I thought I was dying

On Aug 4, 7:09*am, William Hamblen wrote:


Sometimes they are. *A friend discovered a lump in HIS breast a couple
of years ago and the MD ordered a mammogram. *

Breast cancer in men is usually more advanced at diagnosis as there
isn't a lot of tissue between the breast and the chest wall so it
quickly invades

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

Lesley wrote:

On Aug 3, 9:44?pm, wrote:
But not *painful*. I
find a blood pressure cuff more painful!

I love you Joyce!!!!

Wow, I never realized it was so easy to be loved.

Not had the mammogram yet but finally someone else who doesn't like
blood pressure cuffs- everyone says they don't hurt but I find they
make me feel as if my arm is about to be crushed.

They didn't used to hurt when doctors pumped it manually, but now
everyone uses digital ones, and those just keep squeezing and squeezing
and squeezing. I'm always about to start saying, "Um, hello? Yes, um,
my arm is coming off? Is this supposed to happen?"

I mean the year
before last I had a filling done, one where my dentist took one look
at what had come out and said "Oh my God that's big!" and then had to
drill into the tooth to provide purchase for the screws which were
then screwed in to hold the new filling in place along with a couple
of nails that were hammered into the root canal..and I didn't have any
anaesthesia at all

Good lord, please tell me you're exaggerating. Your mouth must have looked
like Frankenstein's mouth. And why on earth didn't you have anesthesia??
Not even novocaine?

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)

Pat wrote:
What a strange night it was, last night. I laid down to sleep around
midnight and felt uncomfortable so I got back up. Then I had a painful bout
of "the runs" that lasted an hour or so, and all the while I was feeling
very weird.... There was a sensation of being hugely bloated in my
midsection... so bloated that it felt as if my gut was pressing upward on my
diaphragm to the point I could scarcely breathe and I was going to burst.
snip
I finally fell asleep around 5:30 AM. Billy woke me up a few hours later,
demanding food, and I had NO pain and NO discomfort whatsoever. I was very
glad I hadn't given in to fear during the previous night, for I might have
been waking up in a much different place, needlessly.


Lots of purrs,
Polonca and Soncek

kilikini wrote:
I didn't think of gall bladder, but that could be it, too. I need
mine out,
but mine is complicated from my previous surgeries. I can't get it done
laparoscopically (I have no belly button) and my lower abdominals have been
removed to rebuild my chest. The complication is that the muscles' blood
supply is still attached to my waistline. If a surgeon cuts through that
blood supply, the muscles die.

So, to help avoid more surgery, I have once again drastically changed my
diet. Pretty soon I'll be down to just water. :-/

kili


Lots of purrs and gentle hugs,
Polonca and Soncek

kilikini wrote:
They *have* made some amazing break-throughs in breast cancer. It's no
longer the death sentence it once was. (Although I'm really sorry for your
loss, hopitus.) What I have isn't breast cancer; it's an *extremely* rare
form of chest wall cancer. Mine spreads through connective tissue instead
of through the blood. It doesn't respond to chemo and my doctors won't do
radiation therapy because the tumor (which has returned) is right over my
heart. snip


I'm so, so very sorry to hear the tumor has returned. I so wish there
was something we could do.
All I can do is send lots and lots of purrs and gentle hugs, we are
thinking of you, kili,
Polonca and Soncek

"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
"Joy" wrote in message
.. .
wrote in message
...
MaryL -out-the-litter wrote:

Don't worry about it. I responded "just in case" Pat was serious
about this
joke convincing her never to have a mammogram. That's too important
to
overlook. However, I seriously doubt if this joke -- or your
message --
would have anything at all to do with Pat's decision. Just read some
of her
previous comments about her views on medical care, and I think that
would
actually be the basis of her decision.

Well, in fairness, there is *some* controversy about the effectiveness
of mammograms. They don't necessarily find all breast cancers.

I still get them, though, because I would rather be doing something than
nothing, and it's not like they've been *proven* to be useless. In fact,
mammograms do find early cancers all the time. Besides, I don't know of
any
other diagnostic device for breast cancer. So if a mammogram were to
fail
to find cancer, I'd be in the same place I would be if I hadn't had one.
Whereas if it does find it, then I'm better off, right?

--
Joyce ^..^

Exactly. It seems to me I've heard about something else that some
doctors recommend in addition to mammograms, but I've never heard of a
doctor recommending you not get one because it might not find cancer.
Every few years I end up having an ultrasound after my mammo, because I
am prone to cysts. I had my first one removed when I was 14 years old.
I had another one removed about 40 years later. In between, and since,
I've had them, but they come and go. I've had a couple of needle
biopsies, but the ultrasound can usually tell they are just cysts, so I
haven't had one of those in a long time. Now whenever they find a lump,
I just assume it's another cyst. So far it always has been. That doesn't
keep me from getting my annual mammo, though. However, my ob-gyn told me
I only need 7 more, and then I can stop getting them. It seems they
aren't necessary after you are 80.

Joy

?????!!! Really?! Why aren't they necessary after you are 80? My
grandmother lived to be 104 - so she had 24 more years after 80 in which
to possibly get breast cancer.

I guess it doesn't matter to the medical bods if you die after you are 80.
Same as myself, if I seem to be clear of cancer after 5 years, I will be
discharged as a success. We all know it doesn't always work like that.
My colleague had breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and chemo, was declared a
success. Ten years later it was back, in her bones, and she is now dead at
the age of 49.




Nose Kisses,

CatNipped

"Lesley" wrote in message
...
On Aug 3, 7:00 am, "kilikini" wrote:

Please, ladies, get a mammogram - they're really not bad! Takes 10 minutes
and they don't hurt


I beg to differ. They *do* hurt but that will not put me off from getting
them. My half-sister got diagnosed at a very early stage recently through
having a mammogram, and has had radiotherapy for weeks all her skin is
peeling off, apparently it was a very aggressive type of cancer so I am
hoping it will be a cure for her.

Tweed

Christina Websell wrote:

I guess it doesn't matter to the medical bods if you die after you are 80.
Same as myself, if I seem to be clear of cancer after 5 years, I will be
discharged as a success. We all know it doesn't always work like that.
My colleague had breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and chemo, was declared a
success. Ten years later it was back, in her bones, and she is now dead at
the age of 49.

I think the issue is also whether something else will kill the patient
before the cancer does. There are people - especially elderly people -
who, if they get less aggressive cancers, they and their doctors decide
not to treat it because it's much more likely that they'll die first of
heart disease or something before the cancer spreads enough to be
dangerous, and because treatment itself can be agonizing and sometimes
have extremely dangerous side-effects.


Cheryl

An elderly neighbor of mine who has cancer stopped her treatments, She is 75
and, they were making her so sick she couldn't do anything but lay in bed.
She is now in a nursing home but at least can sit up and visit with people
and is eating again. Guess at some point we all have to make choices.
"Cheryl P." wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:

I guess it doesn't matter to the medical bods if you die after you are
80. Same as myself, if I seem to be clear of cancer after 5 years, I will
be discharged as a success. We all know it doesn't always work like
that.
My colleague had breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and chemo, was declared
a success. Ten years later it was back, in her bones, and she is now
dead at the age of 49.

I think the issue is also whether something else will kill the patient
before the cancer does. There are people - especially elderly people -
who, if they get less aggressive cancers, they and their doctors decide
not to treat it because it's much more likely that they'll die first of
heart disease or something before the cancer spreads enough to be
dangerous, and because treatment itself can be agonizing and sometimes
have extremely dangerous side-effects.


Cheryl

"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
"Joy" wrote in message
.. .
wrote in message
...
MaryL -out-the-litter wrote:

Don't worry about it. I responded "just in case" Pat was serious
about this
joke convincing her never to have a mammogram. That's too important
to
overlook. However, I seriously doubt if this joke -- or your
message --
would have anything at all to do with Pat's decision. Just read some
of her
previous comments about her views on medical care, and I think that
would
actually be the basis of her decision.

Well, in fairness, there is *some* controversy about the effectiveness
of mammograms. They don't necessarily find all breast cancers.

I still get them, though, because I would rather be doing something than
nothing, and it's not like they've been *proven* to be useless. In fact,
mammograms do find early cancers all the time. Besides, I don't know of
any
other diagnostic device for breast cancer. So if a mammogram were to
fail
to find cancer, I'd be in the same place I would be if I hadn't had one.
Whereas if it does find it, then I'm better off, right?

--
Joyce ^..^

Exactly. It seems to me I've heard about something else that some
doctors recommend in addition to mammograms, but I've never heard of a
doctor recommending you not get one because it might not find cancer.
Every few years I end up having an ultrasound after my mammo, because I
am prone to cysts. I had my first one removed when I was 14 years old.
I had another one removed about 40 years later. In between, and since,
I've had them, but they come and go. I've had a couple of needle
biopsies, but the ultrasound can usually tell they are just cysts, so I
haven't had one of those in a long time. Now whenever they find a lump,
I just assume it's another cyst. So far it always has been. That doesn't
keep me from getting my annual mammo, though. However, my ob-gyn told me
I only need 7 more, and then I can stop getting them. It seems they
aren't necessary after you are 80.

Joy

?????!!! Really?! Why aren't they necessary after you are 80? My
grandmother lived to be 104 - so she had 24 more years after 80 in which
to possibly get breast cancer.

Nose Kisses,

CatNipped

I don't know. My guess is that either almost no women get breast cancer
past 80 or that it grows so slowly in a person of that age that the
treatment would probably do them more harm than the disease.

Joy