Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?
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Morning all,
Bonnets, I am most familiar with 94 and 208 and the Sara Wells Trail.
Sandy- my neice and her family live right across the street from Orchard Circle. At least I think they do.. When you pull out of their driveway, there is a sign that says Ochard something, and I know they are between Washingtonville and Monroe. My nephew is in Monroe and has worked for many years with the Washintonville Ambulance services there.
Jackie, I am so sorry for your double loss.
I rode 10 1/2 hours yesterday from upstate NY to Fayetteville NC, which is where by brother lives. The plans were that we would stay here today, then drive to my son in SC, which they say is less than a 3 hr drive. Unfortunately, the weather seems to not want to cooperate. So we have come up with multiple options. We may leave here this evening, to get to Rob's before the storm reaches us. Plan B is to leave early tmrw, again trying to avoid the worst of it, plan C is to skip SC completely and have my brother meet up with my s-i-l somewhere mid way between here and Atlanta. I would be perfectly content to dig in here until it's all gone. But Nancy has had another skin cancer removed from her forehead today, and Scott goes back to work Mon. Based on the last one, the initial recovery is pretty major.
I stayed with my sister the whole time I was in NY. She is a very heavy smoker, and she smokes in the house. You can smell it the first time you walk in, but you get used to it if you are there long enough. When packing my stuff up, I packed just enough to get me through my 2 days here in a little carry-on, planning not even to bring my bigger suitcase in. Wow, when I opened the carry-on, to get my stuff out last night- the smell of the clothes is awful. I am so glad I didn't bring the big suitcase in. I will probably wait to tackle that until I am in Ga. Thank goodness, I have extra clothes at my son's house.
Welcome to Odds, and anyone else I may have missed. I have been in NY for the past two weeks, for my older brother's funeral and hanging with family.
The whole time I was there, I had a frozen chicken pot pie at my sister's house and one cooked dinner and one take- out dinner at my cousins. Every other night we ate out. We also ate any lunches we ate at restaurant. It was fun, because there always was family with me, but my system has totally gotten messed up. I was not very happy to go out for dinner again last night, so I just got a small grilled chicken salad. I have asked my brother to take me to a grocery store today so I can cook dinner tonight. My daughter in Atlanta says her boys are already making lists of what dinners they want while I am there. Deciding what to cook each night is the toughest part of cooking for me, so I am happy for their help
Prayers aNd hugs for Sandra and Mike, and Ryan.
Anne
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Hope the weather cooperates, Anne--Fayetteville is lovely, but not during hurricane season (been twice, and was very thankful it was May each time). As to the smoky clothes, ugh. My singing partner has smoked for almost 50 years, has cut down but can’t quit. At least I got him to stop smoking in his car (we usually travel in his because he lives way north of me and we never tour north of Madison, WI). It reeks of Febreze, which is not fun but doesn’t bother me the way third-hand smoke does. (Third-hand smoke-stank transfers from surfaces to your clothes). As he gets older and the hearing in his good ear deteriorates, he needs to stand closer to me on stage and sometimes I want to gag (smoker-breath smells like spoiled pickled herring & onions). His wife is allergic to everything, so she makes him do his smoking outdoors in the driveway. (Bless her). My mom smoked until she was 65--3 packs a day for 50 yrs., the first time she saw her family doc after my dad passed, he pleaded with her, tears in his eyes, to quit. So she did. But growing up in the 1950s, I thought everyone’s mom & house smelled like that. Wasn’t until Bob & I got married, moved across the country and set up our own apt. (and he hadn’t started smoking yet--yeah, he’s a cardiologist who smokes 1/4 pack a night....outdoors only, no matter the weather), and came back to NYC for our first holiday visit that I realized how awful an indoor-smoker’s house smells. I always demand a non-smoking hotel room when I travel, but sometimes (especially in Europe or in semi-rural areas of the Midwest or PA) I have to walk through a smoking-allowed corridor to get there (holding my breath the whole time). Many of us who live in big cities (especially the more politically liberal ones) forget how much of Middle America still smokes....and resents any attempt to regulate it. (I’m sorry, but your “freedom” to swing your fist stops short of the end of my nose). Until recently when we toured by car, meals out on the road were often fast-food takeout or outdoor picnics, because those rural diners reeked of smoke.
All I will say is “God bless Febreze.” (And smoke-free music venues--no more having to shower at 3 am before I can bear to have my hair touch my pillow).
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When we are conscious of being part of a wider universe,
we can begin to see that what we do matters.Every action
we take has a consequence somewhere, whether good or bad.
Everything that happens affects a part of the whole body of life.
Having this knowledge of being part of something larger may motivate
us to contribute to the greater good in whatever ways we can.
Sallirae Henderson0 -
Very pretty outside and not going to be a hot temp. day and I'm glad about that. Will stay busy until Monday night with some extra duties but it doesn't make me a lot of difference. It is just a bit harder to get things handled here at home since some of my afternoon work hours are taken away. It is just a brief interlude and before I know it I'll be back on the standard schedule.
Part of me ( though loving the hopefully better less humid weather ) hates to see the Fall coming though I do adore the season. I just don't know where this summer went. Sort of same old routine --- we didn't get some of the things done that should have been, while having issues that presented as the "now you have to type". Too many of those so we have some chores that may have to now wait for Spring. So funny how summer can go so fast, and yet winter be so long.
Hope you are all going to have a perfectly great day.
Jackie
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The sad fact is that if you go by actual weather patterns rather than the calendar--whether by the astronomic (equinoxes & solstices) or the “meteorological” boundaries of summer & winter--Illinois does have longer “winters” than it does “summers.” We are far likelier to have sub-40 (even subfreezing) temps and snow (whether measurable or flurries) extend further into meteorological & astronomic spring than we are to see "Indian Summer” extend into actual autumn or “peekaboo” glimpses of spring during winter or of summer during spring. And we are likelier to see these cold temps & snow show up as early as late Oct., the peak of “autumn” however one defines it. In my 20 years growing up in NYC, I don’t recall snow as early as Nov. nor as late as April. I never encountered below-zero temps in NYC--maybe once, overnight, but up in Catskills ski country. Here, kids’ Halloween costumes usually include coats, not just sweaters. The only May snow flurries I’ve ever encountered (other than atop a high mountain pass) were in Chicago (three times)--and I remember an 8” snowfall with 16F temps one early April, on second Seder night. (I remember it vividly--it was after we played a late-night gig and I had to dig and then rock my car out of its parking space so I could get to work the next morning. My back was never the same after that). And I’ve engaged in snowball fights in the bleachers at Wrigley on opening day. I remember getting off a plane returning from Phoenix one early May, greeted by 18F temperatures at Midway (the passengers’ vocabulary as that was announced as we taxied to the gate was extremely colorful, especially among those who hadn’t bothered to change out of their shorts & flip-flops before leaving Sky Harbor).
Right now, we are in astronomical summer till the autumnal equinox on Sep. 22 (late this year, with early winter solstice coming Dec. 20--so a shorter-than-usual fall), but entered meteorological autumn (Sep.1-Dec. 1) yesterday. Weather will be mild & dry the next couple of days. But San Diego called--it wants its weather back, so we’ll go back to hot, sticky & stormy starting Tues.....for now. Here in Chicago, we don’t have gradual evolution into the seasons: autumn is usually summer & winter duking it out till winter wins, usually fairly early; spring is the opposite, with summer prevailing fairly late.
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Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
- Anonymous0 -
Sandy you are so right. When we first came back home (I/we had lived in southern California for 25 yrs. ) the seasons seemed to me so ideal. I missed the changes that signaled different seasons --- and oddly enough, in southern Cal. we had no clouds or very, very few and not the big billowy ones you get almost always here. When first home we generally didn't turn on our a/c until mid to late July and now and then Aug. So, only using it a bit more than a month and a half. Now it is usually at least three mos. and sometimes more of constant use. Winters can be harsh here, though Dh and I have found them for the most part pretty tolerable. Partly due to four-wheel drive which has allowed us to come and go w/o having to wait to do anything.
We have had our nut trees shedding ( partly due to the squirrels up in the trees eating ) the nuts and some of the early leaves starting to come down. It is slow right now, but it is obvious that we are not far from Fall. Though we have had lots more rain than normal keeping the trees a lot more moist and the lawns green.....there is the "tired" look that begins to show in the leaves and the lawn which still grows somewhat but does w/o any true vigor. I don't feel ready, but most of the time I'm not, having felt that I needed to accomplish so much more.
We too will be losing our moderate temps. that have been so enjoyable and go back into the harsher 90's. Ugg.
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Growing up in NYC we had four distinct seasons, with changing seasonal clothing fashions. By late Aug. I would get antsy, wanting to wear my brand new woolen school clothes and trendy new shoes. In Seattle, we had two seasons: cool and wet (woolens), mild-to-warmish & slightly dryer (cottons). True winter clothes were for skiing in the mountain passes. We’re only going back up into the mid-80s starting Tues. but the mugginess will be back too--and the storms starting Wed.--just in time for my cataract surgery and the followup appt. Thurs. down on the SW Side.
A bit nervous about my tomato plants: I don’t trust my son to water them over the weekend, nor to guard the slowly enlarging few tomatoes left on the vine from the squirrels. Have to leave for Oak Lawn tonight and won’t be home again till late Mon. aft. Bob is working, housekeeper is off. Lawn needs its granular fertilizer watered-in, and I barely know how to operate the sprinkler (not on a timer)--totally beyond the ability of my son who can barely work a microwave (though he can do practically everything else online). Since Bob & I are staying over tonight in Oak Lawn and after tomorrow’s party I’m headed straight out west to Geneva for the folk festival, Gordy will have to Uber it down to the party & back-->$50 each way. Only way around that is to not stay over tonight--and Bob is always bitterly disappointed when I can’t join him in Oak Lawn on the nights he needs to stay down there.
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When my brother and Mom still lived in Chicago, they moved from 89th and Stoney Island area, where I grew up, to Oak Lawn, while he was in High School in Oak Lawn. I had already married and moved from Chicago. When I went back for my 50th reunion, the cop at our motel near Midway recommended that we NOT go to our old neighborhood, too dangerous! Sad! My Sw side memories were of Evergreen plaza, being the only shopping mall and Melody Lane for ice cream. Long time ago!
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Good call on warning you off 89th & Stony. Evergreen Plaza isn’t what it used to be, even when we first moved to Chicago in the summer of ‘78. We were so naive back then that we thought nothing about driving to E. 63d St. under the L for what Chicago Magazine said were the city’s best egg rolls. “The Mall” to which everyone in Oak Lawn, Evergreen Park & Beverly now goes is Chicago Ridge Mall. Not familiar with Melody Lane, but Rainbow Cone is still going strong in Beverly. When Gordy was born, Bob bought the chocolate “It’s A Boy” cigars from The Dove on 61st & Pulaski, where the Dove Bar was invented: you specified chocolate or vanilla ice cream, milk or dark chocolate coating; they would then put a stick into a hard-frozen brick of ice cream and dip it into the coating of your choice. The stick would go through a slit cut in a paper plate, because the bar would get very messy: the coating was guaranteed to come off in slabs and you didn’t want to lose a bit of it. The original handmade Dove Bar weighed in at >650 calories, and was about twice the size of today’s commercial freezer-case version.
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I am often accused of being childish. I prefer to interpret that as child-like. I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things. I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish. I still listen to instinctual urges. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. I never water my garden without soaking myself. It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work. -Leo Buscaglia
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ChiSandy
I noticed that you did the CD-CRT radiation. I am hoping to "talk" them into this over the original 6 week, every day idea. I am having the nipple sparing DIEP using my tummy fat after chemo and before radiation. Only radiating lymph node but want to try and isolate radiation as much as possible to avoid my new breast. I guess it is widely available, haven't raked to RO as yet but I am at a major med center in STL. Just wanted your opinion, if you don't mind. Also hoping to help avoid lymphedema, but see that you got that anyway even without lode excision. Ugh, probably no hope for me on that. 67 yo with flabby arms! 😩
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Welcome Jiffrig --- I'm right across the river from you. .
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I'm not sure the radiation was responsible for my arm lymphedema, as my axilla was not radiated. I didn't get the fatigue that most radiation patients get, nor did my skin get irritated, sore or broken. It did get red in the front, and tan over the scar area. And it did greatly enlarge and encapsulate the serima in my tumor cavity, to the point where my R breast, which had been the smaller of the two, became a cup size bigger than the L. The redness has faded, the fibrosis greatly softened, and both breasts are about the same size. Back in the cup size I wore before surgery
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What is the schedule on that radiation? Twice a day for 3 weeks? Glad you are back to even again, just back to the way we "we were" is a win.
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Mine was once a day, Mon-Fri, for three weeks plus one day
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I went camping this weekend with one of Lew's sons and his wife and 2 of the grandkids. I put up my tent on the site beside theirs so we each had out own space. I'd had a fever of 102.2 during the week, but that had come down, though I still had an irritating barky cough.
Grandson Noah helped me put the tent up (first time without Lew) and we got that figured out OK. The 7 of us did a beautiful walk on a nearby state park nature trail. Carey had brought all the food and did all the cooking. We were right on the lake shore so the kids had fun kayaking, swimming, fishing. Both nights had beautiful campfires.
First night camping I'm laying on my air mattress going to sleep, and trying to figure out what that strange sound is that I'm hearing, when I suddenly realize it's ME BREATHING! Then this morning I'm over at their campsite for breakfast and Noah says "you didn't sleep well last night grandma". And when I said, yeah, I guess I did do some coughing, ALL 6 in unison said "ALL NIGHT LONG".
So we had a discussion and decided to close up camp a day early and go home, I'd go to Urgent Care, and Carey and Noah wouldn't have to worry about getting to their 4pm jobs on time in holiday traffic.
Well, I have bronchitis, and am now on a Zpack of antibiotics, an inhaler, and some Tesslon pearls for my cough. I'm scheduled to go on a birding vacation in Georgia the end of this month, so I'm going to relax and rest so I'm well by then.
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Ugh--tis the season to be wheezin'. Dontcha just hate it when you exhale and your lungs keep on squeaking after you think you're done with that breath? Feel better--and real chicken broth (canned is okay as long as it's from a chicken) will loosen the secretions so that when you do cough you can bring them up and out of your lungs. Also, you can close the bathroom door, put a camomile tea bag some eucalyptus bath oil or a blob of Vapo-rub on the bottom of the tub, turn the shower on full-blast and breathe (from outside the tub).
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Sandra - thinking of you & Mike & the kids and sending hugs.
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Free will is not the liberty to do what one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulses.There lies freedom indeed.
George MacDonald0 -
Puffin, glad you were able to have the camping experience, but also that you got some help so you can get back on your feet. Bronchitis is rotten and I think Sandy can you some excellent home remedy advice while your waiting for your meds to take strong hold.
Looking forward to today -- maybe the last nice day for a bit. Storms may be coming, but the heat is too. Glad when all that gets settled. I'm back on regular schedule today after my stint taking care of my patient, my employers' house and their sweet little pooches. I'm very fond of all so there was no question that I would do it --- though some things for me go on hold. In a couple of weeks I'll start my friend with the kitties and do them for her while she is gone on another tour. I enjoy it all and we developed a working system and relationship some time back so it is all good for me.
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Morning all
I am finally back in one of "my" homes- the one in Ga. I am physically and emotionally exhausted. Last Wed, I woke up in NY, and went to bed in NC. Fri, I woke up in NC and went to bed in SC. Yesterday, I woke up in SC and went to bed in GA. Although I was in NY for a lousy reason, it seems like that was kind of a wake-up moment for everyone and much of the time we gathered together for meals or just hanging out. The only family that did not participate in the gatherings was my brother's family. His wife is still getting transfusions weekly and they are no closer to to a DX than they were the first time she was admitted. And they just kind of circled their own wagons to rest and regroup, as much as they could before young Bill headed back to Germany with his family. Noreen went down to the city on Fri for a consultation at NYU. NYU has cutting edge technology which they hope will give them some answers.
I posted when Noreen was first admitted to the hospital, and Bonnets replied that her husband had gone thru the same type of thing until they finally realized it was a deer tic bite. She said there seemed to be a large increase in that situation this summer,where she lived at least. Long story short, her husband was treated at the same hospital as Noreen. I told everyone what she had said, and they all thought that was not possible for Noreen. Then I posted my brother's obituary and how incredible the viewing was, with a never ending line for over 8 hrs with a small break for dinner.
Bonnet PM'd me saying that she thought maybe her SIL's father knew my brother, because he, too, was part of he Goshen FD. It took some back and forth, but not only did her SIL's father know both my brother and my cousin very well, but the SIL had gone thru HS with my cousin's daughter Dede, AND Dede's husband's mother, and Bonnet's SIL's mother were sisters! The SIL's father had been at both the viewing and funeral. Small world. We are hoping to meet the next time I go up.
Being back in Ga means major grocery shopping and menu planning. My DD had a second skin cancer removed last Thurs and is so swollen she can't open her left eye completely yet, so her husband was happy to drive halfway to Charlotte so he could turn over his nursing job (mostly waiting on her, and her emotions) to me. He is still in charge of cleaning and dressing the bandages daily. She had a real crying fit of frustration justbefore he left to get me and he said "Nancy- 10 minutes- 10 minutes and I would have been on my way to get your mom! You know I can handle the medical and physical needs, but you know I can't stand to see you cry. 10 minutes!! You couldn't wait 10 minutes!". Of course, round trip was closer to 3 hrs, but he would have been out of the house.
Anne
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Anne, Sure wish they wud try treating her for the Anaplasmosis, Babseosis etc, with antibiotic. The CDC recommends that , even when no diagnosis, if it is a possibility. It can't hurt! Does Noreen have a low platelet count? That was one of My DH symptoms. That effects blood clotting!
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Bonnets, I truly ( not that my opinion matters ) agree with you. As long as the dx has not been made things that are possible to do should be done. No reason for a person to have un-needed and un-wanted medical issues and as long as she is anywhere, where it is possible to have this problem, I'd try, rather than to 'search' so long for what seems to be a highly evasive answer.
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Bonnets, I have mentioned it to everyone possible. I agree with you and Jackie. The problem is that right now, Noreen is retreating from everyone. I texted her several timeswhile I was up there, and she answered thru my sister. When we were leaving, my brother told her to call him if she needed anything. Her first response was "You're 700 miles away, how could you help me?" and when he said if she needed him physically there, he'd be there in 12 hrs. Her response to that was that she will continue to use our sister to keep us updated. So, not really open to suggestions from us. I understand that she is beyond overwhelmed with Bill's death and her medical issues, but is shutting everyone except her daUghter out. The hardest thing for me is that I went thru the same thing with my husband. He didn't have cancer, but he did have a very slow death over a long period of time. I think I could offer her some support. I have done everything I can, And will continue to suggest the possibility to everyone up there, but that's all I caN do.
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Anne, so sorry for al the hard family times right now. I'd offer a suggestion to just keep trying with Noreen, maybe send her little cards saying you're thinking of her or maybe a small box of cookies or tea or something she likes. We sometimes push people away just when we should be pulling them closer. She'll know you are there, and hopefully things will ease for her. Hang in there. Dara
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Jiffrig, my radiation schedule was everyday Mon-Fri for six and a half weeks. 33 treatments total. Best of luck with your treatments.
Jo
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We the decent people of the world stand for the kind of life that will be good for all of the people, all of the time, everywhere.We believe that this is a beautiful universe and that it is made for love and not for hate; for peace and not war; for freedom and not slavery; for order and not riot; for compassion and not violence; for happiness and not misery.We believe that the ultimate decency is to help people and never harm people, to lift people and not degrade them, and to respect the dignity of all people as individual human beings. -Wilferd A. Peterson
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"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi
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Looking forward to getting together with Carole today for lunch.
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