My Husband, My Life, My Love, My Family, My Cancer

@micmel Yay for Gabby! Almost at the finish line!

@goldensrbest I how the device works well for you. It sounds similar to something the husband of Ann or friend had - it was literally life-changing for him.

@intolight - Happy belated birthday!

@mara51506 - you are"The Little Engine That Could!" Keep on chugging along

Everything is ok here, except a stupid head cold. It's been a week, and I think I'm almost over it.

Waving around the living room - I'm too tired (or lazy!) to do the tags, but thinking of you all.

@goldensarebest The nerve stimulator sounds like a reasonable and not overly invasive procedure. My gosh dealing with pain daily really wears one down. I so hope it works very well for you.

@shanagirl Well hi gal. So good to see you. I hear you when you speak of the weather and pain. I wish we all had an answer for pain that doesn't involve more pills, etc. The two shots I rec'd in the back over 3 months span felt like WD-40. No help.

Hi all. Shanagirl has got the list of folks here in Mel's room and I have to applaud her for doing that. I hope this finds you in good spirits and less pain.

We traveled to the new hospital for the swallow test. It was fast and easy. Radiologist gave me a thumbs up. Yay on that part. The tech is recommending speech therapist to retrain my muscles. MS is the culprit.

Couldn't sleep due to having upset stomach, both ways. Maybe the barium? Should pass soon, I hope. Used zofron and gummies with ginger. Lots of cammomiele tea. Friday is pet scan. I am looking forward to a break in appts. in March. It all gets overwhelming and I have to sign up for radiation, again. That's a good 10 day commitment.

Well I think I'll have to start my flower garden all over. Lost a number of plants even though I covered them. Squirrels burying nuts did not help matters, the little buggers. We started to cut back to the line where the plant is alive. We are now underground on most. lol…Gives me a chance to start anew. More daisies, I'm thinking as they are hardier.

Night all and please take care of yourself…

@micmel So happy to hear Gabby is on the path to healing! You have all been through so much and I look forward to the day you post she is totally finished after reconstruction. You had the supermom strength to walk beside her each step of the way. I wish you all mental and physical healing from this, hugs.

@goldensrbest Fingers crossed that the stimulator gives you the relief you deserve.

@mara51506 Hope your appt and transit goes smoothly for you.

@shanagirl Well I hope your not extra sore today after PT and you get relief soon. Agree, this damp dreary weather goes right through your bones!

@intolight Hope your feeling well today and enjoyed a delicious birthday lunch yesterday.

@irishlove In your pocket for Friday…do we ever actually feel mental relief…sigh…it's tough! Sending positivity your way.

@threetree Thinking of you and hoping and hoping your fatigue is lifting

Hi to all here and hope you have a good day. Damp and drearies again here but I'm loving the extra daylight hours🌞

@mara51506 Thank You. I’m going to try your lentil recipe it this week😊

@intolight The wig sounds lovely for sure and styling it will help for sure. I have 4 pixies all the same. Been wearing two for years, blond with dark roots, matches the bit of hair I have left. They are a short haircut as well. I don't add product to increase lifespan for me but did get a 30 dollar one I style and put all sorts of stuff too. Enjoy your wig.

Made a medium size chicken pie, letting it cool some and then will eat, taking mucinex, have a nasal spray arriving as my nose is stuff with the Herceptin and really not in the mood do disregard and let a cough set in. No thank you.

EDIT appointment was good, wound up waiting about an hour or so past the end of the echo but it gave me time to grab a sausage english muffin, chocolate dip donut and a ginger ale since it has no caffeine. It was good, went to wait for the ride at the front of the cancer clinic, yapping with other patients from there until ride showed up.

Was craving mcdonalds, decided to have broken up ramen, it is presently sitting with a lid on, added taco, sloppy joes seasoning and white salt. In the air fryer, making up lentils, hotdogs, two of them, heating for 15 mins. Once done putting in a bowl with a binder, probably mayo or something else, tiny amount of salt since the noodles will have absorbed the salt but it should be good. I still prefer breaking up the ramen.

Forgot to post, I do have left overs of the ramen meal, delicious meal, will see how to combine with eggs I think. Only have two hotdogs left in fridge, still have another package of hotdogs in freezer but thinking I would like to heat up beef from the freezer, I will see. The dog chunks done up in the air fryer are really quite good.

Hi all!

This post is about nothing important so if you are feeling low on energy, save yourself and don't read it.

Micmel happy to hear Gabby is done with chemo and now onto the next stage, well, soon. Praying much healing and energy for her, and you!

Mara reading about you doing laundry brings to mind a fairly recent chore change for me. Since most of the laundry I do is Hub's and all of his clothing is dark and terribly dirty, I go a LONG time waiting to get a big enough load of lights to make it worth washing. While I wait, one by one, I run out of gonchies. I can have 20 pairs of panties in the laundry, two tea towels and a pillowcase and that is still not enough even for a small load in the washer. But there I am - gonchless.

So now when I have a bath (not a showerer) I toss my gonch that I took off into the tub with me and scrub by hand. Rinse and hang them to dry. By next day they're dry and I have an endless supply of clean underwear! I do not wash tea towels or pillowcases this way. But for panties it has been life changing. I never run out! I could literally survive a year on 4 panties. I know some people might wrinkle their nose at this but I also used to use, make and sell re-usable, washable period pads so handwashing underwear is not even something I think twice about. What did our Great Grandmothers do? They got their hands in the water and washed stuff ! I feel quite earthy as I lather my lacies. (they're not lacey, they're boring cotton)

Does anyone ferment? No, this has nothing to do with poorly washed underwear, although it could. I mean, anyone make fermented food?

Hub has been going through bad stomach acid - bad - and now has difficulty swallowing. Had a throat scope, biopsies taken, no bad things found, but extensive damage from unrelenting acid associated with his HIGH intake of pain meds. His ankles are bone on bone destructed and walking is endless agony. He takes meds to function. But they are eating his guts. So internet diving tells me that fermented food is the holy grail of gut rehabilitation. Okay… I'll bite.

I will dip my toe into fermented water by trying to ferment sliced apples. Follow instructions. Add cinnamon stick and whole cloves. The smell was divine! Let them fester away on the counter for a few days and opened at the appointed time. The enticing aroma had our mouths watering with spicy apple pie anticipation. No! No! That is not what happened! Oh, the horror, the disappointment, the spitting out of mushy, salty, VILE apple! How can people eat this ?! This is revolting! The salt sent my already high BP right into the atmosphere. I didn't feed it to the chickens or throw it in the bush where some hapless wild animal could OD on sodium. Into the garbage with that failure. Consulted FB group where many said, yeah, fermented fruit, big disappointment. Now I'm trying fermented carrots with garlic. After appointed fester time will make Daughter try them, because we're not going to do that again! If anyone has fermented food wisdom, I'm all ears!

Love, hugs and good sleep to all.

@threetree & @cookie54

Good Morning @rlschaller(Rhonda) and all my lady friends on this thread, Yes we are also on the Blizzard “monster Storm Warning. Yesterday DH & I went to the wild bird store and picked up some millet, cracked corn and mixed seed with black oil sunflower seeds for all the birds 🐦.and he also nailed the Mourning Dove nesting box up underneath our Front porch over- hang for the nesting pair who visit to nest. There are also red cardinals living somewhere in our yard and they love the black oil sunflower seeds. I hope they all ate a lot to give them the energy and warmth to weather this storm inside the big Holly bush tree in our front yard yard.It’s so tall that the electric wires and cables are being reached by it. We wanted to take some of it down but it’s really on the property line of our next door neighbor who rents the house so it’s really up to her land lord. He used to own the property where our house was built on 5 yrs ago but he sold it to the the contractor who built it. And now I’m thinking we don’t want to reach out to him and offer to pay to take it town because this holly bushe tree as tall as the cable wires is home and shelter to so many birds inside the tree. 

So here at the Jersey Shore we are expecting 50 mph winds with the snow , Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to my follow up visit with my onc, and my XGeva & Fasoldex injections and most likely wont go because the road will probably not be cleared enough tomorrow, We did go the day after the last snowstorm on the turnpike all the way up. The roads were salted and bone dry so we had a clear path no traffic up to the Cancer Center last month and got in and out of the hospital right away because their was no wait……but if it’s still snowing we won’t take the drive up. 

I’m wishing you all warmth, a warm blanket and cozy fleece sweat outfits, and some warm comfy food to eat to everyone while you wait this storm out. I’ll be roasting a pork loin mashed potatoes and buttered carrots today. I love you all my sista’s and brothers in breast cancer mets. 🩵🥰

@runor When feeling lazy about underthings, I either just stick them in a mesh bag OR hand wash in the bathroom sink with cold water, both with detergent and then the softener cycle. Option two is take my salad spinner for under things, wash in cold water, drain, do rinse cycle and drain water again, stick them in the spinner in one of the portable washers to spin. Might wash up bra and undies at same time.

I had a decent night sleep, just getting started on my own chores. Laundry, make bed, clear sink. Working on one of my burner steel parts, got baked on stuff from a spill I did not notice. Will be using my scrubber head, just pull it off and run it around, maybe give a nice soak in hot water first.

Planning to air fry leftovers from yesterday's lentil and ramen, might add an egg to the mix. I have an egg cooker that can make an egg softer and then dump into. If I choose to, I may just make a hashbrown with some lentils, heat them both up and make an egg in a mini griddle. EDIT eggs are going in my egg cooker, steams them, added butter and garlic butter, 1 tsp each. Once egg is done, grab my leftovers and dump in the air fryer, had to put air fryer on floor to make room but not a problem to do that. Once egg done, put on stove, put the air fryer back on, had the dropsies and lost stuff but since floor is clean,spooned stuff back in the air fryer. The leftovers are the ramen, hotdog and lentil mix back in with couple of hash browns. Tonight, am thinking of the veggie stir fry stuff, heat in microwave first then toss all in the air fryer

EDIT The meal I just finished was some leftovers from yesterday with ingrdients mentioned just above. Egg turned out nice, I did that up first but added to the leftovers and two hashbrowns broken up. I did spill the leftovers on my floor. I scooped it up off the kitchen floor, I did dump it back in the air fryer because floor was just cleaned and I do not use chemicals but diluted vinegar so not worried. It really was delicious. Soft boiled egg was nice too.

I do hope all have a good day, I tell you I am looking forward to dry side walks, can go to Walmart on my own when only need a couple things, book a ride about an hour and a half or two hours, we'll see. For now, just did costly shopping 40 dollars but do not always need a costly shop, maybe just a dozen eggs. I do not hit up bro because I gave him a break about the groceries. Easy to have delivered or will get myself.

Rumor, I don't know where you live, but around here, many of the natural food stores, organic co-ops, etc. sell a lot of fermented food. I eat fresh unpasteurized sauerkraut from a local co-op daily, and also probiotic yogurt. I think it's the reason I've had not too much stomach trouble with these cancer treatments. I've never really heard of or tried fermented fruit, but vegetables can certainly be good. My local co-op where I get the sauerkraut also has some fermented carrots with ginger, and they are really good too. A lot of people swear by kim chee (sp?), which is also available in a lot of stores, but I've never tried it. Just some thoughts.

Hi @runor, I make my own Kefir (fermented Milk. i keep the culture going, and refresh it regularly. I love it and my pugs love it too. I’s a great probiotic. I learned to do it about 8 years ago, 🩵🌷

https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/