Addie
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Posts posted by Addie
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Connecticut may be a forerunner in this...but I can also tell you that other than a mere pittance, ALL of the money CT got from the tobacco companies that was SUPPOSED to go into smoking cessation or anti-smoking programs....was used for other means. Put into the general fund, or I'm not sure what...but all but several thousand dollars, I read somewhere, has been railroaded for other things.
I wonder how much other states are spending from their "tobacco co. monies" on actual anti-smoking programs. There must be a web site. Think I'll go try to google it.
Found this from a 2000 article:
"Connecticut dedicated the majority of its share to fund a freeze on tuition at the University of Connecticut and to local property tax relief"
Cute, huh. Makes me real proud of the "integrity" of my state.
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We subscribe to Newsweek. So...got it, we both read the article....I even HIGHLIGHTED some stuff so I can write to Newsweek and thank them...and I'm saving it.
Lots of important things said in that article...BUT IT IS JUST A BEGINNING!
Looking at Peter's face on the cover, just made me so sad.....
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Irksome as it is, better computer "bad news" than the other kind we too often get around here, huh?
Welcome back Kasey...and how fun for you and Rich and your spouses that you all got together!
Glad the road trip was fun and hope the 'puter fix holds for a while. It's okay if you're offline cuz your off doing something fun...but NOT if it's cuz of computer troubles!
These infernal things are crazy making...but boy, when I can't get online I'm not easy to live with!!
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Ellen and Len...congrats on the fabulous news. So happy to know Len is still hanging out with NED.
I'm near Danbury! Fun to know where others are in the state. I go to Praxair Cancer Center at Danbury hospital and I too, am so happy with my onc. When we were going to be moving out to Arizona...my hubby kept touting the Mayo Clinic that is out there in Scottsdale.
I kept saying I didn't want to move (and we are not...we decided to sell the house we were building out there BEFORE I got the cancer, when I was about 5 mos. into treatment) because out there I'd be a 3-4" thick file. Here, I am a REAL PERSON. They all know me in my onc's office and I know them. It's personal now.
In Arizona I'd be a case file and a face, if I'm lucky.
Having trust in who you see is SO important...and it's good to know there are good doctors elsewhere in the state too!
Len...you get out there tomorrow and WALK dangit.
I've got brain tumors and played 9 holes of golf today...so you can do a morning constitutional with NED and Ellen. Right???
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Thanks, Susan...and actually I did see the above update on the other post. Just looking to see if there was any change...hopefully a positive one.
But...sounds like things are about the same, with perhaps a bit more loss of strength. It makes me so sad for Rachel and her family and you, whom I'm sure feels as much like family as my best friend does to me and mine.
Please convey to Rachel that we hold her in such good and positive thoughts, trying to vibe her some strength and hoping she enjoys as much of each day as possible. She is well loved here too.
My Linus and Mattie send an understanding slurp to Ole' Puppy.
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Oh, man....I gotta pick just ONE thing?
Can't do it. The first TWO that came to mind, is a copy of all my current meds, current conditions and previous hospitalizations/illnesses....so each time I visit the hospital for a scan/MRI/whatever I don't have to fill out all those lousy forms. I let them photocopy this sheet. I highly recommend doing this to avoid writer's cramp!
The second that popped into my head is a wee card that my father wrote to my mother on their 26th wedding anniversary (in 1962) that probably accompanied some flowers...and it says, "Lots of love old scout, old pard" and he signed it McEwan, which is his Scottish clan and one of his middle names.
I love having that card...as it makes me feel so connected to Mom and Dad. Dad's been gone since 1974 and mom since 1985.
The last thing I'll mention (cuz believe me...there is a LOT of unique "stuff" in my wallet!
) is a listing of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books I don't yet have. I collected both for many years...and kept a running list in my wallet of those I didn't have yet...in case I ran across a bookstore. This list dates back to when my 31 and nearly 27 y/o sons were literally babies! Neeeexxxxxxttt........
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Best thoughts always to Dean and Gay. Being content is wonderful.
My Aunt Freda, after her death, had left behind something she'd obviously photocopied...and now I safeguard it in a file in my closet. It says:
Happiness is not getting what you want. Happiness is being content with what you have.
If there was emotional distance between Dean and his daughter and she is coming to visit...maybe that too, will add to his contentment. I sincerely hope so.
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I never told you this before...but my first serious beau in high school called me Suki! From that song, popular back in the early 60, Sukiyaki. Your mom might remember it...you're too young.
But that being the case...I am eminently qualified to hold your pork chop (worries) for a while....deal? You just take care of Suki, keep the faith and rely on the power of Good Vibe Central coming to you from high atop the penthouse at LCSC!
Film at 11:00
(Dammit, this oral Decadron is making me sorta weird, eh?!
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Good news, Jen. Now see, I'd go have a transfusion anyway....but one of my vodka variety transfusions.
"Don't bother to infuse 'em doc, I'll just toss it right back down the old gullet!"
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This next one is pretty personal...but it's true:
YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN LCSC MEMBER WHEN.....
You find out you've got brain mets, and within days you're totally thrilled and flying high because the mets in your liver are still stable.
And how about this?:
YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN LCSC MEMBER WHEN.....
Somebody else is holding your pork chop!!!
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Wow....had to go take a fast glance at the website and will go back later to investigate further...but it's well done and I love the lights idea. How cool!
Sending Steve my best vibes and thoughts and hopes that he will soon feel better. He has such good spirit and attitude (Addietude
) as well as that feistiness in him, huh? It will serve him well...as it already has. I'm hoping he's off the morphine again before you know it. You tell him he has all us beside him in the battle and all together we can raise a mighty resistance, can't we?Off to nose around the site more......
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....our Alaskan princess? How are she and Stan doing?
I think of her all the time...as I know many here do...and send her vibes, love and the best thoughts I can muster for all of them....including Ole' Puppy.
I hope you see this and will update us on how she's doing. Thanks, Susan.
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My own plate has been a tad full lately, but even at that, the other evening I thought to myself....Where the heck has Uncle Dougie been?
I'm sending out a strong, positive vibe that all is well and maybe he's just taking an "end of summer" vacation somewhere without his computer.....eh? Doncha bet that's it? Working on his journal, he's gonna come back and post so many entries we'll be asking him to go on vacation again to give us a break!
Seriously, Doug...hoping all is well and you're doing something fun. Let us know when you can. A lot of us are "mom types" and we worry, you know.
POST FOR YOUR MOTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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You know you're an LCSC member when you talk about mets...and everyone else thinks you're talking baseball!
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Oooh, fun one, Ann!!
I'm gonna go with the name I'd picked for my second son...had he been a girl....that NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY else liked. I loved it.
Aubrey!
In fact, Aubrey Mairghread. Mairghread is Gaelic for Margaret...and my mother's name was Margaret. It's pronounced (far as I know) "Mare-gred".
Some mouthful of name, huh? It....uh....probably suits me, with the big mouth....ya think?
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Now, THAT ONC is a doc who knows how to hold a pork chop...eh?
What's with these pulmonary docs saying there's nothing more to be done? Sheesh. What would she know about chemo or other txs?
Tell Beth we miss her and her humor. Tell her you got your Mojo back and I've rediscovered my Addietude and Beth better find her...her.....you know....whadda we call that thing?.....oh shoot.....I'VE GOT IT....it's her Bumor!! (Beth + humor = Bumor!
)We could use a little Bumor in the Pub, couldn't we, Cin?
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Had both whole blood and platelets, and then back the next day for more blood. Only one time.
Platelets were totally tanked.....12K. Hemoglobin was 6.00 and by they time they got me TO transfusion...it had gone down more, to 5.6. Hematocrit was also low...19.5.
I did feel better after...more energetic. The next day, maybe...not immediately. But then I tend to be high energy most of the time
...but as I told you before Jen, the nurse reran my blood thinking the machine had made a mistake. She said with platelets only at 12K and hemoglobin that low, I should have been face down on the floor. Yet I walked in under my own steam. 
They made me go upstairs for the transfusions in a wheelchair, though!
I walked out when I was done! -
Well, I better get my pork chop back because I won't be doing any more drinking any time soon.
Except at Cin's Pub!I have to tell you first...I'm back on track, mentally. The CT techs know me by now...and I told her my worries and after she scanned me she came back in the room and said, "I think your liver looks just fine! Of course I don't have any old scans to compare to...but it looks fine!"
It was like a 1,000 lbs. lifted off me. In actual fact...this was at 1:45...and by the time I saw Cooper, he had the prelim. report in his hands. My liver is stable. No specific info yet...but NO growth or NEW tumors.
Huge relief.
As for the brain tumors...we will radiate. Cooper says "It works. We know it works. So we use that first!"
If I were ever to need more tx for brain tumors, Temodar will be an option...but it doesn't always work and radiation invariably does. As he pointed out too, my brain mets are all pretty small. He seems confident rad. will wipe them out...AND I stay on the Topotecan for my liver mets...because, "It's still working!"
Thanks to all of you for the prayers and support. I just know it helps. I was a mess this morning compared to how I normally deal with this stuff...and now I'm fine....but for the fact that I have to go on Dilantin to make sure I don't seizure and I cannot drink and it's recommended I don't drive for now.
My onc is also putting me on Decadron...8 mgs daily. So I will stop my prednisone and hope the Decadron pills treat me as well as the infusions. The 'roids really don't bother me much. They make me talk a lot...but I was head of my class in the "talks too much department" long before steroids!
Anyway, Cin's got her Mojo back and I've rediscovered my Addietude....so watch out at the pub tonight, cuz the lime slices and celery sticks will be flying for sure!
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I have a CT of my chest, abdomen and pelvis today at 1:15 and then a 2:30 appointment with my onc to see what the game plan will be.
I called in this morning and asked one of the gals in my onc's office to call up to CT and ask for a "wet reading" which means an immediate, initial impression called in to my onc.
What is likely to be needed to take care of my brain mets won't do a d*mn thing for my liver tumors...so my onc is going to have to get creative, I guess, depending on what the CT shows. If there is progression in the liver or elsewhere in my gut...this ain't going to be easy.
Hardly slept last night. Me, with Addietude.
I'm like a bug on a hot skillet. Had to take a Zofran this morning as I'm literally sick to my stomach from nerves.I didn't do this all weekend. Held myself together until about 1:30 in the morning today. Have been awake ever since and of course, had to quit eating and drinking at 8:30 or so....for the CT.
A ginger ale would settle my tummy some...but gotta wait till after the scan.
I ask you all for good thoughts. For nothing going on in my liver or elsewhere in my gut. For a good game plan for the brain mets that - while I know it will render me fully hairless again - I hope it won't do any worse than that.
Deep breath.
I can do this and be okay.
There will be a good plan.
I can do this.
P.S. Anybody wanna hold my pork chop for me, for the next 2-3 hours?
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Sending nothing but positive thoughts your way, Nancy....that all will be clean and NED has signed your dance card!!
Be sure to let us know when you get results.
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All good thoughts going out for Monday's surgery. Sorry it came to this...but hoping for excellent results.
Be sure to let us know......
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Great news, Barb. We like to hear such good reports...so keep 'em coming. Stable is always good.
Hoping the upcoming MRI also produces a GREAT report! Let us know....ok?
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If the cancer don't get me, the Decadron will!
in GENERAL
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Who knew that Decadron pills could be so much worse than Decadron infused?
I am working on about 4 hours of sleep over the last two nights. Went to sleep last night at about 11:30, after taking pills and watching tv - including the news. AND I even took a Tylenol Simply Sleep....which Simply Didn't Work!
Woke up at 1:30 and have been dinking around on the computer every since...but for a cup of green tea and a snack of two Hershey's kisses and a big handful of Cheetos. Did it say somewhere in the pharmacy insert that there may be "increased appetite" with Decadron?
I type at lightning speed, making twice as many errors in half the time. It's sorta like microwave cooking where you can burn twice the food in half the time.
Still, it fills up these waking hours to have to go back and correct my typos.
I put in a call to the nurses in my onc's office and was told to hang in there and give it another day or two...see if I adjust. They'll have to pull me in on a sled or a gurney when I see the doc on Monday, if I'm still on this stuff, unless I get some sleep.
Well. Hubby says I'm climbing the walls. I can FEEL how wired I am. I am cranky...which is not my normal state of being.
Last night when I got up long before I should have...I spent most of the rest of the night on the sofa, composing (in my head) a nasty letter to the builder of our (Gawd, I hope the sale goes through) house in Arizona. Ground was broken in December of 2003. As of the inspection the beginning of August 2005...the house didn't pass!
A brand new house!!
Wanna know one thing they did which defies logic? They stained all the interior doors in the garage and then LEFT THEM SIT THERE FOR 2-3 MONTHS BEFORE INSTALLING THEM INSIDE THE HOUSE...and as most of you know, temps in Arizona were running around 110-116 degrees. Smart, huh?
They all warped, of course, and wouldn't close properly, as noted by the inspector in all his technical wisdom, and who then refused to pass the house. 
Meantime the house WAS air conditioned and we have a $500. electric bill for ONE MONTH to prove it. They must have been leaving exterior doors open, hoping enough cool air would get to the un-air conditioned garage to save those doors, perhaps?
Of course we are in Connecticut...so it's a little difficult to BE THERE every day to see what this nong-nong builder or his crew are doing. We just get the bills.
Enough of that...I digressed. Again...thanks to Decadron. I also composed a letter in my head to a "friend" who bailed out on me when I got sick, and to whom - when I run into her - I've been amazingly nice. I've decided making nice, in this particular situation, sucks and is undeserved! I'm going to try to get over it enough to just ignore her from here on out, rather than continuing to be friendly while not effusive.
But in my head last night...I imagined her saying to me, as she always does, "You take good care of yourself"...and me replying..."Well, I have to!! If I was relying on YOU to take care of me, I'd have died ages ago!!"
Of course anything I do or don't do, say or don't say these days, seems to be controlled by the Decadron anyway...and NOW I know what some of you have been complaining about.
Holy Crap...the fix is worse than the disease!
How can oral Decadron be so much worse than the infused variety....or have I already asked that question?
It is. That's all I know.
From high atop a Decadron induced Speed Trial...I bring you my fervent hope for all of us that have to take oral Decadron...THAT THEY FIGURE OUT HOW TO FIX THIS STUFF SO IT DOESN'T WIRE US UP LIKE COILED RATTLESNAKES!
Or that every prescription come with a sledge hammer to be applied nightly to the user's forehead.
Or best still...that we DON'T have to take it with Dilantin (for seizures) that PRECLUDES alcohol anymore. A couple of stiff drinks would preclude the need for the sledge hammer...wouldn't it?
I tell ya...I'm not really symptomatic...but having brain tumors and the MEDS they have to give you to treat them...ain't a lot of fun so far, unless you consider the opportunity to mouth off online...mostly a bunch of drivel that just uses up all this energy you have coursing thru your veins...as being a Highlight Of One's Existence!
I don't. Still.....I just mouthed off a bunch of drivel and now YOU are left to read it. Or not. By the time you peek in here...I'll be off on some other Decadron induced "business", no doubt.
Right up until I have to "get up" at 6:30 to be at the hospital just after 8:30 to figure out when they are gonna toast my head.
The sooner the better...cuz eventually I can get off this d*mn oral pollution.
As Alf used to say...."Where's the casserole dish?"
"Why do you ask, Alf?"
"The cat won't fit in the toaster. HAH!"
I fit in the toaster. Unless you like raw meat, I can still hold anyone's pork chop for them...but the Curse for this Accomodation.....is that I'll talk your blinkin' ears off!