**TAMOXIFEN** 4th thread

[MaryAnnSingleton]

here we go !

Not long and self absorbed at all. Moan away, as it's so wearing and grim to have pain like that. Sounds like the pain is all connected to your back condition. Yes have heard of it, as they thought that's what my problem was for a while. You might find that's caused knock on. My degenerated disc did. I had all sorts of spurs and things growing that were causing more problems and trapping the nerve. Push for referral then and try Osteo too. A good one won't treat if they think it's dangerous and they might be able to ease it for you. I found acupuncture helpful with mine. Osteo's refused to treat me, as did Physios.

Much sympathy for the back pain sufferers. I hope you can find someone to help Cakes, don't know a great deal about osteo's but have had friends who have been greatly helped by them.

Smee - DD is playing a Haydn piece, something by Faure and something by Shostakovich I think. Not sure what the actual pieces are (she told me - I've forgotten). But its roughly a 30 min recital. She enjoys playing in ensembles, jazz etc. and accompaniment, so gets a bit wound up when she's performing solo.

Thanks again for sympathy, shall do as you suggest.

Crikey KK, you have two very artistic and gifted children.

thank you Cakes - I take no credit for them! (although I have been known to tinkle the ivories in an emergency!)

Kurri, what sort of emergency is that then? The mind boggles. Am sending your daughter positive vibes then. No wonder she's nervous. Thirty minutes of disparate pieces is a very tall order.

I may have meant tickle tinkling would only be appropriate in a 'piano on fire' type emergency

KK - what instrument does yr DD play? My DD loves music and did A-level but decided to do languages for her degree as she is actually stronger in languages. She plays viola in uni orchsetra though, and also took piano and flute to grade 8 - that was an exhausting year! Good luck to your DD in her exmas and recitals. I always think performing is much more stressful than writing exams!

Smee - I should think we'd be fairly well matched in a tennis game as I am overweight, unfit and also have an unreliable back, tho not as unco-operative as your's and Cakes's sound. How awful to have deal with back pain on top of everything else. Have you tried being positive about it? NO, don't shout, I'm only joking

Smoothies! I've been making these for our breakfast recently. I agree that strawbs, banana and yohurt (+ honey here) is one of the best. I buy packs of frozen mango chunks which go well with things too. Also variations of blueberries, raspberries, frozen summer fruits make good ones. The Innocent smoothie recipe book is fun, and there are also lots of recipes on the web. Red Rooster is good.

I made one which wasa bit of a disaster - kiwis look a bit gross in a smoothies I find ...

SR - she plays piano (her main instrument) trumpet, guitar, drums, tabla, banjo. She also plays a mean tin whistle Your DD sounds very musical - it is such a lovely thing to be able to play an instrument, - and so nice to listen to them when they get good. My DD was also rather torn like yours, because she is very keen on English and toyed with doing it for her degree, but settled on the music in the end and seems pretty happy with it

Thanks for the smoothy site suggestions I will look those up. I can see myself getting rather hooked on them. Do you do anything involving vegetable juices, I've got a juicer but some of the concoctions I've made were a bit dubious.

at positive thinking for back pain.

my what a lot to read- dh working from home today so have been working upstairs and not able to check on internet ! So - poor Cakes' back - hope GP appointment proves helpful ; smoothies - yum - my dad makes them every day for him and mum, I have a smoothie maker but am far too lazy...
SR - glad the exams are under way and lots of luck to ds...and good luck with appointment about line.
Musical children - am totally in awe -good luck to KK's dd especially for her recital - I'd be very nervous if it were me -ds sang in a recital before his first singing exam and i was a nervous wreck. It's so wonderful to pplay an instrument and I so regret not keeping up with my lessons (I did classical guitar - I was never as good as I wanted to be - it's a beautiful instrument) I am consequently really keen that ds keeps up with his singing and piano - he absolutely loves piano so that's good. (no piano emergencies here,so far )
Hope i haven't missed anyone !

Kurri; tickling a piano? Surely that's only after a few too many..

SR ha! Good job you qualified that, or you'd have had us all sending you virtual thumps.

• smoothies now there's a good idea. I've never ever made one but can't bear to be left out. Got given a vat of Australian organic bush honey yesterday from a visiting Aussie mate, so that's a good start.

Have fun with smoothie making - I like doing them as they do prove so popu;lar with the family. I don't have a special machine apart from the belnder. And no I have tried vegetables as I think you need a juice maker for those and I'm not convinced I would justify the cost and space required.

On therpeutic cooking, I tried a new veggie recipe yesterday and it was really good and everyone liked it. It was Tagliatelle with Creamy Leeks and Cannellini Beans - from a Sainsburys mag someone gave me. Delicious as it has a good lemon and sage taste in it.(This is a benefit of me being at home with time to browse recipes - get to try new stuff. Oh, when I go back to work we'll have a great new repertoire! And I'll be the size of a house I have to keep walking to work off some of these calories.

Anyone here had a Hickman line? What was your experience?

Chemistry GCSE today.

Hi all

Good luck ref the line, SR - a couple of our lovely ladies here have lines, and have said they manage quite well with them. I didn't have one, but it was heading in that direction towards the end of chemo, the veins got pretty sulky after a few treatments. I spent hours with my arm in a vat of hot water or with an electric blanket round it trying to encourage a few new ones to the surface.

I am going to have to try this smoothie making - I usually buy them but these sound so lovely. Yum!

Good luck to all dcs with exams, recitals etc. My dd is taking her 20m swimming badge on Thursday - not quite the same stress levels realy, though - especially as she is a cocky little sod and as far as she is concerned, it's in the bag

KK - loving your cartoon on the joke thread - can you post a link to it here as well?

Hope the GP visit and the swimming badge go well, Cakes!

I feel nervous about the line etc - just hope it'll be OK.

Here you go cakes cartoon

Hope your DD does well in her swimming, - I like the confidence they have at that age.

I've just got back from yoga and aquafit. I got some water in my ear and when I got home I was standing with my head on one side, frowning trying to shake the water out. DS appears and says 'what the hell's the matter with you - you like a dog thats been shown a card trick' - made me laugh anyway.

I've been invited to a leaving party by someone from the swimming group - she's moving to live near her daughter after a pretty messy divorce. I'll miss her, she's always cheery and good fun.

A friend of mine had a Hickman line SR, (she has leukemia, so masses of chemo) and she didn't have any problems with it as far as I know. At least it would give your poor arm a chance to recover.

love to all, thanks for good luck vibes for DD

Thanks for that KK - dh and I both thought it was great!

Always sad when someone nice leaves your area, isn't it? I've got a couple of people around here that I hope WILL leave - both are really, really nice themselves but their kids are borderline psycho (that's a layman's analysis, obviously )so it would be good to see the back of them. (Maybe the parents could stay and the kids could go to boarding school)

love the cartoon kk !
good luck for swimming dd tomorrow Cakes

Great cartoon KK - what a talent! Do you do a lot of this sort of thing? I wonder what you thought of Cancer Vixen - I thought she was very clever at portraying in cartoon form the reeling emotions of diagnosis and treatment.

One of my favourite cartoons is the snail who fancies a sellotape dispenser, and also the snail in the same series who has velux windows installed on his shell 'Oh its made such a difference!'

sorry these prob don't work without the images

Hope Burning Bright is OK - re you lurking there BB? Haven't heard from you for a while.

Thanks

SR - must hasten to explain - although I'm very flattered- I didn't do the cartoon, not sure who the artist is, I just posted it on another thread, and Cakes saw it there. I wish I was clever artistically, but MAS is the talented one on this thread

I haven't read Cancer Vixen properly, but flicked through and thought it looked very good. Its on my to borrow list from the big 'C' library, but I've got my quota out at the moment!

I too hope BB is doing well and also Haggis - hope she is feeling stronger and enjoying her garden and her kitten And of course all the folks who pop on now and again, or lurk (I don't really like saying lurk it sounds so seedy, but you know what I mean!)

Horrid thing of the day - I went out a little while ago to water my plants, and a baby crow had somehow managed to fall into our pond and drown. Poor thing. it was just fledged, but obv. very young still. I had to fish it out and dispose of it (grim)

oh gosh kk !
Poor crow - so sad seeing dead baby birds.
Yes, do hope haggis and BurningBright are doing ok -and anyone else floating about

the bird has reminded me of cat feeding for a friend - they had such a busily & luridly patterned carpet that I didn't realise for several days that the cats had brought in a bird

I had to feed my neighbours 2 canaries when they went on holiday and on the very first morning I went in, one of them had dropped off its perch and lying dead on the cage floor . I think it had got suddenly very cold when they switched off the CH. I did at least feel that it couldn't be my fault, being on the 1st day . The other one is still going strong a couple of years later.

Even worse, my sister once had to feed a friend's birds - she didn't think she needed to top up the seed, as she saw it was full and she just thought they weren't very hungry. She hadn't realised that it was just full of empty seed husks that you have to blow away - the birds died . No need to be too sad as it was about 20 years ago!

NAS - I restore you in my mental MN map as the artist - in the light of KK's comments!

Sr, quickly saw your post re hickman. How many chemotherapy sessions have you got left? Would they consider a different form of port? I have a hickman in currently, but if it had only been for a few sessions I wouldn't have bothered tbh, they quite often get infected and yukky (sorry to be blunt!)

Poor little bird, KK.

SR - looking after other people's pets reminds me - we look after other people's dogs sometimes (as I have now gone off the idea of getting my own for a bit): we had one with very long hair for about a fortnight. She could hardly see through it at all and kept walking into our trees - really hard, so her poor head made a kind of 'dong' noise - but also , so we had to give her a haircut so she could see. This made her so stressed we had to give her a haircut the other end, as she got the runs, and it stuck all over her hair. TMI, I know, dh is still traumatised (I made him do the trimming at the rear as i had done the one over the eyes - shared responsibility and all).

RWU - the hickman sounds horrible. Just because you make so little fuss about these things I wrongly assume they are tickety-boo.