**TAMOXIFEN** 4th thread

[MaryAnnSingleton]

here we go !

Gosh apologies all what a missive. Promise will never post within 24 hrs of steroids again. Padded cell is what's needed!

Blimey - just spent ages reading a months worth of posts. You have all been so busy - milestones in treatments, falling trees, dogs, cakes, gardening. It's what I love about this thread!

Glad your op seems to have gone well cupcaked - and hope your recovery is speedy.

It has been a weird month here since finishing rads. I was on such a high and had been going to the local hospice for fatigue management course , physio and "mindfulness" (more of which later!). Was going great guns, walking a lot and feeling great and then last week I just sort of crashed. I think that it is the first time since DX that I have been really weepy and panicky. I had been so busy coping with treatment that didn't think about it too much and then I was so full of adrenalin at finishing. I really feel a bit lost now and keep going back over events of the last year. Also hating Tamoxifen SEs.

On a more positive note my garden and allotment are both benefitting from some time spent there. Hurray to you Pennies for getting an allotment. I have had one for about 10 years now and I love it - it is my escape. Will have to make the most of the next 6 weeks though because going back to work in August - drat. Still, have a whole month of school holidays with DS - what a treat - as he usually has to go to holiday club while i work in the mornings. Hope we get good weather so that we can go camping and go to the beach etc.

Well, best turn in now (once I have disentangled noisy farty kitten from trouser leg) so night night all. Hope everyone has a peaceful night.

Great Inter-railing account CC! Blimey I hope you're Ok with your new flat front look! I think I might have got confused with implants in your earlier posts as if you mentioned them I prob. thought they were due to recent op! Anyway, hope you're feeling comfortable today.

A friend of mine was gazing at my chest one day at an evening meal, and in a confused (drunken?) conversationwe slowly worked out she thought I'd had breast implants. I had referred to 'implants' in a fareweel speech I'd made that day when I was leaving a role after 23 years in same organisation. I had in fact been referring to denatl implants . Well, perhaps you had to be there - it wwas very funny at the time!

OK I won't try WH again. Think I did try twice. I did read a lot of Georgette Heyer as a teenager Amongst more high brow stuff as well of course.

Haggis - I have a feeling I will be in very much the same emotional state as you are right now, when I reach the end of this. I feel I have set myself up to endure all this treatment and although I'm Ok it s probably costing me a huge amount more emotionally than I am acknowledging. And I can't acknowledge it yet because I just have to get through. So I suspect there's a lot storing up over these months that will inevitably have to burst out at the end.

So I'm sorry you're feeling like this but I suspect you'll feel much better for letting all this weeping out now, rather than trying not to, IYSWIM.

What's happening wioth your Tamoxifen SEs?

My round trip to rads is 1.5 hours. The treatment is about 1.5 minutes! DH is taking me today and as its a lovely day we're going early to have a nice bun (or scone, strawberries , maramalade etc) before. I have the joy of both rads and chemo this afternoon.

Realised this morning that I took 1 tablet too many yesterday. Eek. Nurse says to take 1 less today and watch out for temperature. I'd put the chemo tablets back in the anti-sickness box by mistake. Makes me think I don't need to bother with anti-sickness as no different!

Hello, typing from deep chemo fug here so apologies in advance for waffle and nonsense.

Cupcaked, I"m totally confused about the implants - is this something you had done before the BC? Or did you have them done as part of your initial surgery?

SR - great that you're starting rads. Can't believe you're doing it at the same time as chemo though. Or am I being thick. My nurse says that people lose weight doing rads but she said that's mainly due to the absence of steroids. I am planning to walk from Kings X to my clinic (about 2 miles) and back each day to help shift the half stone I've put on during chemo.

MAS - I've booked Saturday in my diary and will be virtually sharing scones with you whilst you host your strawberry tea. The weather looks like it will be lovely and I am sure it will be such a success.

KK - hope yesterday went well. All your interailing stories remind me of my gap year. 8 of us bought 2 cars and drove across small town America, then two of us went to Aus, drank our way up the East coast, then mooched around the Hong Kong and Thailand before heading home broke and skinny. Very happy days.

I loved Wuthering Heights - I read it whist on mat leave with DD1, along with a whole host of other books that were in the BBC best books list. Have barely read a book since !

Can't wait for the steroids to be out of my system. I ate carbs, carbs and carbs yesterday and apart from going up and watering The Farm I sat on my increasingly large arse all day. Feel so sluggish and lethargic today as well. Got another two days of this before I begin to return to normality.

Tomorrow will be my worst day, with lots of aches and pains and a low mood (happens like clockwork with this Taxol stuff) but somehow I've got to go and do sports day. At least I get out of the mum's race due to performance unenhancing drugs!

Right, time to face the day. Do I have to?

Cupcaked, glad the seroma's sorted. I am in total awe at your memory. All I can remember from inter-railing in the eighties is being broke, eating tons of bread and tomatoes and lounging in the sun on a beach somewhere in the south with a far too heavy rucksack as a pillow. And before anyone refers me back to my earlier post, it was the boyfriend who was stoned, not me.

Must feel odd having no implants now. Are you going to get prostheses to bide you over or just stay flat? I have an implant, which am not at all sure about it. We call it my comedy NHS breast as it's amused everyone no end. It's very perky, and very not like the other one, which is obviously a forty something, post breastfeeding breast. Surgeon told me it was a good idea to have one, as it can stretch the skin which helps it recover after Rads. So I thought, well hey why not and it is good to have some shape, but now mine's turned upside down. I jest not. Surgeon is a bit at it. We decided to leave it until after Rads when she'll take it out and I can have a new one or something else. Only I could have an upside down breast.

Haggis, you sound quite sorted amidst the fallout. I've been struck time and time again through the cancer thing (hate that word 'journey'!), how your emotions kick in when you least expect. You'll have to let us know what helped if anything does. If nothing, at least you can come and talk to us. We can distract you with our gardening trivia.

• Tamoxifen SE, well this is the Tamoxifen thread, so you have to tell. Hope they're not too grim for you. I know they can be, but everyone's so different on it.

SR good luck for Rads and Chemo today. If it makes you feel any better about Georgette Heyer, I devoured my mother's entire shelf of Jean Plaidy when I was about 13. I'm sure GH is far more highbrow.

Pennies, sorry you're feeling grim. Not a day for school sports, though maybe that'll lift the spirits. Hope your DD's aren't too competitive, as it'll be stressful if they are. Only two days to go to normality. Be kind to yourself.

wow, what a lot of writing !!
Interrailing story of cupcaked is great ! Hope you are recovered from steroid high and feeling comfortable
Haggis - the end of active treatment I think is pretty much like this for everyone -whatever they've been through -certainly felt very weepy and odd after rads finished -horrible time in fact..was also dreading tamoxifen (if we scroll back I reckon this thread is originally about a year old !!)
Am sorry that you're having tamoxifen SEs - maybe they'll calm a bit after a while..
There is something in my CBT book about 'mindfulness' - a useful tool for OCD management
SR hope bun is nice and that rads and chemo isn't too horrid together - loved your dental implant story !
Sympathies Pennies for sports day -plus feeling rotten -not a good combination
Will think of you all on Saturday - am doing maths very badly trying to calculate the amounts of ingredients needed - would you believe 1,250g icing sugar ?

SR and Haggis, I have a friend who is just out the other side of all this and is also in a pretty low state, I think exactly as u describe- she has been surviving for the last year and putting all her feelings on the back burner. Now having major crisis of confidence esp about prospect of return to work and life in general. She is 'changed' irrevocably and in far worse form than I am, which worries me. But I gather this is a common enough phenomenon. Talk to oncologist? Or GP??

Implants- no I had never mentioned them bfore, weren't relevant. Got them for washboard chest reasons a few yrs ago after prolonged breast feeding, and had forgotten that flat was my real shape. They did me big favour actually as the lump was very easy to feel at only 6mm as sitting on top of silicone layer, so am v grateful to them, tho they were little bit too big, was a bit top heavy at 32 c/d. Tho would never have bothered doing anything about that.

Not top heavy any more, that's for sure. Meeting friends for lunch that I haven't seen since beach in Italy last summer. Baggy jumper time!

That is a LOT of icing sugar, your friends are all going to be maxed out and racing around on a sugar high!

Tamoxifen side effects, chemo grogginess and upside down breasts. There is no dignity, is there? I think all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep plodding. We often don't really emerge the other side for quite a while after active treatment finishes, I know I am not there yet, so I am just trying to be kind to myself and enjoy the high days, and give myself space on the less good ones. And remember how far I have come, of course, there is a general upward curve.

A high note - I genuinely think I may have shifted a pound or two! Still plenty to go, but it is a start. Man, that weight has been holding on hard!!

I have no experience of Interrailing but I have to say - as an adult, they sound a riot, but if it was my dd who was going, I'd be terrified!

Smee at upside down breast!!

Pennies, yes its chemo and rads at same time for me. Aren't I the lucky one. Onc said yes it would be tough but 'You'll cope' and this seems to be fairly common at my hospital when you're on CMF. I've spoken to a couple of other patients and they did indeed cope. I'm sort of wondering in a vague way if there's an advantage psychologically - let me see if I can formulate this thought - Maybe if I get through rads, deal with SEs, then continue on CMF, the 'high' of finishing rads might be over so I I might not fall down as steeply as if I did them at the very end??? That's very hypothetical - clutching at straws I think!

Anyway Pennies, I wish you hugs and courage for sports day- that's a challenege post-chemo indeed. Perhaps you can sit under a nice shady tree and encourage the little ones as they run past you from one acivity to another.

Our primary school used to have sports activity (ie non-competitive) days. I dutifully went along every year to see DD and later DS and enjoyed the time. It was only when my DS was in the last year that I realised parents were also invited to the competitive races day and I'd never been and he'd won loads of races in my absence! Bad mother feelings ran high as he explained he didn't think I could get away from work. Bad mother feelings kicking in as I type in fact! O well at least I've been around this year to support for GCSEs - History Part 2 this afternoon.

MAS - hope you've got some huge mixing bowls?

Could I borrow those huge mixing bowls to stick inside my bra at lunchtime ? I like these pals but think would rather go for lunch with you lot today instead!

Enjoy lunch cupcaked! You have a cast iron reason to eat whatever you like on the menu (when I was having active treatment I rather irritatingly always fancied salad, but i hope you have more sense)

Goodness - I leave you all unsupervised for a day and there's hundred's of posts for me to catch up on - didn't you know you're not allowed to do stuff while I'm not here?

Seriously - glad your seroma op. went OK CC, despite the implant complications, and you are home now. You will be so much more comfortable with it being drained properly.

Smee smiling(sympathetically of course)at your at upsidown breast. What we have to go through! A sense of humour definitely helps.
My prosthesis is known in this house as 'the boobatron' - its become part of the family in its own little way.

MAS, good luck with the ingredients calculations, you are very brave to do all that cooking. Sending you good weather vibes for Sat.

Cakes - I've also been using the WC to catch up on reading. Currently enjoying a Christopher Fowler novel (Spanky, - a sort of sell your soul to the devil theme - but funny) DH and DS watch the football with the sound turned down, because of the horns. So I'm not disturbed! Like SR I struggled with WH, but DD loves it - one of her favourites. She's taken Far From the Madding Crowd with her on her travels - so I may turn her into a Hardy fan yet!

Haggis - I completely get your end of treatment feelings - I'm going through similar myself. Heightened anxiety, moments of weepiness. I feel very 'out on my own' after 2 years of close monitoring, and sometimes everything you've been through just hits you out of nowhere. I've been reading a book called 'After Breast Cancer' (Think I mentioned it a while ago) which has been quite helpful.

Pennies - sorry you're feeling a bit rough. The allotment sounds as if its coming on a treat though. You've done very well to get stuck in despite feeling grotty. Good luck with sports day . Mother's races - you are well out of it - some of those mums will do anything to win.

SR - hope the second rads. goes well. I think it will be quite tough having it at the same time as chemo, but at least it will be out of the way. Have you got those plastic pill boxes? - you can fill them at the beginning of the week, with everything you have to take at different times. I'd be in a complete muddle even now, if I didn't use mine, I am so hopelessly forgetful.

I'm going to start a new post for my London trip, this one's getting too huge!

KK - I have read Spanky!! I am going back a long time and can't rtemember much about it - do remember it being fun, though! Bit of a pervy title!

What is it with the World Cup and all those bloody horns? I was cleaning dd's teeth the other day while dh watched the football and thought we had a wasps' nest in the cavity wall....

OK - part 2

Thanks for all the inter railing stories by the way - not sure they are necessarily a comfort! but its good to hear everyone had fun, and remembers it as a great time. (I did it myself at DD's age and had a few hair raising encounters, but I guess that's all part of it.)

We went down to London on the train in the end. Very early start. But we managed to get to St. Pancras on time. DD looked so tiny with her huge rucksack on her back.
She was also wearing an enormous Univ. Hoody, which made her look even tinier. The first part of her trip is a treasure hunt for charity.(rag week) So they have to pick up clues which will send them to different countries. That for about a week.
Then she's meeting up with some more friends and they are going round all the places they want to visit. So far Venice, Florence, Prague, Vienna seem to be on the list.

I managed to say goodbye without making a complete fool of myself (after strict instructions not to 'be all soppy'). Anyway she's off,and I'm sure she'll have a brilliant adventure.
(My baby ).

I decided to go to Kew Gardens for the day. Its years since I was there. I was in my element, and had a lovely day, some really spectacular and bizarre plants.There's a new glasshouse (Princess of wales consevatory) which had orchids, and a small butterfly house - with some beautiful tropical butterflies. My favourite one looked exactly like a dead leaf - a brilliant disguise - it had me fooled
Also a mediterranean garden which I have come away inspired to try at home (I wrote down the names of the plants they had used.)

Unfortunately the last hour I was there, it began to pour with rain(having been beautiful weather). I was rather a long way from the exit. So just had to brave the rain (didn't have a rain coat with me just a fleece). I got to demonstrate my impersonation of jogging through the rain, but still got soaked to the skin! But still a really good day. I'm totally shattered today though, keep nodding off

Sounds lovely, KK.

And dd will be just fine.

yes,dd will be fine and have the most terrific time ! I used to live in Kew growing up,and as an older person -once in a house overlooking the big wall and could peek in through my window. I moved over the river which was still near enough for me to visit -so many lovely memories throughout my life in there- and ds loves it too. We haven't been for a couple of years now :-(
There is a paper written by a psychologist about the end of breast cancer treatment which is very helpful - will see if I can find it

here it is
... &Count=500

oh no,didn't work...hang on...

www.cancercounselling.org.uk/northsouth/extra4.nsf/WebResHarvey?OpenView&ExpandAll&Count=500

The tasks of recovery was very helpful...

Thanks MAS

Dashing off out now but will DEF be wanting to take a look at this later

xx

KK - you really must keep up better - Pennies doesn't have an allottment - we have to call it The Farm now . However your day out saounds fab. And I just love Thomas hardy - read all of them in between the Georgette Heyers! Jude the Obscure just made me sob my heart out. (The first book I ever cried over at a very tender age was Heidi though. )

Lucky MAS neing brought up so near Kew!

Have managed to have lunch out in a country cafe with DH and get rads and chemo done and get Lenny cleaned. Going to have quiet time now.

glad you got it all done SR and lunch too ! Kew was lovely-the gardens especially and the river, but it's all very nobby now -ridiculously expensive place to buy a house/live.

Apologies I meant the farm Pennies, - chickens would be rather nice wouldn't they, or a little goat.

You've had a full day SR - was it IV chemo today? I love Thomas Hardy - we did a lot of his books at school (being in Dorset). The Woodlanders makes me cry, and Jude. I might have a re reading marathon this summer.

Will read the article MAS thank you. I read something by him before - on diagnosis etc. and saved it, because it was very good. So am sure it will be helpful.

Loved Jude. Poor little mite "Done because we are too many"