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21340. wonkers2 - 3/12/2007 1:16:33 AM For Judith with love from Hank 21341. wonkers2 - 3/12/2007 1:19:35 AM For Judith from Dooley 21342. Ms. No - 3/12/2007 10:48:30 AM Thoughtful,
Damn. I'm so sorry to hear about the fight your mother has ahead of her.
I tend to think of you as the resident nutrition buff, have you looked into the theories on the Alkaline Diet? My friend who had breast cancer a couple of years ago chose that route and has been very successful so far --- of course, even though we have treatments for cancer it's still much of a mystery why some people beat the odds and others are struck like lightning out of the blue.
I know very little other than what she explained to me about the theory of keeping the body slightly alkaline to discourage the growth of cancer cells, but it made a certain amount of sense and I figure it can't ever hurt to seek dietary help to aid other treatments.
My very best to your mother and your family. I'll be thinking of you. 21343. Magoseph - 3/12/2007 12:52:38 PM Hello, everyone--I just realized that daylight-saving time is in place. Let's see now if the Mote is on the same time. 21344. alistairconnor - 3/12/2007 12:54:38 PM Ha. The server is on New Zealand time, and doesn't know or care about your US daylight saving. 21345. Magoseph - 3/12/2007 12:55:49 PM Oh, well, I fixed my clock and it fits with your post's time/ 21346. thoughtful - 3/12/2007 5:55:26 PM Thanks, Pelle. I miss having your active participation as well.
Thanks Ms.No. I'd not heard about it but I will investigate. Can't hurt to try.
I really think part of why my mom is going through this is she's been on hormone replacement therapy for maybe 25 years. Estrogen has been determined to play a role in lung cancer so chances are it contributed to her getting cancer now as opposed to, say, in her 90s as her mother did. Mom has since quit the stuff and hopefully that will help slow the growth of the cancer that's left. 21347. thoughtful - 3/13/2007 5:46:16 PM Sometimes I hate people...why don't they just give you a straight answer.
Mother had me fax her biopsy report to her neighbor in FL who works at some lung clinic or other. She said, has anyone talked to your mother? Which immediately means, I'm not going to be the first one to tell her the bad news! She gave me NO information other than, I talked to one doctor and he said it doesn't look good...like what the hell is that suppposed to mean!
Then she proceeds to tell me how she went through the same thing with her father recently and how he died so quickly. Well that's helpful too. I have no idea if her father had the same stage of cancer or what. That response is neither hopeful nor helpful.
So I told her if there's anything she wants to tell me, she should just tell me. So she said, well, I want to talk to another doctor first.
Thank you very much.
I can take the bad news...I can take being told what to expect. What I can't take is hemming and hawing. Don't they realize regardless of if they say the words or not, it's not going to change the outcome? Don't they realize that whatever it is they don't want to say, we're going to have to LIVE through it...not just talk about it???
What is wrong with people?
21348. alistairconnor - 3/13/2007 6:17:26 PM Good grief. That's so stupid. If she's really been through the same thing with her father, surely she must realise how hurtful it is to you.
Some people get a thrill out of dramatizing things. 21349. wonkers2 - 3/13/2007 7:35:04 PM Many people are funny about discussing health issues. I have had health issues that I've discussed only with my wife. And I've had others that I've mentioned to our three children. Perhaps people worry that their relatives and friends reactions to them or relationships to them may change. Other people are only to ready to discuss all their health issues, major or minor, with whom ever is within earshot. 21350. wonkers2 - 3/13/2007 7:38:16 PM I had an aunt who died a couple of years ago at 101 who for years sent annual Christmas letters which consisted primarily of a recitation of her health problems from the preceding year. Although she was almost like a second mother to me, I reacted unfavorably to her habit of sharing her illnesses and hypochondria with everyone, and I'm disinclined to discuss my problems without a compelling reason to do so. 21351. wonkers2 - 3/13/2007 7:49:21 PM (My comment was not intended to be critical of thoughtful's reaction to her situation with her mother. If its any consolation, my mother was frequently exasperating to her children and care givers durning the last several years of her life.) 21352. thoughtful - 3/13/2007 7:55:56 PM AC, I understand that people have different personalities and some like me may want to know everything up front and others may want to do an ostrich, but once you tell the person you want to know everything, they should respond accordingly.
We meet with surgeon on friday and I intend to grill him on exactly what he did, exactly what they found. I understand that no one can predict individual outcome here, but at least he should give us a clue as to what we're going through.
I appreciate my SIL's oncologist more all the time. He laid it out very straight with us. This is what stage you are, and here are the odds you're facing. So much more helpful. So much more realistic. And the news was a lot worse for her than for my mom. She had 0% chance of making it 18 months. At least mom has a slim shot of making it 5 years.
21353. judithathome - 3/13/2007 9:40:11 PM Thoughtful, I'm torn about "hearing the worst and hearing it all" because we did hear the worst case scenario with my son and luckily, it was all shit...what they predicted was completely wrong.
He was in Stage 4 and at Thanksgiving, they said he might not last past Christmas...at Christmas, they said New Year's...and here we are, 35 years later with him still here.
What that information did was scare him and fix it in his mind so that every year, during that holiday season, he becomes depressed beyond belief.
Of course, back then the treatment he had was experimental so no one really knew what the result would be. But their prognosis was hedged heavily on the "worst case" side and it had the result of wrecking my marriage and plunging me into depression...his father, too...and wasn't helpful at all.
Not to compare what you and your mom are going through but sometimes, I think we'd have been better off had we been kept blissfully unaware. 21354. thoughtful - 3/13/2007 9:50:34 PM Well, as I said, some want to know and some don't. But mother and I want to know and will deal with the facts as we know them. But my larger point is, if someone wants to know, then medical personnel have an obligation to tell them and not pussyfoot around with, "has anyone else talked to you about this?" or "we can talk about that at our next meeting."
And frankly, while i'm miserable with the news, I'm delighted for as much warning as we've gotten as it means we still have time left to focus on appreciating each other and our relationship that much more, and not take the time we have left together for granted. 21355. judithathome - 3/13/2007 10:08:56 PM I'm delighted for as much warning as we've gotten as it means we still have time left to focus on appreciating each other and our relationship that much more, and not take the time we have left together for granted.
I think this is an excellent attitude and I wish you the very best with it... 21356. tmesis - 3/14/2007 2:22:41 PM thoughtful basically represents everything I've come to loathe in patients. 21357. tmesis - 3/14/2007 2:23:38 PM ... and their family members. 21358. alistairconnor - 3/14/2007 2:35:36 PM what, people who want to know what's going on?
Are you a "high priest" sort of doctor? 21359. tmesis - 3/14/2007 2:50:30 PM cf. 21286 and 21290
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