I Just need to mostly vent

nempark · November 2014

Hi Claudia

Hi Claudia, this is Nempark, I have known you for a very long time. I hope you are doing well. What you said about the clusters and being an environmental thing peeked my interest. I don't know if you remembered, but just after I was diagnosed and just getting better my eldest daughter was diagnosed with blood cancer. OMG what a journey and she did not make it. My heart still hurts, but fortunately, I am enduring and it still amazes me how much the human body and mind can endure, we are definitely not created to crumble and fall when we are faced with unforseen circumstances.

This month will be two years since she passed. I will not wish this on any mother. So now I am thinking although I am no longer in that house. My neighbour had breast cancer, behind my house the guy had prostate, one block away another guy stomach cancer and I know of another person closeby.

I think it is about five years now since you are NED, you have many more to go. Thank you for checking in. Best regards

pinky104 · November 2014

joannewtta said:
ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH
we have lived in same house since 1968. Hopefully it's not toxic dump site. Nicole lived there for twenty years and then back for last 2 1/2 years. Cityt water and not well water. Just luck of the draw I guess.

Gary and I have same PCP. He was shocked at both of us and drop jaw when Gary told him about Nicole. Just not more surprised then we were. Thanks for the words of encouragement. One day and one cancer at a time.

Are you having symptoms? Are u on West coast. I'm Vancouver Washington.

A very late reply

Sorry, Joanne, that I didn't reply way back on 11/2. I go on this site sporadically, and even though I've been on here since then, I somehow missed looking at the your reply to me. When I was first diagnosed with the new mass, I was having left sided abdominal pain. I thought it was gastritis, as I'd been addicted to drinking raspberry lemonade, and the acid from that was getting to me. I have since stopped that bad habit. I mentioned the pain to my gastroenterologist, who passed it off as adhesions from surgery and left the room right after to go to his next patient. The minute he walked out of the room, I started thinking to myself that this was a fairly new symptom, and I was four years out from surgery at that point. If I'd had pain from adhesions, it most likely would have presented itself sooner. I happened to have an appt. for a thyroid and cholesterol check at my family doctor's office a couple of days later. The PA there agreed with me and offered to do a CT scan to rule out cancer. The scan showed the mass, but it was on the opposite side from where my pain had been. It also showed some scattered diverticulosis, so I wondered if that might be causing my pain. Just this past week, I discussed it with my PA again, and he said it was likely that I'd had a little bit of constipation. I still have the left sided pains occasionally, and a couple of times, I've had some pains on the right front. Since the mass is apparently near the spine, tha right-sided pain isn't likely to be from the mass either, unless it's what they call "referred pain." I have no other symptoms and I feel fine. I'm doing a lot of work around the house and there is no real clue that anything is wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if when my gyn/onc takes the thing out he finds that it's not cancer. It could also be a fluid collection from having lymph nodes removed, but it grew slightly in size so that makes the fluid a less likely possibility, I guess.

You had asked if I live on the west coast. I live in a small town in upstate NY, a little less than an hour from the Vermont border. My father was a part time farmer in another small town and used DDT on his crops. The house had asbestos wrapped around the pipes in the cellar. Both my parents had cancer. My mother had breast cancer twice, my father had prostate cancer, and my maternal grandmother had cancer in both breasts at the same time. I guess genetics and environment probably both affected me. My current house has radon gas, but we put in a radon system a few years ago, the year before my diagnosis. Radon is only supposed to cause lung cancer, though. Even with the radon system, we still have a slightly higher than acceptable level of gas in our cellar, which can't be fixed as the house sits on shale and can't be properly vented. I'll probably end up with lung cancer someday. My husband had melanoma two years before I got my cancer. We all have our cross to bear, I guess.

california_artist · November 2014

nempark said:
Hi Claudia
Hi Claudia, this is Nempark, I have known you for a very long time. I hope you are doing well. What you said about the clusters and being an environmental thing peeked my interest. I don't know if you remembered, but just after I was diagnosed and just getting better my eldest daughter was diagnosed with blood cancer. OMG what a journey and she did not make it. My heart still hurts, but fortunately, I am enduring and it still amazes me how much the human body and mind can endure, we are definitely not created to crumble and fall when we are faced with unforseen circumstances.

This month will be two years since she passed. I will not wish this on any mother. So now I am thinking although I am no longer in that house. My neighbour had breast cancer, behind my house the guy had prostate, one block away another guy stomach cancer and I know of another person closeby.

I think it is about five years now since you are NED, you have many more to go. Thank you for checking in. Best regards

Nempark, I am sorry,

I read your message at the college in the library and it just took my breath away. Guess kids at college must sob all the time in the library. I am so glad that you are alive and kicking. I know how you must feel as my young son died, seems like eons ago, over forty years now, and still I grieve. Won't tell you it ever fails to humble your heart, but the days do go on and of late I have found myself laughing more, still crying, but laughing more. My heart is yours. My ears are alway ready to listen, although right now I can't find my phone.

About the clusters, where the heck do you live? I would invite you to live with me, but for the moment, my car seems to be the only home I've got. It's fine. Was a choice of a house in Wisconsin or an education in film making and carring it in California. I chose the car, as education trumps comfort in my book. I am happy oddly enough. Actually happier than I've been in ages. Have made many friends. A large majority of the homeless breakfast diners at McDonalds in the wee hours of the morningare quite fascinating and ready to discuss just about any topic. No drug users among them, a number of advid golfers, so the stereo type of what the homeless look like is way off far as I can tell. And absolutely the count of the number of homeless is horrendously low. Hard to count the homeless in cars.The different stories are fascinating. I plan on making a movie.

I could buy a trailer if you're really interested in chatting. Maybe I'll just get myself a trailer and hang out a shingle that says, Share Your Story and Get Hugs Here.

But, anyway, think this has prompted me to post a question about clusters.

Email me any time.. claudiaallen27@yahoo.com Would love to hear from you or anyone else who has a mind to share their two cents worth on any topic. If anyone is going to email me, please put csn cancer board in the subject so I know it's important.

Cripes, I guess I should have emailed you.

I will think of you often and offer comfort in my thoughts of you.

Claudia

joannewtta · December 2014

california_artist said:
Nempark, I am sorry,
I read your message at the college in the library and it just took my breath away. Guess kids at college must sob all the time in the library. I am so glad that you are alive and kicking. I know how you must feel as my young son died, seems like eons ago, over forty years now, and still I grieve. Won't tell you it ever fails to humble your heart, but the days do go on and of late I have found myself laughing more, still crying, but laughing more. My heart is yours. My ears are alway ready to listen, although right now I can't find my phone.

About the clusters, where the heck do you live? I would invite you to live with me, but for the moment, my car seems to be the only home I've got. It's fine. Was a choice of a house in Wisconsin or an education in film making and carring it in California. I chose the car, as education trumps comfort in my book. I am happy oddly enough. Actually happier than I've been in ages. Have made many friends. A large majority of the homeless breakfast diners at McDonalds in the wee hours of the morningare quite fascinating and ready to discuss just about any topic. No drug users among them, a number of advid golfers, so the stereo type of what the homeless look like is way off far as I can tell. And absolutely the count of the number of homeless is horrendously low. Hard to count the homeless in cars.The different stories are fascinating. I plan on making a movie.

I could buy a trailer if you're really interested in chatting. Maybe I'll just get myself a trailer and hang out a shingle that says, Share Your Story and Get Hugs Here.

But, anyway, think this has prompted me to post a question about clusters.

Email me any time.. claudiaallen27@yahoo.com Would love to hear from you or anyone else who has a mind to share their two cents worth on any topic. If anyone is going to email me, please put csn cancer board in the subject so I know it's important.

Cripes, I guess I should have emailed you.

I will think of you often and offer comfort in my thoughts of you.

Claudia

Update to my first vent

If you go back to the first post of this Venting you will understand where I'm coming from.

The update is that my daughter had a double mastectomy on Dec 8th with the beginning of reconstruction by implanting the expanders. Because she was a smoker the first week of healing was critical as the Dr. was very concerned with the health of her skin. All is doing well and it looks like healing is doing well. All lymph nodes have tested negative but we will get the final news on chemo or further treatment tomorrow. She was Stage 1A so as good as it gets with cancer. She is doing good and has had such a good outlook from the beginning. Her Dr. did the Brca genetic test and it came back negative for the cancer gene. That is such a relief as she has a daughter and two sons. So important and her insurance approved the testing immediately. It's so frustrating to have my daughter with this so young. Why wasn't it me? I've survived one round of treatment; I could do two!

A week before her surgery my brother called to tell me that he is doing chemo for Non-Hodgins. He didn't tell me until his second chemo because he knew we were dealing with so much already. We have not had a big history of cancer so all these hitting so close to home have been mind boggling. I know we all have a tipping point; I'm still processing all this and know that one of these days soon it is all going to hit me like a ton of bricks. I just have to wait until after Christmas. I'm going to sit with my brother Tuesday for his third chemo; I just get to sit in the visitor chair.

Merry Christmas to all and lets have a good 2015 please.

I wish you all strength to deal with all this. We're stronger than we think we are when we start this journey.

I Just need to mostly vent

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