC and RA,so perhaps that is a little too flip of a statement!).
Lots going on here this week beyond the election, which will hopefully mean a better 2021 all around.
Best wishes to all for a good weekend!
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Sondra, I hear you about the other diseases - When I first had the persistent cough that turned out to be a lung met, I had just come off a clinical rotation when I'd been in contact with a pt that had cutaneous TB - ie TB not in the lung but in a wound on the leg. I'd been wearing appropriate PPE but still. I was SO SO SO hoping I got TB cause compared to stage IV cancer, TB would be like winning a lottery...
I'm super tired today and feeling blah, but also too wired from the steroids from treatment yesterday. I tried to take a nap around lunch cause last week on Friday I powered through & then crashed at like 7, then got up at 9pm. But nope, couldn't fall asleep. Scrolled through knitting patterns and yarn instead.
There's a Hallmark xmas premiere tonight so I'm planning to watch that. Also trying to decide whether to order some more bulbs for the garden - it would mean I'd actually have to plant them & I just don't know if I have it in me. I've been gardening more but there is still tons that has to be done, a bunch more perennials need cutting back & weeding. West coast weather means everything is kind of still growing. I think in the next dry spell we need to mow the lawn one more time.
My dh is becoming super-fried trying to keep up with everything . Big lot, old house, endless stuff breaking, tons of unfinished projects & this stupid cancer is taking up so much mental and physical energy not just for me but also for him
He's getting super frustrated. I need to get my son to do more. Dd is studying (she's in a compressed program to get her post-baccalaureate critical care certification) & working almost full time but my son theoretically has time on his hands...0 -
So true Sondra. I have RA. When I was diagnosed in 2014 I was so upset. Thinking I would be in a wheelchair later in life with the crooked fingers, etc. Yes, that is horrid, being crippled. Unable to walk or not able to use your hands. But, wow, how I wish now that all I had was the RA.
Moth- Enjoy your Hallmark movie tonight and just chill.
I am going to watch a Lifetime movie--- "Deranged Granny". A grandmother that is not as nice as she seems. My kind of movie. Hahaha.
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Moth~you just spoke like you were talking about my life. Wow such similarities. Unreal. Honestly. I hope you enjoy your shows.
All I want is to be left alone. Not alone alone. But alone to where no body wants anything from me or bring me stress or drama. My DH is also getting burned out. It will be five years in January. A looooonnngggg five years of battling cancer, life’s messes. Family issues. Unequal work being done. My son could step it up as welll. That’s for sure.
Waving to BooBoo, Tanya , Karen,Rosie, Mara,Candy, Shetland, Sondra, Runor, And everyone else. Happy Friday.
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I stepped outside to if the stars (not many tonight) but I did hear chomping. Turns out some Javalina’s we’re snacking on old corn by the “feedin’ tree”.
Goodnight everyone
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Mae, I’m sure you’ll want to read The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell, if you haven’t yet.
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Mel and Moth - did you see the story of the woman in Michigan who finally had a baby girl after... FOURTEEN BOYS?
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Mae- Neat pic.
Good movie last night--- the secret ingredient in Grandma's apple pie is rat poison. Hahaha. Some time to just watch a movie and not think about anything else. Zoom gaming tonight with the group. So... I think some about other things but cancer. LOL.
Hope all have a good Saturday.
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I woke up in such a funk. I am numb. I don't want to sit and do nothing again , but I don't want to go out. I opened the back door and it was beautiful. But I can't fully appreciate the beauty of it because I'm constantly sad. I realize it may have been triggered by a dream I had about my dog Tag. He was in it and he seemed real. Waking up was hard. Sitting awake is hard. I feel doomed. I feel like I can't be happy or even have enough drive to even move. I am feeling so depressed today, it's like living in limbo. No one understands the fear of mortality the way we do. We can't go back, we exist now, and we can't choose how we plan for the future or even look at a beautiful tree. They somehow look differently to us. A loss we feel and live over and over every day. It's so hard to live with MBC. I sometimes feel like I'm eating out of my own skin my anxiety gets so bad. I desperately want someone to give me my old life back. I'd gladly go. Please. No more cancer life and limits. No more fear and desperation to cling to normalcy we once had. I don't know what I did to deserve this. But whatever it was, I wish I could change it. Good people , bad disease I guess. I stood outside and thought Of you all living like me. I'm sorry this has happened to you all too. Because I know how it feels. Wish someone was near. That would help a lot to have someone who gets it near. That's a gift. I hope you're all doing better.
Mae~ that's awesome. I've never. Ever heard of them.
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Mel- Wish we were close by. You could come over and we could talk. Don't know how much help I would be, but we could commiserate together. Doing laundry right now. Windows open for fresh air. My mood right now, this minute, is ok. But I roller coaster so much with my emotions. I could be crying later this afternoon. I don't know what I did today to feel ok right now. Wish I did know so I could offer advise to you. I watched a TV movie this morning and then started the laundry. Is your DH working today? Could you guys go for a drive? Just to get out for a bit. Go get a snack-- coffee, ice cream, something you like. Just drive to a drive thru. Or go sit out on the porch and listen to the birds?
I do wish we could go to Mel's Living Room for real.
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I do understand the dream thing. I dream a lot about my old career. Coworkers. The workplace. I wake up and don't want to start my day, back to the reality of what things are like now.
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I dream a lot about my old life too! I feel lost and stuck I hate this life I live now. One I used to love dearly.
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Mel, I am sorry this is such a hard time for you. If I were nearby, would go for a short slow walk and then drive to a coffee place, get coffee or pop in my case and just sit in the car and talk or in a park and talk.
I spend my days most often trying to stay active because my depressive part of my mind would take over. It is also just as hard to get motivated for me as anyone else. I have been doing my elliptical and surveys because that keeps me busy. I don't have people to talk to on weekends, my friend on the phone is only over the phone Monday to Friday. I do chat on social media and with people I did used to work with through text. I miss the people contact myself and once the pandemic is over, I probably will go more places. I only see and go out with older db and family. Other than that, not really seeing anyone else.
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Mel,
I’m so sorry you are in this funk. I certainly understand. I was like that a week ago. No better place to let it out than right here. We all get it. One thing I have seen, including in myself, is that it will pass. Maybe not the crap we deal with every day, but the funk eventually lifts. But is sure sucks when you’re in the middle of it.
Please let me know if you ever want to talk on the phone. You know I’ll be there in a heartbeat.
Big hugs
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Mel, if you ever want to call me in Canada, PM me, I will give you my number. It would be nice to talk to people and hear voices.
That invitation goes to anybody who feels like they need a talk and can call Canada, PM me for my number.
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Oh Mel, sorry you're having a sucky day
I'm passing you the big box of vegan donuts. They're fat juicy yeast donuts in a bunch of different flavours and they're so fresh! We had my parents over for our visit on the deck. It was only 7C but we had hot drinks and it's a sunny clear day. We set up a separate table for them & give them a hot water carafe & a little box of starbucks instant and a variety of teas & they make their own drinks. We sit far apart.... I'm so glad to have this huge deck. Though today we had to scramble in the morning as a bunch of leaves fell on it and it was slimey and slippery underneath so dh quickly cleaned it all up so nobody would fall. My fall planting pots are looking nice and the fountain is still making me smile. We've had enough rain that the creek is running nicely again too.
I was tired and fried in the morning but now I'm feeling good. Moods come, moods go, feelings come and go. The meditation teacher I listen to (Tara Brach) says don't judge the moods & feelings & thoughts, just observe and let them slip away.
oh lol, while I was typing they've announced a new lockdown for us in Metro Vancouver. My parents visited just in time - all "out of household" visits banned for next 2 weeks (plus a bunch of other measures)socially distanced hugs for everyone!
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Good evening
I walked 4 miles with breaks in between with my grandkids. There was a nice breeze and I had some pains but Tylenol handled it. Came home and snoozed. Now I will quarantine myself for 2 weeks and wait. I hugged my daughter for the first time since March. My husband hugged her too. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Mae I never heard of a javelinas but will google it. Wild burrows must need lots of land to roam. Beautiful getting back to the country. Thanks for sharing.
Mel Candy Moth somdraF Shetland Rosie Booboo Mara thanks for sharing. Wow we really are in this living room together.
Tanya
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