Tamoxifen 34 *the power of Sauron*

[MaryAnnSingleton]

new thread !!!

[coorong]

Thanks topsy -your lunch sounds good - but peckish already ! I guess it is Easter... Next best thing to Christmas ...

[AshokanFarewell]

thenight still a fairly substantial amount of colon! Hopefully that doesn't make too much difference to everyday life though? Pleased you managed to avoid chemo! :) I've had my whole colon and rectum removed, apart from the very last few cm and I now have an ileo anal pouch, which is usually not that much of a problem, but is behaving very badly today [buangry]

I'm feeling utterly butterly rubbish and temp is on its way up so hopefully in stays under 38 or I will have to venture in to hosp :( on the plus side this is day 12!

MAS sounds like a fabulous day!

gigs hope you feel better this evening.

Sorry everyone am exhausted so shall leave it here. I hope everyone has had a lovely day :)

[MaryAnnSingleton]

So stuffed that we didn't bother with any supper- just a few mini eggs and I had an apple so I could take my meds:-).

[PenPerson]

Hope you are feeling ok today ash and your temperature did not go up any more.

[jchocchip]

Morning pen
Hope everyone had some sleep. Sh is still snoring so I'll have to go make my own [busmile] Happy Easter Monday everyone [busmile]

[jchocchip]

Obv it is Dh not Sh! [bugrin]

[jchocchip]

Ash you are doing so well - they said 10 days would be a successful cycle didn't they? Hope your pouch behaves today.

I felt a bit strange last night. Too much sugar I think! Will try and do a walk with the dcs today.

[AshokanFarewell]

Morning all, thank you for the good wishes, temp came down [bugrin] (better make the most of the bunny smiles before they are all gone!)

I'm still feeling rough and pouch has not yet calmed down oddly it does not respond to any of instructions or tellings off [buhmm]

I'm going to call it a day with the chemo - yes jane ten days was a successful cycle, and twelve days is better, although can half imagine Dr W pretending he never said that!!

Jane I hope you are feeling less strange this morning and that you all have a lovely walk [busmile]

People on my Facebook feed keep posting this picture thing about cancer, you know the ones where it says share this if you care etc etc, but it's all about how people with cancer fight battles and win or lose etc. Does anyone else find that disrespectful/annoying?

I feel that I got lucky, my cancer was found in time, something could be done about it, the only battle was between the medicine/science and cancer, it's not anything I've done or not done, or because I'm strong or brave, and people who die fom cancer certainly aren't weak or not "fighting" hard enough. I wrote a long post about it and was going to put it on my wall but then I didn't want to upset you all if you disagreed with me! [busmile]

[HerNextDoorAt21]

Morning everyone ! Anyone want two children ? They are driving me insane already today. My DH has been at work Friday Saturday and today and he leaves the house at 7am and comes home about 9pm ... admittedly only 3 days per week but it does feel like a marathon when I am not the best myself .

I am waiting for the District Nurse to come and redress the vac pump site so we can go out somewhere. Cant wait to get dressings done at the clinic as sitting around waiting is tiresome !

coorong I am so sorry I didn't pop by earlier, I am the one who had the LD flap recon in January. I have been terribly unlucky and had problems from day one but am feeling Ok now - another girl i met in hospital who had surgery one day before me is fine now, so I hope you take the same path.

Sloshing is common - did the hospital mention that it could be aspirated ? I had this done 3 times and it does provide relief (once on the front and twice on the back). I also had a huge swelling under my arm where they brought the back muscle round but it was like a soggy sponge and no where to draw fluid from so it eventually went away. I would ring the breast care nurses or surgeons clinic and try and get seen to see if the fluid can be relieved.

topsy was round for pub night with another one of our neighbours .... we shall call her HerFromTheBOttomOfTheGarden ..... we had a very funny night and no doubt I will be blamed for hangovers etc etc .... I cooked Indian appetisers ..... mmmmm there are a few left, I think I'll eat them chuck them on the FBS trolley. Oh bugger, forgot topsy has a key to my house and is quite partial to the aforementioned snacks - better get them quick !

Hope everyone had a lovely easter !

[PenPerson]

Yes I completely agree with you ash and get all annoyed at the cancer adverts and the whole 'fighting it' thing. It is as if we have some sort if control over it . You don't see it with other diseases like Parkinson's , multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease etc etc. I feel like ranting about it too but am trying to keep my cancer Tourette's under control. Not sure if there is anything we can do but I agree 100% and just give people a stare if they call me brave. I think people reactions are all about how scared they are about getting the illness themselves.

hnd I am fed up with my dc too. Only 2 weeks of the holiday to go

[Copthallresident]

The great Easter egg famine of 2013? Why? I totally agree with jchoc I need my eggs available on Easter Saturday not Jan because I leave everything to the last minute Shops are now of course full of croped trousers and T shirts for lounging in all the glorious sunny weather Girls appreciated the irony though but are insisting I take the 1direction bag that came with the egg out with me and have Harry tatooed on my arm, apparently he goes for older women..... Helped by having managed to find 5 packs of mini eggs for traditional Easter Egg hunt, only one traditional sibling fight scuffle and traditional champagne and chocolate eating in front of Bridget Jones evening. We also went to see Trance late afternoon before a giant seafood platter at Loch Fyne, strange film, very clever but this is second time we have seen James McAvoy not being the nicest , at least this time he didn't keep vomiting, murdering children and getting his head chopped off like he did in MacBeth. Still all the better for having on your team to effect a really bad end for Katherine Jenkins.

coorong Johnny and his thighs are in deffo, he is not actually Scottish but Newcastle is near enough, or maybe we make it a Lion's team.

pusporn alert Yes I had a very persistent seroma under my arm that they drained 3 or 4 weeks running, but it did eventually heal. Was treated by a Dr Grumpy who grumped that it was my own fault for doing too much, especially driving, but perhaps that was just him having a go. Also I must have been one of the last to have all my lymph nodes removed, sentinal node was just being trialled. However have managed to avoid lymphodaema.

KK I know exactly what you mean. I always feel very close to my friend when I walk in Kew Gardens, especially when the bluebells are out in the woods as we used to take our toddlers there together and always made sure to go when the bluebells were out each year and discuss life the universe and everything. Powerful memories.

Are you planting seeds? Is your greenhouse heated? I am still waiting as we have frosts predicted every night this week but everything is going to be so behind

hope gigs and ash had a good night . Ash remember the worse you feel, the more the Cancer has been zapped.

[busmile] to everyone Happy Easter Monday!

[Copthallresident]

Xposted Ash feel free to post long rant, you are so right about the fighting / brave rhetoric, and worse still the . "lost after a long brave fight with the illness" as if it is someone's fault, not this nasty buggering disease. Perhaps we should start our own Facebook post that tells it like it is. Of course those of us with Breast Cancer also get lots of nice pink candy floss celebrity endorsed branding to disguise what a nasty mutilating bugger it is. When my friend had bowel cancer we used to joke about starting a pooporn alert brown ribbon movement. Am just on a gentle seethe at the moment with all the pink fighting talk Race for Life posters,come October and BC awareness month I rise to the boil, or just don't go anywhere I'll see any of the posters or magazine articles. At the Royal Marsden even the mamogram rooms are pink and plastered with it, whilst the rest of the hospital is tasteful beige!!

I did like the Facebook thing with the woman with the double mastectomy though, that was a bit of reality.

[thenightisyoung]

Ash glad to hear you're feeling a bit better today. I will severely wag my finger at your pouch and tell it to start behaving. I totally agree with you about the whole battling cancer thing. As you say, it's more often than not down to a combination of luck and medical science. The thing I find most offensive is the implication in there that if your cancer recurs or gets worse there is some sort of blame attached - maybe you didn't fight hard enough

[thenightisyoung]

cross posted with copt, arf at brown ribbon movement

[graciesmall09]

Morning all.

brown ribbon movement.

How are you is morning gigs? Hope you got a restful night.

ash glad the temp is going down but sorry you are feeling so rubbish. Chemo is definitely no fun.

I really need to get my backside going. Been practising ballet buns today - I really am rubbish with hair and I have to make DS1 a birthday cake today. He is 16 tomorrow.

Hopefully I will catch up later but thinking of you all.

[Copthallresident]

I should add for balance that the rhetoric and pink candy floss does clearly provide comfort to a lot of people, both those who have had Cancer and those who have lost people. I just once had Cancer tourettes with people I didn't know people I know I bore silly with it who ambushed me on a dogwalk dressed from head to foot in pink with feather boas, wig, the lot and badges that said who they had lost as if it gave them brownie points. I snapped that since I had had BC , i would not give money to any charity that marketed all the pink stuff because it had no relevance to my experience of the disease. One of them rightly pointed out that she was just making use of her grief in a positive way (agh the positive word) and I felt guilty. What I object to is that once you get BC it is as if you have to embrace it, I have never worn candy pink in my life (there are fb pics on my profile showing how my mother scarred me for life cutting my hair short and making me wear boy's clothes - she says it was trendy ) let alone worn a feather boa, why would I start at 43!!

Ash you may not have been around when I last posted this but I love this article www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm

[jchocchip]

I like pink but don't particularly like the whole pink ribbon culture. I do identify with parts of that article. I am not defined by my cancer but it has given me a bit of a kick to do things now rather than procrastinating...

[Gigondas]

Waves lazily to all from bed of pillows. Feeling bit better as had slightly better night but still very disrupted. Think might just pop round to copthall for a next time as some of it is have had disturbed nights for ages.

I am inwardly nodding at the guff about battling cancer (can't actually nod cos of my neck). I am particularly sensitive at moment as people get very emotive when mention it and I have had some shit about diet. As someone says, this is about people's own fears and issues (tbh this board can be dreadful- there is one quite well known poster I like who is quite vocal about how people are generally scared of death and illness- she is right).

Gracie - do you use those little fine elastic bands to put dd hair in pony tail? It's easier if start from that then Twist it round (then use tons of hairspray - remembers this from own dancing show days).

[AshokanFarewell]

cop love the brown ribbon movement! Although I have to confess I got a bit grumpy when I got my chemo diary, my chemo is for breast or bowel and the breast bit was in pink and the bowel bit in a disgusting beige browny colour I do find the pink a bit overwhelming though, and it's on everything! It must be hard for men who get breast cancer as all the stuff related to it is so "girly". Personally my cancer experience has made me feel very unfeminine, almost not even human at times, like I was just a big walking bowel so I can't imagine breast cancer makes people feel very girly and pink either! It's a shame the hospitals are jumping on board with it too, I'm sure they mean well but it's not like they paint the colorectal wards brown or the prostate cancer rooms blue or anything.

I'd like to do some kind of fundraising walk after my treatment, to sort of mark the end of it all and give something back, but it took me ages to find one that wasn't women only, I want my dad to be able to come along too

I also know a couple of people who made their relative's cancer all about them by going on loads of Race for Life type events with her name on their backs and going on and on about how upsetting it was for them, when she was quite positive about it all and didn't want that kind of attention, and they weren't even close to her before her illness! She's well now and they've gone back to not really talking to her

Thanks for the article I shall have a read, and thanks for reminding me why I feel so crap, I have cheered up a bit as hopefully any rogue cells have been completely frazzled

gracie what kind of cake are you making? Hope it goes well. My ballet teacher used to tell my mum off as she was so rubbish at doing buns, I had to go early for exams and shows so that the teacher could do mine instead!

KK forgot to post yesterday, that sounds lovely about your dad. I'm glad you were able to feel close to him :) I'm not really sure what I believe about anything but a while after my Nana died I had a dream where she told me not to be sad as she had had a long and happy life and she was at peace now, it was very comforting and not like any dream I've ever had before :)

pen yes I think it's definitely partly fear, it's such a scary and unpredictable illness. My doctors keep saying how brave I am, I think they expect me to be weeping and wailing all over the place, but I'm quite matter of fact about it all. That's just how I am, it's hardly brave, it's not like I volunteered to have cancer so someone else didn't have to or anything like that! I think I've been guilty in the past of telling people how brave they are though

thenight your finger wagging may have worked, pouch has finally decided to calm down a bit. I am having a little procedure on Wednesday that should help it, plus it's under GA so at least I'll get a nice little sleep

[Copthallresident]

Ash I agree you just cope in your own style and way. All this Cancer rhetoric, you would think nasty cowardly people don't get Cancer Perhaps THAT is the secret of prevention!!

I had one of those dreams around six months after my friend died. We were sat on a Greek beach as the sun set, no words just a tremendous feeling of contentment and peace. I have since read that it is quite common, a way of your subconscious signalling that you have come to terms with it.

Gigs I agree entirely about illness and death. One of the best things about my support group we all agreed was that we went up and looked over the edge as it were, talked about how we felt about death and dying, something we couldn't inflict on those who cared about us. Once you have done that you realise that the reality is a lot less scary than all the perceptions and feelings that we are raised with. I had a very strange experience just before another friend (we are an unlucky group of friends) died. He had already had a cardiac arrest (that was when he was resuscitated by Douglas Hodge) and it was misdiagnosed by a Italian hospital. They had been to stay the day before he died. He and I were never alone to talk about it, and he wasn't one for talking about his feelings anyway but as they left he looked into my eyes after he hugged me goodbye and I could just tell he was communicating a common understanding, that he had looked over the edge too. Or maybe that is my subconscious comforting me too. Of course buggering bugger that I didn't just drive him to the nearest cardiologist and no matter that it was a Bank Holiday.........

[Copthallresident]

Oh and gigs do across the rooftops, if it is any time before 4am chances are I am racing across a Rugby field flanked by Damien, James etc

[coorong]

morning all fro the bright and breezy (and freezing) north - god the cold weather is driving me nuts

Jennifer Saunders doesn't talk about her breast cancer, but I do recall her commenting that she'd punch / ignore anyone who used the words "fight", "brave" or "positive". I like her. Having spoken to lots of people, it's really a chronic illness, and you don't hear people "battling asthma" or diabetes. I guess it stems from all those nice hollywood movies about matriarchs who guide their families and then die in soft focus, (roll credits).

nuff said - glad you're feeling better ash.

Am off to hospital tomorrow (Wythenshaw - pink rating 1/10 for clinic), to have my back decanted. Vintage '13 anyone?

[topsyturner]

Oh feck it !
I just wrote and posted a very brave and inspirationally pink message .
And mumsnet ate it !!!!

It's all your fault you Nest of Vipers !!!

[PenPerson]

Can you believe that on the fantastic status from ash I copied some fucker has commented about a friend 'fighting cancer'. I am sitting on my hands to control myself. I think they have spectacularly missed the point. I feel like deleting her comment and blocking her.

[Gigondas]

We have responded pen.

Part of reason I don't post about cancer on fb is for this reason (not that there is any secret in rl).