A blogger who shared her experience.

Tags

breast cancer, breast cancer diagnosis, cancer cases, effects of chemotherapy, Huffington Post, postaday2012, radiation therapy

Almost a year ago, I came across a blogger on the Huffington Post in the health news section, she was posting about her experience as a woman and a nurse dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis. I found her blog to be very informative, funny, sad, empowering and hopeful. I found her to be especially brave and courageous because before she had been diagnosed herself, she was the nurse who walked women on a daily basis through their own mammograms and subsequent outcomes. When she shared her initial reaction to the very news that devastated so many other women under her care, it was so heart wrenching. Her intimate knowledge was both her ally and her enemy, sometimes in cancer cases too much knowledge doesn’t always help morale. She wrote about that, but also included the precious hope that each case is so highly individual that you need to keep an open mind to all therapies.

As I joined her during her journey through the chemotherapy and the radiation therapy, she wrote movingly of her frustration with being the patient instead of the caretaker and the caregiver. She also found the comical in her travails with the undignified personal effects of chemotherapy and radiation, the misadventures with the bathroom was often the monkey wench in her outings.

She also focused on how important the silent steady support she received from her husband. The unexpected ways he would help her such as installing a bathroom finder app. on her IPhone got him the award for most considerate husband of the year.

If you are following my daily posting then you are aware that today was mammogram day. What I really appreciate at my local Women’s Imaging Center is the kindness and gentleness of the nurses and the radiologist. Since they have been keeping abreast (ha,ha) of my situation since 2008 with the small calcifications, they take care to try to make it as quick and painless as possible both during the mammography and the film reading. Today I fully expected to be filmed at least twice due to fact that I was blessed with dense tissue. A blessing when you are young, not so much when your forties come knocking on your door. After the second round the nurse came to get me not for a third film but for a meeting with the radiologist. A little unnerving because this hadn’t happened before, essentially he said that he was recommending a biopsy because the calcifications were getting more numerous and growing since six months ago. Needless to say that I was in shock, I hadn’t expected a need for a biopsy, and then I felt a little shaken.

Now that I’m writing this, I feel better, it is only a biopsy, the radiologist said that there is a 5 percent chance that something could be wrong, so those are good odds.

Going back and thinking about the blogger I wrote about, gives me a much better perspective. It is a one step at a time process and that is how I will approach it. One thing at a time.

Medical maintenance.

Tags

allergy shots, flaxseed, game plan, Huffington Post, political newsletter, postaday2012, tax preparers

This morning was a little crazy and I don’t know how it got crazed. I woke up at a respectable hour, took care of the dogs, made the coffee and my oatmeal with flaxseed. I have to say that the simply old-fashioned way of cooking oatmeal with skim milk and milled flaxseed makes the best difference in terms of flavor. Anyway, I had my oatmeal and one mug of coffee and the clock is showing 10:00, where did one hour go? I had barely finished reading all my e-mails, my favorite bloggers and my political newsletter and journals. I still had to jump in the shower and wash my mane. The game plan was to be out of the house by 11:00 at the latest because I have bi-weekly allergy shots and the hours are limited, prescriptions to pick up and another visit to the tax preparers to sign off on the return.
Normally, most mornings, regardless of how early I need to leave, I usually manage to write at least two comments on the Huffington Post, get all my angst and anxiety out of my system early in the morning, it does my mind and body good to expel such nervous worries, this morning I feel as if an hour crucial to my morning writing went missing and I don’t know where it went. I feel as if I have to play catch up on my daily writing quota. I hope that tomorrow isn’t a repeat and that I will have enough time to squeeze in at least one comment before I have to leave to get my six month scheduled mammogram, I’m a little nervous but I won’t let that deter me from doing what needs to be done. Hopefully I’ll get good news and that mammogram will be the last one of the six month interval and I’ll be able to go back to yearly mammograms. Here’s to keeping the fingers crossed.

Sunday the day of rest

Tags

Huffington Post, postaday2012, Sunday, Tudors

Today was a rather nice day of rest and relaxation, put the kitchen and the dining room back to rights after last night’s merriment. This morning I had a nice light breakfast, read my emails and the Huffington Post, made a couple of comments in reference to Mitt Romney and his presidential campaign, I wrote a few pages for my book and then I watched a few shows that I had tivo’d and today was the perfect day to play catch up with my television viewing especially now that the holiday season is over and the actors are back on set and back to work filming my shows. I mean the nerve of t.v stars to take time off, they are on t.v for goodness sakes isn’t that enough for them, they need vacations as well?

Right now I am watching the Tudors on BBC-America, King Henry VIII is in mourning over the loss of his Queen Jane Grey though he is happy to have a son, his daughter from his first marriage, poor Princess Mary is waiting for a boyfriend and all the nobles are playing their games amongst each other. Oliver Cromwell is alive for the moment and he is pushing King Henry to marry once again for the sake of the baby Prince Edward. France is staying neutral for the moment, it is King Francois the 1st who is the ruler of France and he is occupied elsewhere for the moment. Princess Elizabeth is still a little girl at this time so we don’t see her much.

I noticed that I have said, for the moment, several times while describing what is happening on The Tudors. King Henry VIII was very volatile as a ruler and he was quick to get rid of his Queens, consorts, advisers and ministers. So during an episode a character could be alive and healthy in the beginning and be either ill or dead by the end of the same episode or during the course of the next episode. It is the volatility that necessitated my use of the phrase, for the moment. Nevertheless, I really like the series, it might not be 100% historically accurate but the acting is superb and it seems that the producers have kept an attention to detail that leads you to believe that they did as much research as they could.

All in all, I would say that this was a really good day.