It was March when they first found out and I missed the rest of that school year. They chose to do a weird chemo schedule, I went to the hospital for five days of in-patient therapy and then recovered at home for three weeks, repeat. So on the off weeks I really wasn’t well enough to go to school. My teacher and the school were super supportive and on some days I went to school for a few hours of art, or a special assembly, or things like that. A tutor came to our house to keep me up to date on the basics. I think the teachers were very open with the other students about what I was going through because they were told to expect my hair to be falling out and that I couldn’t run aound and play a whole lot. I actually remember a lot more rudeness from random adults! Most of the other kids I knew were very sweet.
I have not been featured on any television shows that I know of!
Not sure about the fertility question yet. I’ve asked before and for the most part the answer is always “You are probably okay, but we won’t know for sure until you really start trying.”
As far as taste goes, I remember general loss of appetite and mouth sores more than funny tastes. I couldn’t really handle full meals well so I just ate small ones several times a day and we concentrated on things I really liked.
Can someone recommend a cancer diet site please? Just your basic healthy eating for someone going from eating junk to something more healthy. Not looking for quack sites recommending ant foreskins or anything like that. Something along the lines that broccoli is better than carrots, and why type thing. Why whole grains are better than processed food?
My wife’s sister was diagnosed with breast cancer about 1 month ago. 10 days ago her left breast and lymph nodes around the area and armpit were removed. The biopsy shows that about 1/3 of the removed lymph nodes were cancerous. Chemo starts next week.
another question: is there any science behind the belief that legumes contain “female growth hormones” and would contribute to cancer risk? My sister in law has gone vegetarian because of growth hormones fed to livestock. However, she’s “supposed” to avoid legumes because of “female growth hormones”
[keep in mind that in China science is slowly prevailing over old wives tales, traditional Chinese medicine versus Western medicine, etc. While the rationale science process is underway, there are an awful lot of “facts” that get convoluted along the way.]
I’m glad to see this thread resurrected…we just found out that my wife has cancer (probably) last week. Waiting on a biopsy and diagnosis, but it’s 99% likely cancer, just looking at the CAT scan.
I don’t want to guess what kind, because I don’t want someone here to reply with an “uh oh”. I just don’t want to know. I’m a wreck. My wife is holding up better.
But I’m encouraged by how many askees there are here.
jsc, I’m sorry. But if they caught it, they can treat it. Chin up! Look on this as your chance to completely pamper your wife!
I know Ivylad was upset…a couple of nights he was crying in his sleep because of dreams that I’d died. But I’m fine (1/3 of the way through radiation, woohoooo!) and we’re getting through this.
And don’t be afraid. Ignorance will scare you a hell of a lot more than the facts will. At least that way you’ll know what you’re dealing with.
Has anyone else had their priorities rearranged since their diagnosis?
OP by Ivylass
I realized that most of my problems and other people’s too are “pretend problems”.
I just had a blood test for breast cancer antigens. Originally the count was almost 3000--that was in May. After 6 months on Taxol and Avastin, it was down to 270. Now it's gone up to 340...Not near what it was in May, but my Dr. thinks it's time to switch chemos. So next Thursday I'm going to have a PET scan. I'm feeling great and I have plenty of energy...no pain anyway and the rash on my chest that indicated that I had breast cancer is virtually gone.
It's possible that I will be on a chemo that is taken orally. I'm excited about that.
ivylass, thanks so much for your encouraging words. I know we’ll be fine; we’re just tired of waiting, and looking forward to starting the program and getting on with it.
My wife is going through an annoying resistance phase: you can’t worry about me…I’m The Mom – I worry about you. And then instead of worrying about her health, she worries that her family is worrying too much. :rolleyes:
She’s a mom. It’s what we do. What helped me understand was knowing that it helped my family if they could take care of me. They couldn’t take away the cancer, they couldn’t stop my hair from falling out, but making sure the dishwasher was emptied and dinner was made was something they could do. So tell your wife that she’s done such a fantastic job with the family, now it’s their turn to show her what a good job she’s done.
And I understand about the waiting. You want it to get started so you can get it finished.
China Guy, I am so sorry your family has to be dealing with this. I hope your wife’s sister comes through chemo ok and it works.
This site has information about soy and cancer. This site has information about a study on phytoestrogens from legumes and their effect on breast cancer. What I was able to glean, is that legumes do contain some chemicals which are quite similar to estrogen. This is a fact that is not disputed. Estrogen typically stimulates breast cancer tumor growth. This is a fact that is not disputed.
However, there is a very big question about do these chemicals stimulate breast cancer in the same manner that human estrogen does, or do these weaker plant estrogens take up space in estrogen receptors which might otherwise be occupied by much stronger human estrogen and could perhaps slow cancer growth. Scientists don’t yet have unambiguous answers on that.
This site has information about nutrition issues and cancer. It might be helpful, but I was not able to find the exact answers to your questions. When I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, my dietitian gave me advice tempered both by modern western medicine and Asian traditions. Her specialty was nutrition for cancer patients. She taught me that less processed is better generally because processing often strips foods of their natural complexity, and enrichment done to restore or enhance nutritional value is often done with forms of the nutrient which are less accessible to the human body. BTW, her advice for nausea: have a lemon wedge ready and when nausea hits, give it a small suck. The intense sour taste can help cut off the wave of nausea. It helped me keep down many a meal.
Sometimes old wives knew stuff, sometimes, they are full of shit. Same with doctors. Scientists can help us find the truth, but too often the way science is translated into western medicine is very unscientific. In many cases, it seems some in western medicine latches onto one fact and makes recommendations based on that ignoring other facts which should be considered. For example, lowering salt intake can lower blood pressure in some individuals (about a third of those in the original study of people with hypertension). Pregnant women often suffer from elevated blood pressure. So, some western doctors and many other busybodies put this together and tell pregnant women to restrict sodium intake, which in actuality can hurt the mother and child. Pregnancy is a salt wasting condition and pregnant women actually need more salt than non-pregnant women.
I’ve been debating a long time before posting to this thread, because I’m both the daughter of a former cancer patient (Dad was diagnosed with kidney cancer when I was in grade school) and I am a radiation oncologist. I hope the latter doesn’t make me persona non grata on this thread.
Dad’s cancer was found because he peed blood once and mentioned it ever-so-casually to my mom. Otherwise, he was feeling fine. My mom nagged him until he went to his doctor (he kept saying she was over-reacting, that it was related to his latest batch of homemade wine, etc) and things went from there.
After his surgery (which he likes to joke has left him with 2 bellybuttons), we’ve gone through almost 30 years of follow-up now. While I was still living with them, we used to go through the tightening tension in the house as we approached test dates, then the even tighter-strung nerves until the visit to the oncologist for the results, then the explosive relaxation for the next week … over and over again. Dad became unwilling to plan for more than a few months ahead (aside from making sure we would all be financially OK if he died) and then gradually for a year ahead - but “graduating” to a full year ahead took about 20 years. The tension about “could this new pain / lump be my cancer coming back?” and learning his new normal - lived that 2nd hand over the years too.
On the oncologist side of things, I’d hope that having been part of an affected family that I’d be able to be a better, more compassionate oncologist. Some days I think it does. Other days, I flub up despite my good intentions and have to wipe egg off my face and start over again.
Au contraire. It makes you welcome. First, it’s always good to have experts in the discussion. Second, I am alive today because of an oncologist, so I welcome you with open arms.
As for being a family member of a cancer patient, it made my first chemo treatment much easier when the chemo nurse explained to me that she’d had the exact same treatment I was receiving (that’s what prompted her to become a chemo nurse), and she was able to give me a “heads-up” about a few things. For example, if she hadn’t warned me that my first pee after chemo would come out red, I would have freaked out and thought I was pissing blood.
serious lark - Both my uncle and a first cousin had kidney cancer. They’re doing fine. In my mother’s family, of 11 children, 6 had cancer (my mother had breast and uterine).
That’s how my father was diagnosed! (He died about 5 years ago, but it wasn’t related to the cancer.) And he had to be nagged to the doctor, too. What is it with fathers?
Thanks to Invisible Wombat for the reassurance & welcome.
StGermain, good to know that your family members with kidney cancer have done well too.
Kat, I’m with you - their entire married life, my dad has needed to be nagged by my mom to get checkups and medical help. You’d think after the life-saving nag he’d have more respect for her opinion etc, but no dice.
Many people don’t end up getting “signs” until they’re in later stages of cancer, and as many posters have mentioned, doctors initially think it might be something else and end up with a cancer diagnosis later. My mom was diagnosed last May with stage four lung cancer, which had spread to her bones, among other places. The only reason why it got diagnosed after nearly a month of her regular physician trying to figure out why she was having bone pain is because she had her yearly mammogram and they found breast cancer and ended up doing a set of full body scans, where they found the lung cancer.
She’s still going through chemo and did round #4 this week; sometime after the end of the month, she’ll get another full-body scan to see how treatment has been affecting everything. I’m just glad she went from “in a lot of pain, not eating and could barely make it through the day with naps” to “working full time, eating better and not napping as much”. I can’t even fathom what she’s going through right now.[/QUOTE
My son started acting a little depressed,then he started losing some weight,the next thing I knew he was turning yellow,he was only 28,so I thought maybe he had a blockage in his intestines or something. On May the 5th,my Son was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer,it had matastasized to his pancreas and brain,it was stage 4,Josh passed away on June the 8th 2008,They said the cancer ate a hole in his lung and I watched my son gasp for breath for over 4 hours until God had mercy and took him home. He only smoked a few years,but the Doctors said his lungs were predisposed to cancer,I guess that means he could have only smoked a little while and still would have got cancer ? I am sorry about your Mom,I pray she will be a survivor,God Bless.
Heh, back in 95 I knew something was up when they asked if there were any family or friends near by as apparently they knew that mrAru was making holes in the water between Ft Lauderdale and Groton … and then told me they had a scrip for valium waiting for me at the base dispensary … :smack:
That is the main reason that everybody has been freaking out about how calm I am about being told that I have a 4 cm unidentified mass and need to get it checked out now … then when I go in to have the hysterectomy [and the doc is going to fun the intestines and check out the appendix and gallbladder while he is in there. What the hell, he has DaVinci shoved into my gut, might as well play tourist ] and cant get operated on and get admitted for something else entirely instead they are still freaked out that I am so calm about the whole misheva … so we have to reschedule my gutting.
i figure that shit happens, and it doesn’t make it any better to be a sucktastic drama queen and have hysterics all over the place. Makes their job a fuckload harder.
I preplanned for the worst [best being some wierd cyst that popped up in a couple of months] by making sure that I had individual packaged jello, cottage cheese, puddings, grapes, bananas, individual cups of apple sauce, fruit salad, bottled water, candied ginger and cut up raw veggies. Since I am pretty gimpy normally, this is all stuff that can be kept nicely in a cooler in the bedroom for while mrAru is at work. Honestly, preplan for chemo or anything that can cause nausea =) I know we have had threads about chemo on list with food and coping advice =)
] and cant get operated on and get admitted for something else entirely instead they are still freaked out that I am so calm about the whole misheva … so we have to reschedule my gutting.