The Great Cancer Recovery part 5

[Topofthecliffs]

Amazingly we have now filled four threads and are ready to start again. How time flies when you are being purposeful! Come and join in.

You may have finished active treatment for cancer, be in remission or NED. You want to look forward not dwell on the past. You know you ought to be eating well, exercising more and picking up the threads of your old life. Join us and share the ups and downs of recovery. We understand!
Here are some resources we found helpful:
The Mountain Lion
https://www.cancerpal.co.uk/post/what-it-s-really-like-to-receive-a-cancer-diagnosis
Peter Harvey on Psychology of recovery:
https://workingwithcancer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/After-the-treatment-finishes-then-what.pdf
Resources from Penny Brohn:
https://pennybrohn.org.uk/our-approach/resources/
Breast Cancer Now Moving Forward:
https://breastcancernow.org/information-support/support-you/moving-forward
Get your Oomph Back with Carolyn Garritt
http://www.oomph.london/home.html
Charity providing treats for cancer patients:
https://somethingtolookforwardto.org.uk/
Exercise is good for you:
^https://www.webmd.com/cancer/features/exercise-cancer-patients^
Any more suggestions? Post them below

(There is a thread for those suspected to have cancer, or newly diagnosed and facing treatment, and also a thread for those with Stage IV cancer who want to talk to others in the same boat, and you are welcome on any or all of these)

I wore a pair of trousers last night which I haven't worn since before the cancer. They were much more comfortable! Last summer the bulk of the cancer was in my abdomen and I couldn't bear to wear anything with a waistband; I was glad to have bought several dresses. However, the jacket I wore was on the large side when I got it and is huge now. It's gorgeous though, so I want to keep it.

For most of the last 12 months I've been dressing purely for comfort, so it's quite a change to be thinking about what to wear and making a bit of an effort to look nice. Getting ready to go out takes me absolutely ages, though, far longer than it used to, I'm sure.

@MrsSPenguinz The vineyard tour sounds nice although I agree 10.30 is early to be on the wine! We did a rum tour in Barbados once which was similar.

10.30 is a bit early to start on the wine for me! Enjoy! I'm out for dinner tonight, and I only really eat meat when I'm out, so I'm looking forward to it. We always share a dessert, and I'm normally too full to eat more than a couple of bites (appetite/stomach capacity 😂😂). They do an absolutely lush lemon tart 🙂

I do find I get more bloated now, and I'm better eating sourdough bread if I'm going to eat bread. So maybe it's the yeast? Or, more probably, the bloody tamoxifen 😂

@Ohjoyohbliss That's great your trousers are more comfortable. I have been through many clothes since treatment, just getting cheap ones, as things change so often. I do find wearing nicer ones helps my mood though in treatment I loved comfortable and soft. A rum tour in Barbados sounds great.

Have a lovely dinner @BatshitCrazyWoman

We had a lovely time at the vineyard. DH said to me would you like it if we took my classic car. So we went in his classic car as he loves it and vineyard isn't far. We had a tea / coffee then an hour and an half tour of vineyard which was fascinating especially with heatwave differences, it was a retirement project and 8 to 10 years before first wine. They have to prune 26,000 vines each year and have a day each year where you can volunteer to pick grapes and you get a nice lunch. We have signed up for that. Then we had the sparkling wine tasting in their marquee which wasn't until 12pm so quite civilised in the end and then we had a seafood plate each with homemade bread and butter followed by local ice creams. We then went on to a plant shop and got a few plants for the garden. Lovely day out and DH was so happy to be in his car.

Oh, that looks beautiful.

Thanks @Ohjoyohbliss

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

We did gardening yesterday and today did about 4.5 hours of cleaning house and doing garden with DH. DH made a lovely Sunday roast with cauli cheese so we had that and just having dinner now. DS finished the cookie dough ice cream and took a bath whilst we gardened. DH got more ice cream, luckily the shop is right by our house for emergency ice cream. I hoovered all upstairs, cleaned upstairs bathroom, cleaned kitchen walls and floor, cleaned entrance hall floor and walls and then picked up leaves in the garden and cleaned the outside windows of the kitchen, entrance hall and living room. DH hoovered living room, dining room and stairs and planted the plants we bought at the plant nursery and the silkies were out with us singing. DH also put filler in the kitchen ceiling where there was one crack from before and we will paint soon hopefully.

DD is back later in the week for just under a week then she's off to France, then to Austria then to China for 2 weeks for a rowing regatta in Chengdu.

@MrsSPenguinz I feel exhausted just reading that. What a lot you've accomplished in one day.

Thanks @Ohjoyohbliss

Hope you and everyone are doing well.

DD is on her way home for a week from university and will be lovely to see her. The neighbours dead tree came down today. DH is off to France for a few days then DD will go to France with her friends.

I’m home from London and my DS wedding. It was everything we had hoped for. Glorious setting, historic house and lovely weather. Everybody behaved well, and it was a joyful day. I was a bit torn between looking after DM92 and being MOG but my siblings helped out with DM although we drove her up to London and took her home afterwards. It’s hard to see her muddled and lonely but she does like living in the family home. These wonderful days of family life make up for the crap cancer bits, but you have to take time to savour them as they rush past. I am looking forward to the photos and the reminiscing already. The emphasis was strongly on family and friends, most of whom have been in their lives since childhood. Magical!

That sounds perfect @Topofthecliffs Glad your DSs wedding went well.

DH has gone to France and saw his Mum for her birthday (she's in her 90s and still quite active), his aunt, been to see his second cousins, and a couple of friends with cancer, and his twin brother and family, a lot of driving but he seems happy to be seeing lots of people. DD is back home from Oxford for a few days until Wednesday and been lovely to see her and catch up on her news, she's off to Paris with 3 boys from Oxford who are cycling 400kms. She is going by train. Then she's off to Austria then to China for 2 weeks.

Still sunny here, was 31C yesterday and still no rain for next 10 days so I guess we will need to be in the garden a fair amount. Never known a summer like it. Almost 2 months with almost no rain and 25C to 35C and sunny. Temperature is nice mostly but the lack of rain is hard for the garden.

France is a bit too hot currently I think. My sister has come over to escape!
I just read an interview with Lucy Davis about her stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis. What an amazing lady! I hope I could be as positive in that situation as she is. I am sure there is more she could say but she has chosen to be upbeat.
Hope you all get to enjoy the eclipse later, if you are in Europe anyway!

Yes its been very hot in France this summer and looks like it only goes back into 20s from high 30s on Saturday. They've had the same lack of rain as us but higher temperatures - we've mainly been high 20s here, which is quite pleasant whereas they've been mid to high 30s. Though tomorrow we have 35C here and we will need to be in the garden.

The planning officer has just announced today they will visit us Friday afternoon for 10 minutes but could be anytime in the afternoon. The garden is fine but neighbours dead tree came down and few branches from that, plus lots of leaves as trees shed them with heat and need to water everywhere and do silkies coop. DH is back in an hour or so and said yesterday he's fine to do things this afternoon with me, he may regret offering that.

The wedding sounds wonderful, @Topofthecliffs as you say, magical. I hope your dm has some recollections of it.
@MrsSPenguinz sounds like you’re making progress with your plans! I hope ds is not too unsettled with it all. Our garden is pretty crispy apart from pots and more shaded beds- and a selection of pots of plant I optimistically collected just as the heat really kicked in!
its amazing to see the variety of progress of the cosmos I grew from seed- a lot of 12” short sticks with one crumpled flower in the beds wit( full sun, and rampant shrub sized plants in the more shaded beds which we put loads of extra soil improving stuff and mulch into.

Good your garden is progressing @thesandwich, the lack of rain is making ours quite high maintenance but good exercise and lovely to be out there.

DS has been wandering the garden a lot and also coming upstairs to our freezer to get ice cream a lot and the cat likes to sit on the freezer and looks at him very judgementaly when he does that. We just went out to garden for 3.5 hours, cleared up lots of sticks from the dead tree being cut down, DS seems to have taken them round the garden. Cleaned paths, cleared leaves, cleaned silkies coop, tidied around shed. DS was fine for the man quoting for work to current shed but the quote came in incredibly high for a new roof. Taking asbestos one off the quote is fine £540, removing whole shed quote is fine (about £1k) but it's adding a new roof that is much higher than expected £2k for like for like plastic and fibre cement roof and given it's 40 years old not sure it's worth spending nearly £3k on restoring it as paints add another £200. So will see if we get planning. Not sure how DS will react, he loves the old shed but it has an asbestos roof and a few small parts are starting to fall off. I think DS would be fine with old shed being repaired and he will love new shed once we have it, it's just the change. He loves we have cleared the shed apart from his things.

DD is now in Paris with MIL and 3 boys from Oxford and they are watching the eclipse. Boys have cycled from London and are cycling on to Austria. DD is flying to Austria to join them which seems far more sensible in this heat. Then they are off to China a few weeks later rowing all paid for by China for 2 weeks.

“Pretty crispy” is a great description @thesandwich and applies to my Cliff side garden. Only the sycamores and other trees and bushes are thriving. The fig we hacked back in the winter is bursting with new growth and fruit. I heard a friend saying he had given up on his allotment which comforted me as I don’t think there will be much to harvest on mine. I do hope we don’t have a food shortage in the UK.
We had the planning officer call in last week @MrsSPenguinz and he has put notices up on the lampposts. The builder came yesterday and our biggest problem may be not the asbestos removal or the rebuild costs but the Cliff side projection the garages sit on. If building control wants them redone that will be a huge extra cost. One building is already collapsing down the cliff so we may have to tackle that one first. We don’t actually own it yet so are waiting on the purchase completing.
While we wait we are considering going on a mini cycle tour over to the Fens. DH has some places to visit there and I may tag along to get a few miles in before our next French trip. We take the van but use Premier Inns rather than camping. Who doesn’t love a Premier Plus with AC and a coffee machine?

I hope we don't have a food shortage or water running out too @Topofthecliffs Our local farm used to do weekly fruit and veg boxes or orders of fruit and veg you chose but not done them so far this year. We had 35C today and 32C tomorrow, its cooler after that mid 20s but still no rain for at least a week.

I don't know what will happen with our planning - we hopefully will know by end of the month but as its listed and conservation area they can be super strict and trees can also be an issue. I think trees will be OK as there's no change to base and dead tree has been removed. Though they could still insist on a tree survey as there's two big trees close to it. But its a similar sized building to the one that's been there 40 years so hopefully common sense will prevail on that. We did a quick tidy of downstairs today and went to RHS Hyde Hall and bought some plants will plant tomorrow.

Hope everyone is fine.

We have planning permission through for new summerhouse and finally getting little bits of much needed rain. Lots of gardening.

Asbestos shed roof has gone did 4.5 hours gardening and cleaned shed after they had been. Had confirmed don't need listed buildings consent for bathroom as in modern extension and already a bathroom.

That is excellent progress @MrsSPenguinz you are moving forward nicely!
I had a delightful trip to Bedford, cycled all round Woburn and stayed on the Great Ouse. We explored round Cambridge up towards Grafham water and spent a night in a smart hotel in the city. I thought of your DD while watching the youngsters punting the tourists on the Cam. I saw the tributes to Jason Arday in the street. What a sad business!
Now I am home and making the most of the last days of summer heat. I’m on my boat in Salcombe which is heaving with posh tourists. Normal life will resume all too soon. We haven’t had much rain yet, just a smattering!

Thanks very much @Topofthecliffs Hope your planning comes through soon. Glad you had a nice trip. Enjoy Salcombe. You were very close to us, come and see us if you are in the area again and have time.

We have just been having a 60th birthday for DH - yesterday had afternoon tea with the silkies and today went to Sandringham had roast dinner, went round house and garden and then had cream tea here with the silkies and some birthday cake. We got DSs favourite so he was out in a millisecond for his slice. And the 12 macarons which we got for DS disappeared in the night.

We are also only getting tiny bits of rain so still out gardening a lot but from Wednesday we are predicted a lot of rain. Garden needs it but will miss the sunny days. We have a spa day booked for week after next for DHs birthday and our anniversary.

Hope everyone is fine.

Hi everyone, it's great to hear all your positive news!

I have been having a busy time lately, really enjoying working on the allotment and having my hens.

Tomatoes are not quite ripe but have lovely cucumbers and yellow courgettes.

Caught up with an old college friend last week.
We lost contact and hadn't met up for about 38 years!
It was wonderful and we're going to stay in touch.

Busy times coming up- my cat has an op on his paw beginning of September, then I am in France for a week.( Going by myself, so quietly terrified.)

Early October my youngest son is getting married down South and early November, oldest daughter is having 2nd child!
So, it's full on.

Will post pics of my bantams when my son helps me resize the photos.
(This particular technology is beyond me!)

This thread is better than reading any book. You are a wonderful group of people who write so well about all your interesting lives xxx

I have managed to get my weight down to the normal BMI range. Good start I think, now hopefully down to the point where my pre cancer clothes fit again! I am using the Nutra check app, trying to keep to within their max level of sugar and kcal each day, while also trying to eat as much fibre as they recommend. I am finding it's guiding me brilliantly.

@Topofthecliffs I also greatly admire how lovely Lucy Davis is coping with her devastating diagnosis. One thing puzzles me about what she said: that it was too late for chemo. The fellow breast cancer patients I know who have progressed to stage IV are all on chemo. I know that some ER+ HER-neg patients don't need it because ER-blockers and other non-chemo medications for ER+ subtypes can work without the need to escalate to chemo. But all HER+++ and TN patients are put on chemo, so being "too late" for chemo puzzles me. Does anyone here understand why that could be? Maybe she feels that the side effects would outweigh the benefit at the stage she is, but that is not what she said.

Love to you all xxx

Enjoy your week in France @Zoopet. Lovely to hear that your youngest son is getting married and your eldest daughter is having a second child. Hope your cats op goes as well as it can and looking forward to seeing your bantams.

Congratulations on reaching normal BMI @SummerCycling

We have everything finalised for new shed now and they will make it for the end of October. We have just started work on the small room and downstairs bathroom (DSs) which as its in the extension we have found out we don't need listed buildings consent to work on. We did more gardening and also cleared out the small room. We will paint it next.

I presume Lucy Davis is sadly close to the end if she's known for 18 months and they are saying chemo isn't an option. One of the ladies who kindly supported me through chemo is also at stage 4 and given 12 months to live over 12 months ago.

Well done @zoopet with your allotment. I am impressed at your successes. While I have been seizing the day and having a lovely summer my poor neglected plants have withered! I’m doing a catch up now it’s raining and sowing some quick return autumn crops. Also I have chucked out the dead house plants that frazzled in the conservatory and bought lots from Sainsbury’s at £4 each to pot on. It’s nice to be home and catching up.
@SummerCycling you are inspiring, I will look up that app and see if it would suit me. I really need to get back on track now the wedding and holidays are mostly behind me.
@MrsSPenguinz you don't waste any time! Your new shed will be up in no time.

I’m a bit unsettled as firstly my reflux related stomach ache has come back and is keeping me awake and secondly I have a bizarre swelling in my lady bits that must be a cyst. It is big enough to interfere with cycling so I shall have to go and see somebody. No way am I sending a photo of my nether regions online! I had hoped to get away from doctors but it is clearly not meant to be.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend folks. I’ve got a birthday to celebrate!

It all sounds to be going pretty well for everyone, which is so nice to read.

@Topofthecliffs Your Bedfordshire/Cambs trip sounds lovely. I used to cycle a lot but fear that those days are behind me. I would be terrified of the traffic round here. The ? cyst sounds very unpleasant so I hope you can get it sorted quickly. Have you had your reflux stomach ache checked out? I'm in the stage of recovery where I'm paranoid about relapse myself and seeing cancer everywhere, but my mum had oesophageal cancer and those were her symptoms.

@MrsSPenguinz The various DH birthday and anniversary celebrations sound delightful - enjoy!

@Zoopet You've got lots to look forward to. The allotment sounds good; hopefully the recent rain will have helped, depending on what part of the country you're in.

I haven't been able to manage any gardening this year and most things look dead. I saw someone described theirs as "crispy" and that's exactly it. Such a shame but can't be helped. A couple of days of rain and the yellow/brown lawn has already started to green up, so maybe there's hope.