Hello Skylotus, welcome! It's fine to say you feel crappy. So many of us do, and like you, we just keep pushing on.
I've learned so much from the Stage IV ladies, and I'm proud to be here. You're at home here.
I'm glad to read that I'm not the only one who takes breaks of a week or two, and then has to take awhile to catch up reading all the posts, and gets kind of lost. lol
Glenna, I wanted to just add "Wow" to the beautiful wedding photo. What a lovely couple and YOU WERE THERE!!! Whooppeeee!!! :-D .... You had asked about morphine and my reconstruction. I finally had fat grafting reconstruction to fill in my left breast, which had a partial mastectomy in 2008. But I am on morphine for the cancer pain. My bones and lungs hurt. I don't think the lung has nerves, so it's my pleura or something. I can't be off pain meds for longer than an hour or two or it's unbearable. It is getting better though. I no longer have bone pain that wakes me up out of a deep sleep if I sleep too hard against my ribs. Thank God.
Adnerb, yes, I can drive on morphine, but only short distances (30 minutes or less) and I have to be very cautious. I've been on 3 painkillers, Fentanyl, OxyContin and Morphine. Morphine definitely has the least side effects when it wears off, so that's a blessing and I wish I had tried it sooner. But the memory loss ... not sure if it's the morphine or the Tamox, but it seems to be getting worse, not leveling off. I am trying every trick I can think of. I shun phone calls, because I can't remember what people tell me. I communicate with friends primarily by text and email, so I can refer back to what they have told me. I can't be honest with my husband about how much I don't remember. Only with you ladies can I share how frightening and sad it is not to remember meeting people, or eating at restaurants, or even more important things. I've stopped locking my car door because I'm afraid I'm going to lock the keys in the car (which I've done 3 times already) Sometimes my speech or handwriting is jumbled.
My son gets his driver license in two weeks, he is a very good, careful driver. He will be happy to drive me around, I think. Adnerb, you also asked about the Tamoxifen. It has slowed down the tumor growth, though not as substantially as Aromasin (which I couldn't tolerate, the bone pain was excruciating). So, while the Tamox is keeping the tumors at bay, I still have to deal with the tumors that are there, and the pain they cause. I hope that over time Tamoxifen may help reduce those tumors, so I can reduce my dependence on pain meds. I'm back at Sloan-Kettering for my 3-month scans in a couple weeks. I am feeling good and expect the scans to show tumor stability. A little regression would be nice!
Someone mentioned hot flashes, Here's something that helped mine. It's kind of embarrassing because it took me a while to realize I was causing them! I bought a down comforter about a year ago, for the first time, something I have wanted my whole life. Even though it was a lightweight down, it was doing a superior job of trapping the heat, and almost every night I would wake up covered with sweat, have to change out of my pajamas, or grab a towel and sleep on it, etc. My husband suggested we take off the down duvet, and sure enough, my nighttime hot flashes disappeared. Admittedly, once or twice a week I wake up a little warm, and I keep cornstarch on my bedside table, and apply that. It's not that down/feathers are "bad" -- it's just that my body can't regulate its temperature properly, and I can't cool myself down when the down heats me u[. Now, whenever my husband and I travel, I have to find something to sleep under besides the down comforters that most hotels are using these days. I hope this helps someone else stay cool.
Wishing all of you ladies lots of energy and happy moments with your family. I think my son may have landed his first job at 16. He had an interview today that went well, with the restaurant manager, "putting stars beside my name and work hours on the piece of paper he was writing on while he interviewed me."
