7 years cancer free

Its been a little over a year since my last post. I have been fitted with my 4th breast prosthesis. This one is my favorite so far. Thank god for modern technology. I am doing pretty good i guess. My biggest problem these days is that i have been diagnosed with neuropathy in my feet and legs. My doctor says most likely caused as a side effect of Taxotere, one of my chemo drugs. I take Nortriptyline for that. Though a fairly low dose. I still have a lot of pain when im on my feet a lot. My tailbone hurts all the time too. I had it x-rayed but it looked normal. We have no idea why it hurts so much but it seems to be tied in with the neuropathy. The more my feet hurt the more my tailbone hurts too. I am screwed, cant sit long and cant walk much either lol. I still have trouble sleeping even though i take a hand full of pills at night to help me sleep. Still have restless legs too. But, im alive and i thank god everyday for that. I go next month for my annual mamogram. Then the next month to my cancer doctor. I dont expect any problems. The last time i posted, i posted about Ben's issues. He is still working and doing much better. But is still having lots of leg and knee pain and still having the muscle spasms. He has been to a specialist that said he needed knee replacement. He has had shots in both knees, steriods i believe. I made ben an appointment in morgantown with another orthopedic surgeon. He x-rayed both knees and said he did not need knee replacement and said he should see a neurologist and have nerve testing done. He has been there done that. Its like we are going in circles never getting any help for Ben. So i dont know what to do next. He is like the energizer bunny, he just keeps going. Ok thats all i know to say for now. We try to keep positive attitudes.

Ben

Well it has been too long since i have written an update, just FYI im fine. over 5 years cancer free. im writing today to vent. Im just about ready to blow. This is about Ben. Ben is a wonderful husband and friend. Great guy all around. He has health issues that have made him potentially crippled. For years now he has been having terrible muscle spasms in his legs. He is also on meds for Diabetes. The doctor insists that his leg problems are caused from Neuropathy from diabetes. NOT. 1 he had the spasms way before he was diabetic. And 2 i know a lot of diabetics that are insulin dependant that do not ever have muscle spasms. my own grand daughter is insulin dependant diabetic. i know a little about diabetes. Ben's spasms have gotten much worse over the past few years. He has had to take 2 medical leaves, one last year and one this year because of his pain. This last leave was a result of an incompatant neurologist, Dr Navada, in clarksburg. Bens doc refered ben to him. Dr Navadah pulled Ben off his celexa and Gabapentin. and put him on a new one, which i cant remember the name of right now. well after 2 weeks his muscle spasms were worse and he was severely depresed. as a result he had to leave work after one week into his two week tour. at that time he was working 12 days of 12 hour shifts every day then he got one week off. his drive home from Pa. was totally miserable. spasms all the way home in his legs. he called me several times beside himself in pain. the last time he called at midnight. he said get dressed and meet me at UHC im going to the ER. He was crying i could tell all throughout the trip he was in really bad shape. However i had never seen him this bad. I said if you have to Ben, pull off and all 911. I was scared to death he would wreck and kill his self or someone else. thankfuly he made it to the hospital. a few minutes before me. when i arrived he was being checked in. he was crying uncontrollably. shaking all over. the spasm had worked its way all the up his back to his neck. he was slurring his words. his vision was blurry too he said. they checked his sugar it was fine. i was terrified. he was too im sure. by the time they got him in a room it had eased a bit. the er doc came in. asked a million questions. to which i answered most of em for ben. that doctor wouldnt even look at me. i know doctors dont like to hear from anyone but the patient but we have been married since 1981. i live with ben i know him. i feel his pain. i wanted to tell ben to tell the doc to listen to me. but i didnt. and i still wish i had. anyway, the doc did blood work i am not sure what they tested for but it was all normal they said. they also did ct of his brain since his vision was blurry. the ct was good. so they gave no meds nothing or pain. but he offered ben some tylenol. wtf for muscle spasm. tylenol. omg im just fuming. by this time his spasms were mostly gone. so they sent him home with papers that said he had RLS. restless leg syndrome. how can doctors be so totally incompetant. i have RLS. im on meds for it. i still have it a few nights a week. i end up pacing the floor till it passes. but it does not cause severe pain. ben has seen me sit here and constantly move my legs because they wont stop twitching or contracting. this is no comparison to his spasms. and on top of it all. then Dr. Navadah also insisted on putting ben thru the sleep lab because, he said often times people with "thick necks" had sleep apnea. right away i protested. i said were not here for this were here for muscle spasms. he said well this has nothing to do with muscle spasms. but if he had sleep apnea maybe we could get to have a better nights sleep that would help him maybe. ben said he would do it. the result was from the doc. a little sleep apnea, not bad enough that the doc would insist on him wearing the machine. he would leave that up to ben. i said fine now can we concentrate on his muscle spasms. i could tell right away it pissed him off. thats when he pulled him off the meds and tried the new one that he said was prescribed for many different conditions. he thought it would help. well when it didnt and we back i hit him with several questions to which he had no answers for. he said sometimes there are no answers its a matter of the right medication. i said then how do you know what medication to give him if you dont know what is causing the problem. he got up and said i think it would be best if you left now obviously im not the right doctor for you. but he recomended he try requip. which is for again, RLS. as well as other issues one of them being muscle spasms. i said fine we can try that. so he same as threw us out. that was the end of that. so we go back to bens family doc. and push for him to be refered to cleveland clinic. well that took red tape and pulling teeth to get it finally done. the appointment was made last thursday. we were told to see a neuroligist. yet another one, by the way. but ben wanted to go there if no one else could help him maybe they could. and he needs relief from the pain. well today when i was packing and going to meet ben in new martinsville, where he is working. then we were going to leave the hotel in the morning to go to cleveland. i called dr khan's office to get a phone number for cleveland so i could get an address where we were going. only to call cleveland and be told that this is a sleep lab appointment. man did i looose it. were back to square one. and not only that but cleveland was told that ben had RLS. i cant believe what im hearing. i told cleveland we had already been thru this. he had been to a sleep lab already and that he does not have RLS. he has severe muscle spasms. day and night, night and day. they seem to be triggered by him being on his feet at work for hours everyday. it has to be something pushing on a nerve some where in his back. thats my opinion. why wont the doctors listen to us. why cant they help him. so thats where we are at this point. NO WHERE... this rant will be continued at a later date.

the musings of a cancer survivor

hello world, well here we are in the hot summer of 2010. so far its been a pretty nice summer. ben had a rough period for a few months he had to take some time off work due to his body and its different aches and pains. he has arthritis pretty bad from all the years of working in the oil field and beating himself up with various injuries. he is doing much better thank god. he has returned to work at any rate. for how long i guess we shall see. hopefully he will be ok. so as he is working that leaves me at home to deal with lifes little bumps and mishaps. my daughter is doing pretty good as a single lady. she has a great boyfriend, eric. her daughter cass, graduated from high school and has been excepted at concord college in athens wv. 3 hours away from mommy. and an insulin dependant diabetic. god get her thru this.she is also engaged to a good guy. she plans on waiting till she graduates from college to get married. so far she has a good head on her shoulders. i hope once she is on her own she doesnt get to free spirited and screw it all up. jeremiah is fast becoming a young man. he is so inteligent. but lacks concentration and motivation. he struggles a lot with school work. i hope he can manage to muddle thru ok. me, well im living my days thankful to be alive. i so enjoy my family. i love not working because it leaves me free to take life in stride. im now 5 years since diagnosis. thank you lord! i go in august for mammo and dr brager. by then it will be 5 years since i finished chemo. i shouldnt have to see him again for a year. if everything goes well. as for my body, well its still struggling. i still have a lot of pain from all the surgeries. the scar tissue i guess. and i have a lot of it. still have a lot of numbness also. though i can get the oddest sinsations on the areas that are seemingly numb. sometimes i get pains where its numb. why? i have no idea. or an itch where its numb and i cant feel myself scratch it even. so how do i feel that it is itching? very strange indeed. its all just a lot of things i deal with on a daily basis. still havent got used to the way i look. still dont like to be naked in front of ben. though he doesnt say anything or seem to notice i just feel the need to stay covered up. i remember when i rarely wore clothes in the summer, lol. now the only time im totally naked in the house is if im alone. all this is not something i have shared with a lot of people. i have pretty much kept it in the family. and its rarely discussed anymore. i still have days when i am very angry my life has come to this. though im still very thankful im still here. its just hard to explain. after all this time i still have a hard time dealing with it. maybe i always will. i hope not though. i just want to be normal and never will be again. so i find ways to cope. mostly i pretend im normal. life is a game sometimes. i know everyone has problems. others way more serious than mine. how do you just not think about that? how do you just say fuck it i dont care. how do people cope with everyday stresses? the sad thing is some dont. some take drastic measures to get thru the day. they find an out. so to speak. one thing that relieves the stress. for some it might be exercise. others it might be food. for those that have even harder times coping there is always drugs or alcohol. no one has patience anymore. its all about now now now. we want it now. why does everything take so long. a rough patch financially. might last a few months. so you go borrow money to get you through. but then you just have to pay that back. we get a cold that might last a week or 2. you might run to the doctor. i need drugs help me doc. sorry it has to run its course. anything out of the ordinary is a pain in the ass. if it takes us out of our comfort zone god forbid. how to cope? what do i do now. this is not what im use to. shoot i cant stand to drive my husbands truck because my car has my conforts in it. it has gum it has a nail file it has a pair of nail clippers it has tissues it has lip stuff. i go in my husbands and im like shoot i dont have something this sucks.grrrrrrrr im going home and get mine. im addicted to my comfort zone. i rarely leave it. i cant cope if im not in it. im falling apart at the seems. lol.one thing happens to upset the normal flow of my day and im pulling my hair out. omg is it ever gonna end. i want my normal back. find a way to get thru it. i can understand why so many get hooked on drugs or alcohol. no one can cope with lifes little problems. we fall apart. i know families with kids and grand kids and no one knows what the rest of em are doing. who can keep up. you have to work eat sleep clean the house bye the food do the laundry. then this kid does this and that one does that and its grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. wheres my dam calgon??? though some how most of us get thru. somehow some way. thank god. and that was what was so hard about cancer and chemo. talk about out of my comfort zone. geesh i had to rest almost all day just to get thru the day. and it killed me to not be able to jump up and do things i would normally do. but i got thru. with a lot of praying i tell you. lol. where theres a will theres a way. you have to keep a positive attitude rely on friends and family to get you thru it. now im back to my normal life. not the normal i had to adjust to with each step of the way when i was diagnosed with cancer. and i love it. lol. life is good. in fact its great. so to ben and angie and bud and cass, i love you guys. so very much. my good friends that i would not have met had i died, pd, mike, fixx, john, and a few others thank you for being in my life. im so blessed to have you in my life. so til next time guys, enjoy life. padiddle.

WEATHER

hello world, well we have moved into december. i hate cold weather. i love sunshine. not much of it this time of year either. thanksgiving has come and gone now to get thru christmas. i also hate the holidays. i am just not a winter person. though thanksgiving was good. we had a lot of food. the kids were here along with angie's new boyfriend, eric. he is very nice. i think he might be a keeper. yeah well in case i forgot to mention it angie got a divorce this past summer. her ex was just to weird to live with. he had serious issues that made it impossible for her to stay with him. so there doing great on there own. geesh the grand kids are growing up so fast. cass will be 18 in january and graduates high school in 2010. bud is getting a mustache geesh. they are both great kids. the next time i go to doc brager i will be 5 years cancer free. woooo hoooooo. man i cant believe it. im doing great. except for getting older and clumsier. if it can be messed up i can do it. lol. im not going into details here, just believe it. oh and speaking of weather. im kind of a weather fan. love the weather chanel and jim cantore. i have got a new weather station that is on the net now with weather underground. charles helped me set it all up. he is the geek of the family. without him i couldnt do it. my station ID is, KWVBUCKH7. or http://baileyridge.buckhannonlive.com/index.html, there is the link. lol. and again charles set up the page for me. he can do anything on a computer. its amazing to watch him. i really love having him around, he is great fun. well anywho. its past my bedtime i just wanted to update this thing i call my cancer blog. i dont talk much about cancer in it anymore. so i will just chat about what ever my heart desires i guess. love to everyone, family and friends. i thank god for you all and my wonderful life. padiddle for now, robin

Broken

Well, i dont watch much tv anymore. however i do stil watch house,that is dr house. he plays a crotchity old doctor. sometimes funny sometimes pathetic. tonights episode for the opening season was titled, Broken. i hope a lot of people watch it. it certainly was interesting. funny, sad, first one emotion then another. it made me cry it made me laugh. gee thats pretty much me at times. just dont take much to switch my moods. either im happy or sad. or just dont give a shit. lol. but i would be willing to bet most people get that way. sometimes i wonder if were all not "BROKEN" in some way. why is there cancer? why is there mental illness? why do some get it and some dont? god only knows. thankfully most people handle lifes day to day problems well. for those of us that dont, there are drugs. lol thank god for drugs. thank god for family, friends, and the internet. those things keep me sane more so than drugs. but drugs help. now im talking prescription drugs of course. though if marijuana were made legal here in good ole WV, hell ya i would buy it. im in a "mood" tonight. to quote a friend. life gives us all sorts of things to deal with. some good, some not so good. i have had lots of good and i have had lots of bad. so have others. i have a friend, gail, who recently found out her cancer is back. why? who knows. maybe one day mine will be too. who knows. i hope not. but i always wonder why. why some and not others. why not me? yeah i always wonder that. no one knows. no one will ever know. and why sadness and depression. have you ever thought that there is just one thing that can happen to make another person come completely unglued. one thing is all it takes. one singl event. or one action. or one word. and suddenly your head turns inside out. how do you recover from something like that. how do you overcome it. another who knows answer. for each person its different. some run away. some pretend it didnt happen. untill another event sets them back into that otherly world of omg im nuckin futs. i think we have all had those times in our lives. when we wonder, whats wrong with me? why did i do that? why did i say that? god help me cause i dont know. but most of us are able to step back and think about it. see it from a different standpoint. try to figure it out in our heads. somehow make it right. make it so that you can understand it. in your mind at least. maybe others dont. i think we all have times that were weak. mentally and physicaly. though we dont like others to know it. we try to handle problems from within ourselves. and hopefull for most that works. because if it dont, others end up getting hurt by that one thing. just that one thing. i like to think that there are happy people and sad in this world. so the next time you are so blissfully happy. there is someone somewhere who just got told they have cancer. someone who found out there child was just killed in a car wreck. there are both ends to the scale of emotions. why do some people suffer to protect others. a mother who goes without so her children can have better things. people who love each other but know they cant share that love. because others would be hurt. why is there so much pain? is it any wonder the world is such a mess. so anywho, just my thoughts for the night. all brought on by dr. house. lol. i really hope that when people watch this show they see it as a life learning experience. that you grow from it. that you learn there is more in this world than what you want. its more important to have what you need. i mean really it is. love and happiness is what its all about really. true friends are hard to find. honest ones that is. oh well enough of my mood for one night. just want to say i love my friends and family. have a great life folks. padiddle, Robin

follow up mammo

well gee 6 months sure goes fast. especially when its summer and your having fun. lol,,, i had my follow up and got the results. no signs of cancer. yaaaaaaaaa for me. woooo hoooooo... well thats all good then. except that my first cancer didnt show up on the mammo. oh well. so life goes on. and for me its a great life. with wonderful friends and family. speaking of family. i have adopted a brother. lol,,, his name is charles, otherwise known as PRARIEDOG. i love him to death. he is a very special friend to ben and me both. having PD here has kept me busy this summer. he is so smart and very funny. also infuriating at times. but then i am not easy to get along with at times. so its all good. PD and ben built me a new deck. oh its so nice. thank you guys so much. well its time for school to start. geesh the kids are growing up so fast. cass will graduate from high school next year. jeremiah is in middle school now. man am i getting old. but i love those kids so much. there great kids. angie divorced D this summer. she is living on her own for the first time in her life. im very proud of her. her and the kids are doing great. so winter is coming and i hope its mild. i hate the cold. and ben and pd both have to work out in it. it sucks for them and others who have to be in the cold.i hope they stay warm enough. well thats about all i know for now. in april i will be going on my 5 years cancer free. hope it stays away. see you all soon. if there is anyone reading this that might have cancer. i wish you luck and just know there is life after cancer. trust in god and enjoy every day your given. love and happiness to all,padiddle, Robin

just another mammo

well its been a year since my last post. mammo time again. i went monday feb. 16th. it went well very quickly and no extra film was needed. on the 20th i got the results. wouldnt you know, they see someting. it appears to be non cancerous. but, they want a followup in 6 months. well thus is the life. doesnt surprise me at all. im not gonna worry about it. in the mean time. im feeling great, getting on with life as a cancer survivor. i bought a treadmill. have been trying to walk a mile 3 or 4 days a week at least. im really surprised that i can. i figured it would make my hips or knees hurt, but remarkably my joints feel better. i was doing so good the first month i lost 8 pounds. then i started feeling bad my bp was a little high. so i eased up on walking. then ben got sick and passed it to me. some sort or tummy bug. i didnt walk for at all for a week. now im back to walking i hope i can keep it up. i really feel so much better when i walk. oh and a quick word about the holidays. we had a guest for christmas. prariedog is a truck driver. he had a run to southern wv just before christmas. so since he was that close we asked him to spend the holidays with us. he parked his truck at our super walmart. it was so good to share our holiday with him. at least he wasnt alone like so many other drivers that haul cross country. everyone needs friends and family and especially on holidays. he was perfect gentleman and not a bit of bother. we loved having him with us. everyone should apreciate americas truck drivers they do a lot to keep us in our necessaties that we use in our everyday lives. everything we use is brought by truck to our stores. where would we be without them. its not an easy life being a truck driver they dont get paid near enough for all they do. my family is great as always. love you all a bunch. ben, angie, cass, and bud, you make my life so happy and full. till next time world i wish good health and happiness to all. padiddle, Robin