*TAMOXIFEN* the 5th

[MaryAnnSingleton]

in case we forget and find ourselves at 1000 - here's a fresh new thread !

Well due to feeling so good yesterday I probably overdid things slightly so feel tired today! I think I have a tendency to getting into that pattern even when I'm well so will have to control myself!

Had to get up early as the guys are here putting shed base down for me, so the shed project is at last advancing. Of course if I had an army of helpers like RWU this would have been done weeks ago! Well done RWU on your extremely impressive technique with IKEA!! Brill result. I hope chemo goes OK and that when you emerge there will be totally gleaming kitchen all complete.

Kitten stories! Celeste sounds gorgeous.

Smee and Cupcaked - sounds like progress for you both. Good luck on the energy front. Having hair again is so exciting isn't it. My DS says mine looks like a Mohican now... this is because the front on top half of my head has hair growing upards from each side that meets in a dainty point. Well I can't do anything else with it so I brush each side up to encourage it. Its not long enough to lie down one way or the other IYSWIM!

Can't believe I have only this week and next at home, then its half term holiday then back to work. Thank goodness its a phased return! I have got very used to being at home and rather like it......after 31 years of working with 2yrs 5 months off to have my DD and DS I would love to stay here. Hey ho.

Smee - how lovely of your DS to draw the Chilean rescue capsule. I hope hundreds of children have done this, partly to erase the memories in my mind of all the DCs who drew the Twin Towers with the plane carshing. Its very uplifting to have such a good news story for once. Just hope those men are OK longer term. I feel it puts my past year into a different perspective in a way. (I am a bit claustrophobic, so being underground or in a tiny capsule fills me with horror.)

Hope its dry today for the cement shed base to dry....it will be so nice to have the corner of the garden tidied up. Just wish builder would come and do the damp in front living room. He's delayed as usual, grr.

SR - the hair sounds fun! We've all had that rather wilful period when it just isn't playing ball, but it is still so fab to have it back that you just don't care. do you? Let the family say what they will, it's great.

And back to work, how positive. It'll be fine, though tiring. And it'll help you feel more normal.

Have you really only got one corner of the garden that needs tidying? All ours - front, back and 'over the back' (we have three) - are a total disgrace so I am a bit abut yours. Enjoy the shed!

Mindful raisin sounds intriguing MAS. Will you ever see one in the same light again..? Hope the olbas oil/ tin foil does the trick for Celeste. Hadn't heard of that one before.

RWU, I won't mess with you either. What an amazing deal. Am liking the sound of your SIL and those young farmers too. She sounds like a force to be reckoned with. Good luck for chemo. Are they going to be downstairs fitting kitchen, whilst you're curled up recuperating?

Cupcaked, you go girl!! So glad skin holding up and only a week left after this. I don't understand the whole booster thing, is that a different level of dose? Very excited for you over hair and eyebrows and energy levels too. Brilliant after the year you've had.

SR, I agree, was amazing to see those miners safe. Couldn't help but being uplifted by it all, though my energy's gone somewhere else for today. Have to help out with school gardening club later, so will have to find some from somewhere. Might take a packet of chocolate biscuits with me, to use as treats.

Your hair sounds most excellent. A Mohican is cool after all. Work sounds not so good - is it possible once you start, you'll enjoy it though? Or do you already know you won't. Hope the shed base hasn't got rained on.

Cakes, toenail sounds ouch. Poor you. I think some of mine are coming off. They feel very delicate and are pulling away from the toes. yuk.. Hope your antibiotics kick in soon. Trick my mum told me when taking medicine you don't like is to take them with something strong tasting like grapefruit juice. Might be worth a try.

Will give that a go, thanks! But they keep coming back as nasty tasting burps

Nails coming off - yikes! IIRC Pennies lost a few nails as well. Sounds awful. See the doc!

[Envy] about RWU's young farmers. They wouldn't have to do my kitchen (though it needs it), they could just come round for tea

Now you're onto something Cakes. RWU, how many young farmers are we talking? I think you should share.

Possibly pictures? [hopeful emoticon]

I will never take a raisin for granted again !

will go and link to my folksy page again Cakes...

here

ow about toenail too btw

Thanks MAS

I am sorry i think I am being thick. How do I tell you what i want on that link? What do I click? I'll keep trying...

I want to get you to do a picture for dd's room, with a pic of her and some animals.

PS. Have now broken a tooth as well. if anything else medical happens I may just give up.

oh bugger - tooth breaking is my department -poor you...
contact me by email Cakes- much easier
[email protected]

Got it - thanks.

if you want to get it taken off, I have made a note.

Three photos and a note sent by email - x

got them !!

Hmm, is MAS going to do a card for toe-mail problem=sufferers? Could be a whole new market! Actually maybe there is a niche for specialised medical cards?

Cakes - oh, no, there are lots of other corners which need a total overhaul slight tidy. The one for the shed is just the most obvious as we'd torn down the old shed and left a rubbly corner.

I'm tired today as well, but managed to drive down to my work office to get my manager to sign a form I needed. It was probably a good thing to do - seeing a few colleagues was nice.

Cakes - Looking ahead to work, I think its going to be quite tough even after I've got energy back. Local government will have to deal with a some severe cuts and we still have harmonisation to deal with following the Local Government Reorganistion of Cheshire last year. Cheshire County Council was divided into two, then each half had to merge with 3 District Councils - all a bit of a nightmare really.

Sorry about your toe though - and sorry also to read that you had swine flu while on chemo!! Bit of poor planning there I think You obviously just weren't thinking positively enough!!

Does anyone else have a DC due to go to uni just when these fees are going up? Porr things to be saddled with so much debt. Having DD at Cambridge means we feel that if DS got an offer we'd have to support him! Why does the UK have to have the most expensive unis in the world?

have a good rest RWU

Tooth and toe at same time, it's too much, Cakes, so sorry for you. Toenails are a taxol thing aren't they? Didn't you have that too Smee?

SR, yes I also have oldest DS due to fly the nest in 2012. Very depressing news indeed. He was also considering giving Cambridge a shot, but maybe not.. Think I had better go back to work tho! How do you feel about going back now? Must say I would find it very difficult. Energy much better but don't think anywhere close to normal yet, and as for being able to make decisions...have trouble with my socks in the morning never mind anything more complicated.

Anyone cry at Chilean miners? Was thinking about bringing kids to Les Mis at Xmas, but prob would blub all the way thro and they would hate that. Have been rather labile in last 6 months. Does it last??

RWU hope u feelin not too bad. Enjoy the young farmers :)

RWU (and young farmer admirers) check out the new Yeo Valley advert...

Crikey, that link has just made me come over all warm Like the idea of young farmers working for beer, but sadly I am struggling to pronounce that name.

Toenails dropping off is taxol i think - mine is not taxol related though, just an ingrown toenail gone bad. don't think I could deal with drug-induced nail drop-off

Yes, wept here over the miners. I have also been pretty teary, but I am nearly one year after the end of rads now and it hasn't gone away.

Our dd is still a long way off from leaving for uni. I have NO idea how any of you (or us, if and when the time comes) can possibly be expected to afford that amount of money. We have been saving for dd's future education and thought we were doing quite well - but these changes to the rules just leave us trailing in the dirt.

MAS, that made me smile. Though what's this current fashion for men with facial furniture then?? I do like a bit of stubble, but beyond that I'd rather not. Liked the Owl though.

But 14 Young Farmers, RWU - that's a lot of beer! Sounds like fun and you get a kitchen to boot. If you have any spare, remember to send one my way. Young Farmers that is, not bits of kitchen. Hope chemo's not made you feel too grim. How many more have you got ahead of you, I've lost track.

Cakes, tooth now too. Gah! How annoying. Hope toe nails's calming at least. Mine are very tender and wobble when you touch them, so eek. Am being very mature about it, so not looking.

Cupcaked, you're right, nails are problematic due to Tax. I cried at Chilean miners too. Hard not to really, though like you, I cry far more easily now - maybe it's an easy release for some of the tension BC has caused. I look like I'm permanently crying at the moment anyway, as Tax has affected my eyes; they're incredibly watery and unfocussed. Really getting on my nerves now, as it's hard to read for very long and they're red rimmed from it, so I look like a zombie. Am avoiding mirrors as they're frightening..

All this talk of university fees is a scary prospect, but for now we have a long way to go before we reach that point. Though judging by DS's current ambition (to be a surfer dude or a lollipop lady!), we won't have to worry. Must be stressful trying to work out how to help them. Looks like it will only get worse in the years to come.

Bloody hell, taxol sounds horrendous. How long before the eyes pick up, do you know? God knows I didn't like FEC but we had none of this nail and eye nonsense, good grief!

I think the easy tears are a release of tension:conversely I also found (and still do, though more occasionally) that i laughed hysterically at things. I can remember one day on about chemo cycle 2 being in IKEA and finding the name of the Billy Bookcase unbelievably funny. I was seriously having problems holding it together. Since then I have had some uproarious times ,laughing at more or less nothing. it's all tension i guess. And better out than in.

Love the idea of smee's ds with ambitions to be a lollipop lady. That one may be hard to achieve, especially if the lady bit is more important than the lollipop. Surfer dude would be cool, although quite insecure from a pension point of view.

surfer dude is very cool