Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?

Oh Sandra - So sorry for this new set back. Sounds like taking everything into consideration, the news is OK so far. Hoping for good numbers from the MDA test. And of course that PT won't be too onerous.

Sandra, sending out prayers to Mike , and to you......keep us in the loop.....hugs

The highest form of praise you can offer to yourself, to God and to the world is to spend time each day expressing gratitude.It says to God that you are aware and appreciative of grace.It says to life that you are acknowledging its awesome presence in you.It says to yourself that you are worth the time it takes to be healed.Time spent in silence, contemplation and gratitude is time spent in devotion to a higher calling and a more loving state of being. - Iyanla Vanzant

(((Sandra & Mike))). Fingers crossed that Mike's numbers tanking was stress-related (the cortisol we make can be nasty stuff), and that he is turning the corner. Good sign that he is allowed to bear weight despite the fractures; hope the pain relievers work.

The ideals that have lighted my way and, time after time, have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. -Albert Einstein

My apologies for missing yesterday. So many errands that I just didn't get here. Rain last night ( not long ) but the sun it out ( hoping it stays ) this morning and I think our warmth is returning. Pretty chilly around here the last few days. Hope you are all well.

Chilly here too, breeze off the lake (but unfortunately, not enough to keep the Giants from going up 1-0 with 1 out in the top of the 1st. Switching the channel from the Cubs game).

My housekeeper is in surgery as we speak (modified bunionectomy). So for the next 6 weeks I am a “Real Housewife of Chicago." Figure if I stay ahead of the dishes (my guys can’t figure out how to work the dishwasher and so they wash everything by hand—badly), water the tomatoes and set up the lawn sprinkler, and wash underwear & towels, we'll be fine (so long as my guys take out the garbage and pick up after themselves). Biggest challenge is getting up early enough each day to feed the kitties their wet food (and Happy his squirt of fish oil). Unfortunately, no Silver Sneakers, as it starts at kitty-feeding time.

Neither of my guys have ever lived alone (except for a couple of days in a hotel) so they’ve never done housework. Ever notice that when men unaccustomed to housework attempt it, they do it ineptly (e.g., washing the floor with just a paper towel) so that we’ll take over the task and never ask them to do it again?

Sandy - I never put up with that from my husband or son. Like most families, we never had the money to have a maid or even someone to clean the house. Since I worked full time, they had to pitch in. They could reach the ice tea as well as I could. They could clean the shower or cook a meal or do a wash. If it wasn't right, the next time was better. If they turned their jockey shorts pink by washing with a red shirt, well too bad. I taught my son to iron. By the time he went to college all the girls came to him and brought him food goodies and money if he would just please iron their shirts. The only thing I never let either DH or DS do was go to the grocery store. The goodies they bought would have broken the food budget for the week, not to mention the healthy eating plan.

I was out to visit year before last and they had a new front loading washer. I asked my DIL if she would show me how to start it, since I mine isn't new fangled. She said absolutely not, she isn't allowed to touch the new machine. Apparently my son does all the wash. She cooks. They clean together.

When we lived in England, we had a cleaning lady twice a week plus a part time mother's helper, while I was stay-at-home Mom and took care of the groceries, laundry, cooking. Now that DH is retired, we joke that he is my English butler, housekeeper, cook & gardener (he's a Brit). Also does laundry & irons. I am truly fortunate! Not sure what will happen when I retire in another 2.5 years, so enjoying it while it lasts.

When I was growing up, we had a cleaning lady come in every other week at first and then once every week. My mom wasn't the neatest housekeeper, but we managed in between cleaning lady visits, and Mom was an excellent cook. Sixties liberal that I was, I vowed I would never exploit anyone like that. (My mom paid her far more than my aunts did, but it probably was barely minimum wage).

Bob & I never had household help until just before Gordy was born (13 years into our marriage)—we hired a cleaning service to come in and get the apt. ready, which took a day & a half. My folks & his (mine flew in for the bris, his didn't) chipped in to hire a live-in baby nurse—I was reluctant, because nobody in our situation had one and we were sure we could handle a baby ourselves. Well, we got pretty used to the nurse—she gave me the freedom to work (a friend & I managed a graphic arts temp agency out of his home—his wife had just given birth a week before I did), nap, go shopping, do the cooking, laundry & cleaning and breastfeed Gordy. Then after six weeks she had to move on to her next assignment; and though I did okay at first, a few weeks later I fell apart. I never got to “sleep when the baby sleeps," because when else would I do the housework and eat? My friend came over over, saw me sitting on the dining room floor, crying, with a bologna sandwich in my hand, unable to decide whether to shower, eat or do the laundry; he brought Gordy over to his place where his MIL had come in from Nova Scotia to help care for his baby son, and then took me to the HMO's on-call shrink. That's how I found out I had postpartum depression.

Then, my former baby nurse called—her DIL needed work as a M-F 9-5 nanny & housekeeper, and would I be interested? Well, duh. 32 years later…..

I enjoyed reading your post about your life, Ducky. My mother had six kids and lived pretty much the same life. She also helped in the field with harvesting strawberries and peppers during lean years when my father tried to make a living farming.

I rejected her kind of life and decided against having children. Not all women are meant to be nurturers. I don't regret my choice. I wish all mothers were devoted to their children's wellbeing like you and my mother.

I am sitting on the deck in MN wearing a sweatshirt and a light jacket and enjoying the crisp cool air!

Happy...Friday??

My mother only had two children --- though she wanted a lot more --- she'd have been happy with 12. She was the type of person who would have done it all just fine. Though eventually we learned ( my sis and I ) to cook and clean properly --- my dad didn't want us girls in the kitchen. He loved my mom's cooking and felt like when he came home from work he deserved it. What he didn't know didn't hurt him. We were not "caught" cooking, but often would be allowed to measure out and stir up ingredients before Dad got home. Some of the praises my Mom got ( all well earned since we used her recipes ) were actually put together by us. Later, when we were out on our own --- we did have to learn how to get the 'feel' for when something was really done and ready. Also how to shop for food ( Home Ec clad helped on that ) and choose recipes we could handle.

We had all dirt roads, no carpet in our house and old fashioned tile floor ( a lot of it ) where paste waste was applied -- buff, buff, buff. We drank and used well water ( do you know what frogs do in that water) so there was a lot of carrying water from the well -- especially on wash day. We had a coal stove for man years -- more carrying ( the coal shed and outdoor toilet was at the far end of our property ) of coal buckets. I was always for my age tall and very think and those buckets were a struggle.

I wouldn't have traded my life but it wasn't always easy. As my dad used to say --- do what your told because it builds stamina and character. I hated hearing it then, but when I got a lot older I came to see it for what it was. An opportunity to learn just what he said --- I could have staying power often when others were wearing thin, and I could do be ethical and upright about my successes and failures.

My mom came of age during the Great Depression. She was the “baby” of three kids, and graduated from high school at barely 16. But because it was the Depression and her brother wanted to be a lawyer, she wasn’t allowed to take the “academic” track but instead was forced into the “commercial” (secretarial/salesclerk/factory-worker) track so that she was sent out to work as a legal secretary a week after graduation to help put her brother through Columbia U. and then its law school. (She remained at that Wall St. firm till the week before I was born—her boss wanted her to “read law” under his supervision so she could sit for the NYS bar exam despite having had only one semester of night classes at Brooklyn College, but after 10 years of her trying to conceive, along I came). She married at 20 (my dad had a M.A. in history from NYU but quit teaching after a few months at a vocational HS with mostly “juvenile delinquents” and spent the rest of his career in civil service as a NYS Labor Dept. inspector), had two kids, and went back to work full time after my dad recovered from his heart attacks at 50 and declared that at 12 & 14 my sister & I would be better served by having a career-woman mom as a role model. She started at the bottom—as a clerk-typist for the Bd. of Ed., took and aced every civil service exam; and by the time she retired at 60 was a caseworker-supervisor (her colleagues all had MSW degrees) for the city dept. of Social Services (and a shop steward for her union local). She retired to take care of my dad, whose bipolar disorder had forced him into early retirement, but still kept her union position and reported for & edited its newspaper after my dad died at 72 of his third heart attack. Even after moving to FL at 73, she edited the paper by mail & fax for a year. Whatever organization she joined, she eventually rose to the top.

She did get a cleaning lady starting when I was about 10. But she did all the cooking & baking (except for my sister & me pitching in so we could learn—none of us used recipes except for baking), light housework (we dusted, took turns with dishes, ironed and made our beds), all in first a 1-BR and then 2-BR in a Brooklyn (Brownsville) walk-up my grandma owned, and then a 3-BR top floor of an E. Flatbush 2-flat when Grandma moved in with us after she sold her own house and the apt. bldg. when the neighborhood began deteriorating.

My sister & I lived at home till our respective wedding days—I graduated from college (Brooklyn College—at the time tuition-free and to this day commuter-only) at 20 and my parents were adamant I was not leaving home except as a newlywed. Ditto Bob—he is the only child of a mom who had one brother, and a dad who was the only son of an only son. His parents married fairly late in life—his mom was 39 and had him at 40. Before she married, his mom was a bookkeeper who occasionally traveled by train to SC to visit her high school friend who had married and moved there; but once she tied the knot, her traveling days were over. Bob’s dad was an accountant who inherited a considerable sum, became a bank VP but lived almost pathologically frugally (as did his own parents—Bob’s GF & GM actually erected a tollgate on their cul-de-sac in Riverdale, up in the Bronx, till his neighbors threatened to sue and the city demolished it). My MIL did all the housework, laundry (except my FIL’s shirts and suits, which he insisted on having professionally cleaned & pressed), & cooking; my FIL did only the lawn work (about which he was fanatical and enlisted Bob to help, which explains Bob’s insistence on hiring a landscape service so that he’d never have to mow a lawn again). They never grew flowers or vegetables: just a front & back lawn. They never drove, so when they bought a little tract house in a new Queens subdivision—on spec, all cash--they got a huge break because they didn’t need a garage or even a driveway. They never took vacations—Bob went to YMCA day camp in the summers. They never had A/C: just box fans and retreated to the basement when it got too hot in summer. Bob never even touched a broom till we got married and moved to Seattle—I had to show him how to use the coin laundry in our building’s basement. Until we bought our house 30 yrs. ago, we never owned a dishwasher, garbage disposal or washer-dryer.

This is the first and only house in which I’ve ever lived; Bob had no idea what apartment living was like till we got married. And he didn’t learn to drive till he began his post-residency cardiology fellowship and quickly tired of taking multiple buses & trains out to the far S. Side & suburbs where he moonlighted. He now racks up more miles in a year commuting between home, hospitals & nursing homes than I do in four or five—even in the years when I used to tour as a musician. I am amazed his little Fusion Hybrid has needed repairs only after having been collided with, given how hard he is on cars.

Gordy has lived with us the whole time—he attended a college that has dorms which are insanely expensive, so he was glad to stay home & commute. We’ve never asked him to contribute financially, and he has no student loans to repay, as his college was cheaper than his high school. He is in a field that is intensely competitive but pays almost nothing except to those who can achieve stardom. He tried to learn to drive (his high school didn’t offer driver ed so we sent him to a private driving school); he got his learner’s permit but hated driving lessons and has poor depth perception. Besides, we have great public transit and he uses Lyft (gave up Uber for various reasons).

My mom had a Norge in her tiny galley kitchen, with a rubber hose that spat the rinse water out into the sink. No spin cycle, just a wringer. Everything was dried either on a folding rack in the bathtub or a clothesline outdoors—every apt. (there were 16, no elevator) had a shared clothesline on pulleys over the concrete back “yard" and nobody from one apt. stole clothes from the one across the yard. When we moved to a 2-flat, we used the landlord's washer in the basement and either did the rack-and-clothesline thing or went to the coin-op laundry up the street for the huge front-loading dryers. Dad's shirts always went to the Chinese laundry, however. After Bob & I got married, all our apts. had coin-op laundry rooms until our second & third apts. in Chicago, where we shared the washer & dryer with the landlord as part of our rent (we had to buy our own supplies). When I worked in the A.G.'s office I started using the Chinese laundry for shirts & blouses once I did the math and realized it was no more expensive than detergent, bleach, and starch. Only after Gordy was born did we do all our laundry, shirts included, in-house. We bought our house when he was 2-1/2. Ever since then, we've done several loads a week (daily when he was a baby). We used a cloth-diaper service (we were trying to be “green” instead of using disposables) until we realized that since we needed to use diaper-liners and tapes anyway we might as well use disposables—even our “green” friends had switched. We used the diaper service’s own brand until the thinner Pampers came on the market. Much of our laundry was and is Bob’s "consult coats.”

This is the first time since Gordy was three months old that (except when our housekeeper was out sick or on vacation) we’re doing all our own housework, laundry & ironing. Bob hates starch, so the ironing is less of a hassle (and cheaper) these days. Gordy has literally dozens of rock-band tees, so if he wore a different one every day he’d still have clean ones into late July. And our front-loader washer & dryer are huge and easy to use. They’re in the basement, so I’ll just tie a rope to the laundry basket and slide it down and haul it back up the stairs. We still use a drying rack for stuff that shouldn’t go into the dryer or can’t be dry-cleaned. We do use a “green” drycleaner—it isn’t as good as the eco-criminal one up the street, but our clothes don’t stink of VOCs when we get them back. I’ve always run a load in the dishwasher before I go to sleep, and when I cook I clean up as I go. Nobody else—and I mean nobody else—gets to touch my knives, nonstick or cast iron!

Gordy doesn’t completely shirk chores: he will hand-wash his own dishes or use paper plates, does almost all the cat-care (including taking them to the vet by bus or cab), sweeps the wood floors and vacuums on weekends, and takes out the trash, compost and recycling. Bob works so hard & long that I’m delighted if he does anything, however ineptly. I do (and have always done) all the grocery-shopping, both by car or online. (And for small stuff, on foot to Whole Foods).

Yes! I might put some things in the dryer for a few minutes, but then take them out & hang them on the outside line, or on the rack, Hah! Might be extra work, but it's better for the clothes.

We don't have a dish-washer, so I use Dawn, & I still have that metal mesh thing, that my Grandma had! She would put pieces of soap in it, "lock" it, and swish it in water for suds... I put a dishwasher "pod" in it, and swish it in the sink with the Dawn, and my dishes & pans are REALLY clean.... Hah!