PTSD

Again it has been 2 years to the day since my last post. I dont really have much new to report accept that i now have Osteoarthritis in both knees. I had a Cortisone injection in the right knee 11-08-2017. So far it seems to have helped. This post is about a phone call i recieved yesterday. You see there is a law suit I am included in about Taxotere, one of the chemo drugs i recieved. It seems that it caused Alopecia. or permanant hair loss. I had no idea it was permanant untill i started seeing the comercials on tv. Yea stupid me, I was still waiting and hoping that the rest of my hair would still come in. Even after all these years. So anyway i got a huge packet of papers to fill out and i tried my best to answer questions that i knew nothing about. Then i sent them back to the attorneys. Yesterday a lady working for them called me to go over some things that i had apparently either left blank or not answered. Most of them had to do with Alopecia. Had i ever been tested for it? Hell i never knew i even had it so how could i be tested for it and the more she asking me the more i thought about the chemo again and standing at the mirror gently pulling out all my hair all the while crying. thinking about the way my arm burned when the chemo went in. the way it made me feel it just all came back. So i started crying and she never even acknowleged that i was crying. When we finally hung up i had to take a shower and get ready for my doctor appointment to get my cortosone shot. I had to wash my hair because as i told her i never go anywhere but my own property without washing it. I continued crying in the shower and after i got out. Ben told me to sit down and take a breather. I did and finally did stop but geesh. Its just so upsetting to think of all those feeling of the unknown future i had at that time. Sometimes when i have to have blood work it happens too. If the vampire is not experienced enough to do it right the first time. if she then has to move the needle and try a second or third time i go back to that same awful experience of chemo and the way they had to start in my hand and that one would blow then move to my wrist and that one would blow then up my arm grrrrrrrrrrrrr. sometimes i was there all day. It was a nightmare. So do i hate cancer? yes i do. It and the treatment has become my PTSD event and yes i hate it. Padiddle

Living Life

It has been over 2 years since my last post. I am still cancer free. For the most part we are both doing well. Ben has basically been forced into retirement since he was layed off in Dec of 2012. So he signed up for disability since that is why they never hired him back, because he just wasnt able to do hard labor anymore, and he was approved. We are so thankful that he no longer has to struggle to work thru his pain. He also got signed up for VA medicle benefits so he gets all his medicine for a small co pay now. I have been put on Obama care thru medicaid so my prescriptions are paid for now too. I have struggled with neuropathy caused by chemo that did nerve damage. I was on Lortab narcotic pain medicine for several years. I am lucky i never became addicted to them as i only took as needed. My doctor moved out of state and i had to find a new doc and since we have a prescription drug epidemic in the state of WV i couldnt fine any doctor that would write a scrip for narcotic pain meds. My new doc put me on Lyrica 150 mg twice a day and it has been a god send to me. I am pain free most days and the days i have pain the pain is managable. I have not had to take a Lortab since i started the Lyrica. I am totally amazed at this drug. My new doc also says i have some fibromyalgia since i have so many other body aches and the Lyrica has also helped with that. I still have some nerve pain down my left arm from my arm pit to my elbow due to cutting or damaging nerves when i had my mastectomy but that pain is much less too. We have spent the last couple years doing much needed repairs to our home including new kitchen cabinets and countertops and sink. It looks just wonderful. My daughter has remarried and she and i have had our issues since she divorced her second husband. She seems to be happy and thats all that matters i guess. I have come to realize over the years that she has finally come into her own woman and that has been hard for me to accept. I always thought of her as my baby girl and now that she has a new life that is so different since she has grown up so to speak i miss my baby girl. Cassie has also grown up and even has her own baby daughter. She is a beauty too. Jeremiah will be 18 his next birthday and has become quite an accomplished musician. He plays drums as well as guitar and piano. He wants to be in a band. I love it. So it is November and winter is at hand. I look forward to spring as i hate the short dark cloudy days of winter. We just dont have much sun here in winter. So my life is good and i am happy and resonably healthy. Thank the good lord for all i have. This ends my post. Padiddle

PTSD

Its been a while since i last made a post. A lot of things are going on right now. Im still cancer free. I had to see my cancer doc a couple months ago. The first thing i do when i see him is blood work. I always stress a bit over that since i can only have sticks in my right arm. No sticks or BP's in left arm since the mastectomy and lymph nodes being removed on that side. Since i had chemo in my right arm and it destroyed my veins in that arm, they have to draw blood out of the back of my hand or my wrist. I always tell them im a hard stick so i want the best one to do it. well this girl said i got it. But she was gabbing with another girl about shoping and laughing and carrying on i felt she wasnt paying a bit of attention to what she was doing. When i told her they usually get it from the back of my wrist. She said "are you kidding me". i said nope. so she said ok not to worry. well she didnt stick me where i told her to. She wenot the to left of where she should have. Then she couldnt get it to flow into the tube. It started hurting right away, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. She actually asked the girl she was gabbing with to come and pull on the syringe to draw it. That girl said she didnt want to blow it. I thought how stupid she dont know what she is doing at all. So when i finally busted out crying because it was hurting so bad she stoped and apologized. then she went to the back of my hand and got it there, but it hurt too. So i swear i couldnt quit crying. I cried for i bet 2 hours. What that episode did to me was give me flash backs to when i had chemo and all the times that they had to stick me. The chemo would turn my veins red up my arm and hurt and burn. They would have to start a new IV sometimes 3 or 4 times to get all the poison in me. I felt all that like it was yesterday. To me that was my Post Tramatic Stress Disorder. I dont know how soldiers deal with it. I feel so bad for them to have to do what they do and see what they see and come home to try to live a normal life. We really do not begin to give our soldiers the right medical treatments they need to cope when they come home. All i know is that day for me was horendous. I can't imagine how a soldier gets thru it as im sure its quadruple what i felt. Now onto other issues. Ben was layed off from his job as a drilling rig worker a week before christmas. He has worked for this company since 1981. He has arthritis and has struggled with his job for the past 4 or 5 years. He has taken 3 medical leaves to rest his body. His company was sold last year to a company our of Houston, TX. They officialy took over running it in December. When he was layed off his rig was shut down. All the hands off it are working on other rigs. But not him, he is still layed off. They keep telling him no work. There is a boom in the business right now. They say no work? WTF. So as of the end of this month we will have no medical insurance since it cost us over 600 bucks to keep it thru the end of January. We cant afford that. Yet we both are on many different medicines. Mine are all generic. He is diabetic and his Janumet is over 300 a month. He also takes cymbalta which is over 230 a month. Plus his arthritis medicine. So i dont know how much longer we can keep paying for our meds before we are broke. I suspect the new company doesnt want to be an employee for them since he not well. He has been one of the best employees that company has had. He is never late. He never misses work even if he is sick. At least till the past couple of years. So thats what we are dealing with now. I dont know if he will ever go back to work. I know he shouldnt have to as much as he struggles. He isnt able to. So for now we live on his Unemployment. I dont know how long he can draw that. But i can tell you he and i are both very worried. So thats whats happening in my neck of the woods. Thanks for listening to who ever reads this and Padiddle, lol.

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