Oh Caron, what a crock - thought you were on the mend. Really hope this all starts to settle down soon.
Oh caron. Poor you, it seems never ending, be strong! They’ll sort it out but you know recovery can sometimes be
1 step forward and 2 back. Thinking of you
Jo xx
Thinking of you Caron, and hope you don’t have to endure any new drains going in… but if it means getting rid of the fluid, it will be worth it. Glad clots are not serious.
Have my second rads session today. Already feel slightly sore despite having used aqueous cream twice a day for a month now! I guess I must have just got sensitive skin.
Grey looking in London. It is the kind of day that I remember from holidays in England in my childhood, when there would usually be a day or two that resembled early autumn rather than summer. Still, they are the days I remember most, as they meant a trip to a castle (especially a ruined one)rather than yet another day on the beach. Except when there were rock pools … loved looking in these, especially when there were brightly coloured anenomes.
Love bright xx
Hi girls,
Caron, Caron, Caron!!! Poor you. It all just sucks!! I hope they sort you out very soon. They will sort you out, but it just makes everything so much more uncomfortable for you.
Bright - good luck with the rads. Saw you on the cooking thread too. I’m really quite sore now and finding it hard to wear things. Re: books. Have read both, but at the moment, I like serial killer fiction (pref American), but love those documentaries about why people kill on TV. I think I must be a bit dark!!!
Bright - I think you should write for publication…maybe your own blog???
Jo - Take That???
Love to all others: Suzanne, Kathy, Andie on hols etc.
I’ve started getting nervous about holidays. Hubbie said…better find out whay we’d do if you got swine flu!!! EEK!! I know about avoiding sun etc, but should I be taking any other precautions against things like Lymphodema and flights. Any views anyone??
Monster loved his school visit. had to peel him off my legs at the beginning, but then he was fine. I bought his uniform yesterday too. All sees too real and too soon, but I remember when I was diagnosed thinking I might not be here to see him at school.
Have good days all,
Gxx
Sorry, Just got back after my manic Take That weekend! Managed to check up on you all on my new i phone and even managed to post a short comment for Caron on it last night, feeling quite technically clever now!!!
Take That, wow what a fantastic show, Wembley is a sight to behold but a nightmare to get to and from with 80 thousand others, but well worth doing it twice, I don’t regret it but will have to sleep for two days now to recover! Got quite emotional as a lot of their songs have very poigniant words. Found it particularly emotional as my girlfriends booked it for me soon after I was diagnosed as a goal to look towards! Does anyone know their song Wooden Boat, from Beautiful World album. It’s performed by the lovely Jason and I cried both times as he sung it as it made me think a lot about Shelly and indeed all of us, we must live our lives to the full as ‘who knows how long it will last’. Have a listen to the words if you get a chance!
Bright and Gail, hope you’re coping ok with rads. 100% pure aloe vera gel from holland and barrat was quite good for cooling straight after blast, then aqueous cream first thing in morning and last thing at night.
Caron, hope you’re improving today.
Andie, hope you’re having a lovely time in Dorset!
Kathy and Susanne hope you ok to!
Lots of love
Jo X
P.S Got so hot one night at Wembley, that i ditched the headscarf just until the end of the show. Put it on again as I left though. Figured that it was dark and people had something far more interesting to stare at! Very brave of me i thought!!!
JOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJOJ
THANKYOU SO SO SO VERY MUCH FOR MY CARD IT WAS A LOVELY SURPRISE!!
I wondered what the nurse was doing when she gave me an envelope!
love
(((hugs)))
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Caron
I’m doing OK, Jo - one week to my penultimate chemo (I love that word, it does seem to draw things that much closer!) Now well into my “good” week, and feeling great!
Hello all,
Bsck from rads number 2. Machines were working today, but the technicians said I moved during the photo stage, so we had to start again. I am finding keeping operated arm raised quite difficult, but thinking of it as exercise.
Gail - I love American crime, especially homicide accounts. Zodiac case is my favourite. When I go on trips to the US I spend lots of time in the bookshops, especially Barnes and Noble - which has an in-store coffee shop. New York neighbourhood, skinny latte, bran muffin and a grisly murder: what could be more perfect. And thanks for commenting on the writing -Probably like you I do a lot of writing for work and have had technical papers published. The blog is an interesting idea, and would function as a diary too!
Jo glad you liked Take That.
Caron we spoke, and I mastered the hospital phone system, and experience in itself. Take care of yourself.
Bright s
Rads 3 today.
Caron - do hope you don’t face more surgery. But they will do what’s for the best.
Bright x
Hello all still in hospital!!
I had a bit of a scare today I found a lump in my chest and also in my back (which has been caining me for the last few days).
The blood I am losing was 150 then 200 then 200 today its 300!!!
It hasnt cleared at all its still blood.
Onc said top lump is top of my breast from surgery (PHEW) and back one is believe it or not the drain !!!
He said I have to stay in a few more days yet (how many exactley is a few???)
God I am so bored !!! I had a really nice ward last night and now they have moved every single one apart from Diane who has just come from surgery she is alight still sleepy, I expect she will be all night.
Right have to go dinner coming soon then visiting the other night Steve brought a wheel chair get in he said he wheeled me backwards I said push me forewards but he said it didnt go that way!!
Got out side I had the surprise of my life when Betty came out the van !! I was crying .
love to all love Caron xxxx (very bored Caron !)
Oh poor you, Caron, I do sympathise with the drains. I had what you had done in November last year and my drains carried on pumping loads of gunk out for nearly 3 weeks in all - sorry!!!
I came home with them after 12 days and changed the bottles myself (not rocket science!) until at the end of the 3 weeks they eventually removed them in the hospital clinic. They pulled them out and the nurse who did it got soaked - yukkety yuk!!! - and then the leaks just stopped like magic.
So once you get any more medical scares over with they might say you can go home with the drains.
Good luck, you’ll get there! x Jacq x
Oh poor poor Caron, you are having a grim time aren’t you, but how lovely to have a surprise visit from beautiful Betty. Hope you improve and get home quickly, sending you lots of good wishes!!!
I’ll be quiet for a few days now as have another Manic weekend ahead of me and haven’t really got over last weekend yet, feel so so tired. Off tomorrow night for an evening of racing at my local Epsom racecourse followed by a concert by Bjorn Again! A group of friends coming with us, so should be nice to have a glass of Champers in the Queens stand to start celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary which is on Friday. Then I’ve taken the kids out of school for the day on Friday and we’ll head down to a country house hotel in New Forest, where we can all use the leisure facilities until My Mum comes to collect the kids late afternoon so Michael and I can have a bit of peace and quiet until Saturday evening when she’ll bring the kids back to us and we’ll head home.
Need to be back Saturday as we have an early start on Sunday for our race for life! I’ll be wearing a pink tutu and running in memory of Shelly!
Will try and post Monday but have appointment first thing with Onc to discover what if anything can be done about my dizzy spells, then I have to drive up to Derby to surprise my best friend for her 40th! I’ve booked 2 tickets for us to fly over to Spain first thing Tues morning to visit our friend who lives there. We haven’t all been together for 8 years and we used to share a house for about 4 years when we were cabin crew, in the good old days before life got serious!!!
So will catch up on my return.
Hope everyone ok
Jo XX
Hi girls,
Caron - my goodness. You are going throuh it girl. I am hoping you feel a bit better today and loved the image of Betty leaping out to greet you. What a tonic! You’ll probably end up going home with your drains, so don’t worry that you won’t be allowed out until they have finished.
Jo - I felt exhausted just reading your post. What a fab time you’re having. Have much fun and good luck with your onc appointment. Have a Lovely anniversary!!
Bright - love your blog!!! Well done you.
Have nutter doc today…hurrah!
Love to all,
Gxxx
Good morning ladies,
Caron, so pleased your scares are unfounded and that you are making progress. I can imagine how delighted and suprised you must have been to see Betty. She will have cheered you up no end, better than any medicine perhaps. And how thoughtful of Steve to think of the idea. And I’m sure the trunks will be reduced to saplings again very soon!
Rads 4 today and quite a lot of work to do.
I had a bc chum over for supper last night which was nice. She had grade 3 lobular 7.5 cm tumour - quite close to the chest wall, and one node infected. We spoke a lot about the illness - but I was just so impressed by her positive attitude to life that I’m going to follow suit. She’s a social worker and hoping to go back to her duties in September, having finished rads a couple of weeks ago. Just amazed by the amount of hair growth she has - it started coming back on the tax - and is already not far off Kate’s.
For our supper I prepared - communist quiche (named by me as I used red onion, red leicester cheese and cherry tomatoes), honey, soy and lemon glazed chicken, minted new potatoes and a garden salad. Followed by slightly cinnamony apple crumble with custard. All home-made - except I used tinned apple slices for the crumble - as I prefer the end result.
Jo - don’t know how you can manage those action-packed weekends - but just hope you enjoy this one as much as the last one!
Andie - hope you had a great holiday - writing this now in case I forget. We’ll fix a date for afternoon tea when you get back!
Suzanne - I’m thinking of you on the tax.
Hope everyone else is okay.
Bright x
Hi Girls
I’m back home and have just read through the thread from when I last posted.
Caron you poor thing, sounds like you really have been having a rough time.Makes my stay in hospital seem like a walk in the park but then I only had boobs removed - no recon.
Jo What a busy life you lead. My daughter saw Take that as well and raved about how good they were , now you’re off to recapure your youth. Enjoy.
Bright Glad that the rads are finally underway. I used E45 right through mine and was OK. The skin never broke down but about three weeks after I had finished it started peeling off. I had to have the seroma drained and as the registrar cleaned the area prior to sticking the needle in the dead skin coming away made it look as if I had not washed for weeks!
Well we had the laziest 8 days that we have ever had in our lives. We stayed close to the hotel most of the time and watched the world go by. It was great. Initially being by the coast we escaped the worst of the very hot weather and then when the torrential rain started over the country all we had were a few showers.
I have realised that my plans to have a cancer free zone was impossible. It does not matter what you do, breast cancer is there. From reading the daily papers where there seems to be a related article daily, reading a craft magazine and finding an article about fund raising in memory of a girl who died from IBC to walking down the high street and finding people dressed head to toe in pink collecting for Breastcancercare. I did my best to froget but it just did not happen and had a couple of real melt down moments.
The cases are unpacked the washing machine is doing its best and dinner must be cooked. Life is back to normal.
Take Care everyone
Andie
Hi
Caron and Bright
Forgot to add that in our family shoes are refered to as Hoof Covers.
Andie
Hello ladies,
Just writing quickly to say that swine flu has reached my place of work - so guidance for those with poor immune systems is not to go in. so will be working entirely from home for a while.
Survived rads 4 - just going to apply lots of cream…
Glad you had a good break Andie - even if you couldn’t leave bc behind.
Caron - welcome home!!!
Bright xx
Watched that programme about BC - OH had recorded it, so only watched it last night. I thought it was a shame - not to mention extremely depressing - that they focussed so much on people dying. Women are already put off even checking themselves, afraid of what they might find, and then if they find something they postpone going to the doctor. What it needed was a big emphasis on how early detection can save your life.
Speaking of which, I went to see my Occupational Health doc today, and he said that in thirty years I’m only the second person he’s met who found their cancer through a swollen lymph node instead of a lump in the breast. As my tumour was only 1.2cm and I couldn’t feel it even when “X marked the spot” it seems I was lucky (well, OK, lucky would have been “it’s only a cyst”, but lucky-ish.)
Hello ladies !!! I’M HOME !!!
got a feeling this will be a long post !
Well had a panic attack on the way to hospital and I only had mm’s of water in my bag so I drank that even though I wasn’t allowed to drink.
I got there at 12pm I went down at 1:15pm (not long to panic)
I got back on ward at 11pm !!!
The surgeon got rang up about me twice I read in my notes as my blood pressure plummited and he also got called in!! (bet he loves me?? lol).
Had 4 units of blood copious saline and also clotting agents.
Surgery over next day hand swelled like a balloon next day arm next legs.
Then my front drain stopped working they said I had a clot somewhere in my chest which worried me!
Then the back drain stopped for a while but did restart later .
Had front drain out luckily the clot was inside the tube.
Then my bust got fluid (it was blood) and sounded like a hotty!!
they drained that and i had a scan too .
The blood from my back never cleared at all even up to the day I left also the amount never lessened and they were concerned about the amount I was losing as it was 200/300 in 24 hours!
Which confused me when they said I could go cos that morning I lost 200 in 2 hours (well under 2 hours).
He said I would be alright so thats where I am at at thye mo so Ive got proof if owt happens to me ! (it’s on here).
I am anemic (nothing new there then!).
I am really glad to be home now I have even managed to get all my rings on , I haven’t had them on for some time.
Did I write I forget?
Steve brought me a wheelchair one night took me outside and Betty came bounding up to me !! (it was really special).
I have got ok movement in my arm and I met some lovely people in there.
I have sent you all the pics from my op so you can see what it looks like !! apart from Susanne as I havent got your personal mail but if you pm me i’ll send you it, anyone else who wants to have a look?
Steve’s anutie died last week she was above me in the hospital so he is very sad she had cancer too bloody disease !!!
So we have auntie Doreen’s funeral next week.
I am going to try and go to Shelly’s funeral as I think I should she was my friend so I want to pay my respects to her so if anyone has got the details please can you send me them?
Right got to go still much to do love Caronxx
ps these are the lovely flowers V got me (bless her) x