Emily, from what I have learned from your postings, you will make good out of bad whatever. Today is today and we are all still here,so let’s celebrate that.
well thank you Cathy…I think
I will celebrate with you…
anyone else???
Yeah - let’s head to our local…
Bravo ladies,
I haven’t started my chemo yet as it has been put back due to pathetic veins until I have an op tomorrow. However, my visit to just see the chemo ward was one of the scariest and most positive things I have come across during this phase of my life. The 2 patients in there just beamed at me as soon as I walked in and were wishing me luck and going out of their way to chat and make me feel welcome. Only in the weeks to come will I full appreciate how generous they were, both had been there for the whole day. How great to talk to all of you and meet people like that.
We can’t all feel positive all the time. I change threads according to my mood and this is a HAPPY one.
What do you call a squirrel that has been run over?
Flat
Lily x
Awww Lily, that is an awful joke. You could say the same about the hedgehog I saw today. if your squirrel was flat, he was superflat poor chap. I have never seen anything so flat in my life!!!
Alison
What a good thread! I have just celebrated my first aniversay of the end of chemo. I was soooo ill on it and very depressed, sore mouth, heartburn etc etc and of course the hair loss was awful.
But… I think it is good to think about anything positive that comes from something negative wether it is a death of a love one, being made redundannt, or having chemo!
My positives are; I am now drinking and enjoying coffee, I now love olives, and have curly hair! No more perms for me great! Some may think this is silly or even thoughtless when others are suffering, I say it’s a survival technique!
Irene
Hi Irene
From someone who has always had very thin, straight hair,I would say having curly hair a great bonus. I remember Kylie Minogue saying her hair had grown back curly and thcker. As you quite rightly said, we need to think of the positives whatever they are, otherwise we will curl up in our corner and slowly die.
Cathy
Just read your thread to Jane and wanted to agree with everything you said, but to also ask all to understand that we all find ourselves in dark places at times. We can be angry and frustrated and we are all entitled to let off steam on here.
Jane
I hope your treatment eases off soon
Irene
Alisonkw, I have been having a break from the forums, just reading from time to time, and will continue to do so. Let me say that I thought you post was uplifting and brought a smile and a tear to my eye at the same time. You continue to be positive and do not let anyone change that. And NEVER EVER feel you have to apologise for your posts. You come across such a brave lady. Good luck and best wishes.
Ps My mum say the positive thing about her cancer was the fact it made me check more carefully and find my lump! So yes I agree there is a silver lining in every cloud, sometimes you just have to look that bit harder.
Jules xxx (going back into hibernation again lol)
Irene, I do agree with you that it is imperative that we should be able to let off steam and these forums are an ideal environment in which to do so. Likewise, I believe that everyone should be able to say what they feel and are pleased that these discussions are lively and very informative. However, I would ask that everyone think carefully about what we say as when we are in a dark place we are more vulnerable and susceptible to criticism than we would normally be. We do value opinons but this is not "Question Time"where the panel is strong, healthy and armed with an intelligent and articulate response. We are not ourselves all the time and therefore above all we need to support each other and tread carefully in case our replies can be misconstrued. After all, we are all in the same boat and all want breast cancer to be a thing of the past and all want our lives to be of the best quality achievable and venting our frustrations and anger out on each other is not helpful in any way.
An upside for me has been getting on with things before the chemo starts next week. I know I’ll lose momentum soon so I hope to do some reading and distract myself with reading about gardening.
Cathy
We are singing from the same song sheet! Just wanted Jane to know that yes we don’t approve of the way she presented her argument, but I think I understand it, and we all say and do things in hast, particularly when we are fed up with our lot.
Just remembered another positive of chemo, hopefully a better chance of long term survival!!!
Nighty night
Irene
Was only having a quick look in before going to my first radiotherapy, but thought I will add my bit. Finished chemo a month ago now. What was positive about it? Well the very fact that I could have it of course. That I live in a part of the world where I went to a modern hospital, with trained staff, and was freely given very expensive drugs that after years of research have been shown to greatly improve my chances of living longer. Am I counting my blessings - yes, each and every day. No, of course I didn’t “want” to have breast cancer, but all things considered, my situation could be so much worse. My best therapy? - Turning on the news and watching the horrors of the reality of life for so many millions of people around the world. Am I going to spend my days being miserable - absolutely not. But that’s me, and my way, and actually, I’m very thankful that I can feel this way, and I know that it is not possible for everyone. We all have to make this journey in our own way, good luck with yours! Sarah
Hey Sarah, All the best for the first rads - I reckon I am going to find that more irritating than the chemo because I have avoided routine all my life and the thought of a 5-day-a-week job chills me. Now there’s an eccentric grip on priorities!
The same principle has kept me bouyant ever since the frightful few moments of diagnosis. There’s been so much to face and surmount, and I can’t pretend that I haven’t got more enjoyment and interest out of it all than pain and distress. Talk about smashing the barrier of ‘routine’ - all good, as far as I’m concerned: I was dying of boredom & this has banished the dispassionately-viewed image of knotted silk scarves and a convenient tree that has surfaced in my mind like an unwanted pop-up ad on the computer screen over the past couple of years. I was making the best of it, and always good for a laugh in the office corridors, but routine kills something more important in my life than breath. As Marlene Deitrich sang - ‘I was made that way, I can’t help it.’
I’m firmly in the ‘count the blessings’ mode. Thanks for the list that started this thread - I second most of them, though how anyone managed to lose weight is a mystery to this fatso.
I’m beginning to think that this sightly loony cheer may be a mentality - I don’t think it can be imposed. Despite the fact most of the people on this forum are ‘socialised’ is similar ways, personal experience, genetics & - dare I say it? - character-type vary from person to person. Trying to reconcile the realism that sees cancer for the unmitigated blight it ‘objectively’ is - foul in every one of its aspects - with the ‘make-the-best’ of everything attitude to living (who’s Pollyanna?) that will start re-building a destroyed home immediately and get more fun out of the work than ‘just’ living in the old one: it’s probably harder than a fundamentalist Muslim trying to reach consensus with a bigoted Southern Baptist. No common ground, you see. No fault on either side, no ‘wrong or right’, just irreconciliable difference best dealt with by agreeing to disagree.
This hasn’t, I suppose, been a particularly ‘easy’ first round of chemo - ‘objectively’ - husband away, beloved energetic son debilitated with glandular fever, worryingly ancient dad trying conspicuously hard to hold us together, hospitalisation for 4 days and a week-long course of antibiotics that are so strong they make me feel sicker than chemo - but hell! I’ve had fun. Life’s grand. My young half-brother arrived last night for 4 days and it was disappointing that I couldn’t be the life of the party and that I had to retire while it was in full swing, but it is just wonderful to hold him in my arms and he simply effervesces with hilarity - as we all do. As I dropped off, the rumbling sound of my son, father and brother yarning and laughing made my eyes water with pleasure.
I’m with seabird Sarah as to another antidote though as an anthropologist, I don’t even need the refresher of horror reportage: I know it like I know my address (i.e. not very well at the moment with a brain like porridge). One colleague, a Ghanaian herself, has done years of research among the Akkan of Ghana, decimated and their social organisation utterly destroyed by the ravages of HIV. Every time she goes back it is to attend a round of funerals among her own lineage & the people she studies. Even though my own research is historical, it racked me to read letters and diaries of 19th century British women who faced death with every birth, women who lost 7 out of 8 of their children; other colleagues work in refugee camps, in cyclone areas, among sad young Eastern-European women recruited to prostitution in the west, with their families virtually hostage to their continued misery.
I look out my window at my daffodils and the squirrels playing over the pile of logs waiting to be cut for next winter’s open fires, sipping a raspberry smoothie, with my family under my roof and today I am alive to enjoy it. How can my half-empty cup NOT runneth over? Besides, I just finished the antibiotics & next chemo is not till Thursday - let’s party!
Love and lots of courage - and belly laughs - to all M-L xx
Oh yes, M-L, I am with you with so much of what you say. You put it so much better than I do! Funny you should mention Ghana, we lived there for three years and I so loved the country and the wonderful people. A dear friend there had breast cancer (late 1980s), had surgery, but no opportunity for any treatment other than that, and her death was a tragedy. Great that you have had your family around you - my son had glandular fever about four years ago now, hope yours will be fully better soon. Sorry you have had ups and downs with the chemo, but you sound wonderful - how I would love to meet you! Keep strong, keep being you, and keep your face to the sunshine, as you so clearly do - it is a bright and wonderful way to face! Love Sarah x
HI all
Just read this do you know what that made me feel really good!!! I haven’t started my chemo yet and dont know a lot about it, I haven’t found out on purpose because everyone is different and has a different experience so I do everything on a ‘need to know’ basis. But really thanks for that it was a real lilft.
Debs x
Hi to ALL of you
I have just had a good ‘blub’ reading this thread - about to go for my fifth cycle of six this morning - weyhey - can’t wait - not - dreading it more than ever - it seems to get harder not easier - probably because I know what sort of week I am going to have - and of course then have more slashing and the old inferno treatement to contend with and this further treatment is getting closer - on top of all this have pulled a muscle in my leg - normally this wouldn’t be a problem but all my ‘positive’ thoughts and drivers over the past four months have been to keep fit, active, relatively well and run that flippin race for life (if it kills me!! -contradicition in terms of course!) - can’t run (or hardly walk) at present so feeling ‘negative’ and fed-up - but I’m allowed for once I think.
And this is the point - in this ‘muddle’ we are all individual, unique people with our own set of circumstances, this of course is what makes us the people we are and consequently how we feel, think and go forward on our journey. It’s good to be positive, it’s not bad to be negative - but I would like to see the words postive and negative disappear in relation to breast cancer - I don’t believe that we are being either positive or negative - we are just dealing with our condition and our thoughts and feelings as they arise - ever-changing - the feelings are the most important thing - what we feel is valid and the only reliable concept that we have - so girls embrace those feelings despite what others may have to say - go with the flow and pop out whenever possible - have good days and bad and above all - be happy when you can and sad when you can’t be happy - good luck to you all in your individual circumstances -
love Janey x
So right Janey. Sorry you are dreading your chemo this morning - as you say the trouble is knowing what kind of a week lies ahead, and “willingly” subjecting ourselves to something that takes us from feeling relatively OK to pretty awful. The hardest thing to do. But you are very nearly there now. Next time you go you will be saying “this is the last one”. I am conscious that for some reading this, they can never say “that was the last one”, and can only imagine how very tough that must be. Whatever our circumstances, I firmly believe we can all support each other and I still think this is a most wonderful forum. Good luck.
Hi Janey
Thanks so much for your wise words. I confess to feeling rather battered after posting on this thread. I knew I should have kept my finger off the keyboard!
Someone asked…Cathy I think…why i go on about this…and it is because I don’t like the language of ‘thinking’ positive used around cancer because I just don’t think its helpful and it sets up hierarchies of expectations which many of us can’t and don’t want to live up to. I think such language also airbrushes away the seriousness of cancer which does no one any good. I think it contributes to the appalling lack of progress in finding a cure for this disease…why bother if having cancer is such a jolly and life affirming experience?
To those of you who have pointed out the other horrors in the worsld…yes yes of course cancer is not the worse thing to happen, but it does no one any good to start making comparisons about awfulness and ‘counting our blessings’ for not being in a worse disaster.
I am sorry that I undermined your original post Ali…I don’t see or feel things the way you do but I should have kept quiet on your post. I am as it happens exhausted and done in after endless chemotherapy. I do take lots of joy from life, I also am devastated knowing that my cancer will eventually kill me. But naming that fear helps me…and I’m not going to be silenced.
I don’t like getting the piss taken out of me when I say things which make some of you find uncomfortable. I was very hurt by some of the remarks some of you responding on this thread made about me on the Dew Drop Inn thread. Thanks to my freinds who reported them and to the moderator for removing them.
I’m off for a nice sunny day In London now. Yes really not curled up in misery corner at all.
Jane
Hi Jane
I really understand how you feel and really didn’t mean to sound like a Pollyanna or belittle chemo or cancer . I have bad days , as I said before I dread chemo and feel guity when people say I’m brave etc because I’m really not. Having breast cancer frightens me sick and I hate chemo and how it makes me feel. But I sometime have to find a reason to carry on with treatment .Having teenages daughters - one starting GCSE’s this week, I have to put on a smile and try to live life normally and think of something good.
Thanks to everyone else for their coments.
This afternoon I’m going to be thinking of happy dolphins and knowing that at the end of my chemo - only another 4 hopfully I can enjoy a nice cup of tea again…
Ali