********The 37th Tamoxifen Thread, Fun and Tears in "Cancerland" *****

[Copthallresident]

Trolley Rolled over and "Its a small small world" playing on the ipod on repeat.

Peppermint tea and aloe Vera juice helps trapped wind trice. Enjoy your lie in.

Did get Back to sleep for an hour or so then big gig woke me up.

trice poor you. My father (retired surgeon) used to recommend for older patients to gently roll an orange or tennis ball in a clockwise motion on your lower abdomen for trapped wind / constipation. You do it as gently or firmly as you like - a kind of massage. I've tried it myself and it can help (or not).
We've got Billie Holliday on downstairs "all of me" .... Sunday morning music!

Oh, just realised, didn't mean to accuse you of being old, merely not running around like a whippet .....

GOOD MORNING TWICKENHAM!

gigs glad walk in sorted you out as if you went to grown up hospital you would still be waiting, especially after last night, am guessing would be overun with high heel related injuries. [Shock] Great fan of that place except they do tend to send you on / x ray not working etc. if it is any consolation, my hips hurting as usual, and that is definitely age related not Cancer.

Trice sorry about trapped wind. I always try a jog but guessing that is last thing you feel like, warm drink? Sometimes helps.....

Those sites only for when you are in "picking the scab" mood, or need to find some people who are worse than you, love gigs take on perspective they would give you if you took them as representative Stick around here as we take nothing too seriously.....

Listening to Madonna last night was a bit like going on sites, on another planet, she does drone on making herself feel saintly but rest of concert amazing. I knew Beyonce would be amazing as took little Copt a couple of tears ago, but JLo was great as well and Florence. You are just blown away by their talent. Also have new lesbian best friends who helped us defend our place near front from various bullying yob types, they probably are feeling saintly this morning as helped old ladies.....

House full, suspect a few headaches as Big Copt and friends not back til 3, not sure where you go in Twicks until 3 might get another half hour kip before breakfast duty.......

A couple of tears ago? Why? iPads do have minds of their own

You go yo the George opposite Iceland apparently as has late licence.

Concert sounds amazing . I think hip/knee is age , unfit and post chemo/rads as its different pain to mets and eases as I walk bit ceases up if cold/sit down. Think stairs don't help which is unfortunate as live in a town house. But will get it checked on Tuesday.

Enjoying the sun and drinking

She and friends did once go to club above Cabbage Patch, said it was full of sad old people, probably 30

Morning all
Copt concert sounds amazing and lol at new lesbian friends helping you. I tend to sit down these days at concerts ( old !) I have tickets to see robbie and olly in wembley at the end of June, fingers crossed ( realise I don't share musical taste with everyone else!)

Gigs sorry you were up in the night good thing to get hips checked out but it does sound like you've been really busy recently so probably that

Truce glad you had a good time, your sil sounds fab enjoy breakfast

I'm going to try and have a nice day in the sun with the family and forget about having pieces chopped off me on Tuesday, shudder. Feel like packing my case and heading off to a tropical island somewhere
Did find a nice bit on bcc site ( it is like a scab I can't stop picking) moving forward has women who have got through it and are living their lives, maybe different but still living and not dead so I did find that quite comforting
Hope it's sunny everywhere today ?

Coorong, I didn't run before my op. Running is another thing mn is responsible for! I swam quite soon after op but then didn't swim for a while during rads. Started running 4 months after op when joined c25k thread on here.
Morning everyone. Looks like another sunny day here :)

copt your concert was in the paper this morning ...... V.jealous haven't been to an outdoor concert in years ...... I think A Tasmanian vineyard in the 90s......... Oh dear

To counteract sites, being children of the 70s friend and I ridiculously excited when Gloria Steinam came on stage, Beyonce in Twickers I could cope with but Gloria Steinam ! We did of course have to explain to lesbian bezzies who she was but they had explained who Blake Lively was to us! However was just searching for article I read about her and discovered she had Breast Cancer ( like all the best people do) in 1986 27years ago. Focus on that malt !!

Jchochip - thanks for that - did you have a mx? I've had one and LD flap reconstruction - it's not bad now, a bit sore, but I'm probably overdoing it. We don't have a very nice pool nearby, but I've got a x trainer at home which I'm using judiciously.

How's the tummy trice?

at copt exalting Gloria Steinem - daughter of feminist here - we had posters all over our house in 1975 - international women's year..... And was pleased to see all the stuff in the Observer this morning about the new wave - oh dear, rant over .....

Had to google Gloria steinham and in the process found nancy Reagan, Martian Navratilova and Carly Simon. Think I did know about some of these but had forgotten
I always watch the sad reality shows and keep thinking about jade goody, different person different journey different cancer I know

Anyway I don't want to bring doom and gloom to you all sorry !
Just put the Mrsa gel stuff up my nose

Martina ! Not Martian ! Sorry Martina

Morning all,

betsy and kurri I hope you hav more luck with the forget me nots than I did, they were too fiddly and didn't look anything like the picture when I'd finished so made these ones instead, but without the white bits as I thought they looked better just blue and yellow.

Yesterday we booked our summer holiday I'm so excited. We have a cottage in the Cotswolds for a week in August. The village has a river that you can paddle/swim in which is my absolute favourite thing to do in the world :) and it isn't too far away so should be able to cope with the drive without too many loo stops!

trice I had massive problems with trapped wind after my surgery, if you can get hold of peppermint water than apparently that's the best thing for it, recommended by the stoma nurses, otherwise peppermint oil or peppermint capsules or tea. Also gently massaging your stomach, a hot water bottle to relax your muscles. If you can, raise your bum up (so glamorous! ) either by leaning forward over something like the arm of a sofa so your bum is up and your head and stomach are over the arm, or lie down and raise your bottom up on some pillows, or just lie on your front with your bum up in the air then the gas will hopefully rise up and come out. Also I tried gripe water, for babies, it tastes disgusting but it possibly did help. Also try and breathe really deeply into your tummy as apparently that can help dislodge the gas.

I hope everyone is having a good day :)

hello !! am back and trying to catch up after the excitement of my dad's big birthday party- it was a huge success and a beautifully sunny day and everything was perfect !
Am sort of mulling over oncy visit on Friday- gig and topsy - do you think my team will think me neurotic to have gone on about my hip ? I feel a bit foolish as it as nothing,as if I was looking for trouble. Am always someone who avoids fussing about my health and it has bothered me..awful fear of being needy.

Am taking a chemo break of a week for our holiday (in Suffolk) because I didn't want to be carting my meds with me-so I'd take 1 week of capecitabine then miss a week,week's usual rest and back to start on next round the week after that. This round is number 13- blimey.
I can offer left over bday cake/pavlova/fairy cakes and assorted savoury bits for the trolley Oh and there's lots of wine left over - hooray- all the prosecco got swigged though.

Okaaay this is a bit of a brain dump, as it's messing with my head a bit.

warning - atheists look away now :)

On Friday evening I prayed for strength and courage to face whatever is to come. My bible fell open at Luke 7:1 (which is about a slave who had faith and was healed) which was scary and comforting at the same time.

Went to church this morning - DD was serving so we sat near the front (I usually hid in the middle somewhere on most Sundays, but DD likes me to sit where she can see me when she's serving) The gospel reading for this Sunday was the same Luke 7 section. Then the priest did his entire sermon on healing ministry and how God is there for us if we reach out to him in times of need. So needless to say I spent most of the service blubbing and making a right show of myself... The priest had obviously seen my blubbing and collared me after to ask if everything was ok so at least he knows now, as I'd not had the chance to tell him yet. He is lovely and I know he will be a source of support and strength in the months to come.

So same feelings of comforting and scary at the same time...

Mangled Heads R Us

Well now I've done that I can go and catch up with the rest of the thread :)

Betsy if it brought you some comfort then that has to be a good thing :)

MAS the party looked great not surprised all the prosecco went, lovely stuff especially on a sunny day !
Ruby your holiday sounds perfect fingers crossed for some nice weather in August :) river to paddle in sounds idyllic

Hi everyone, quick question, I have an appointment with the oncologist tomorrow for the first time since diagnosis of breast to bone to possibly lungs and liver cancer.

I refused (wimp) chemo but have had radio-therapy for initial breast cancer and radio therapy for bone cancer since mastectomy.

What do I ask her? My brain is numb. I have no idea if I will still be chemo viable now. I find it difficult to take in answers if I'm stressed, which I will be and DH who will be with me is worried about missing stuff out if we get a list of questions finally typed out.

Anyone around my time-line of diagnosis stage or better still just past it What did you ask please.

emin do you have your own BC nurse? If so, ask him/her to sit in the consultation with you and your DH. Then, if you can, arrange a debrief with the BC nurse or get their phone number to follow up. You won't remember everything, but try to write down key points, results, options, places for more reliable advice, side effects of different scenarios. I did mini flow charts for my treatments (you can go the full gant chant on excel). But I did flow charts following through different options. It really helped me.

Meant to say, you're not a wimp, you're a person facing and dealing with a situation which no one wants to be in ,......

I do have a named BCN but she's recently been off sick for a while so I've just been dealing with one of the other nurses until she comes back to work.

There has always been a BCN sit in with the consultants appointments but the oncologist has her own nurse who isn't a BCN as far as I know.

I'm aware my appointment is late afternoon and by the time we got home and rang someone they would probably have finished work for the day,that would mean an overnight wait to clarify things

I see what you mean, emin I can't offer anything else - I remember I had follow up questions days later after I'd talked it all through with my DH and we had questions - but for tomorrow I don't know, just ask and ask until you get the answers you need

earth - I can only speak of DBs experience with bowel cancer - by the time he was diagnosed it had already spread to liver & one of his kidneys. Prognosis was poor as less than 5% (I think it was) survive 5 years even with treatment, but he was youngish (54) and fit (had run a marathon the week before diagnosis!) - so they wanted to try everything. After tumour removal he had very intensive and strong chemo as they were hoping to shrink the liver metasteses enough to be able to do a resection to remove them. His case was about as bad as it gets, so I would imagine chemo is still an option in your case :)

I second writing everything down and then getting the BC nurse to go with it at "normal" pace so you can ask any questions. As coorong says a list for each of option, of what's involved, risks, side effects, likely results, etc so you can weigh up the pros and cons of each option.

and definitely not wimpy at all :)

damn I type too slow :)