Text 18783, 60 rader
Skriven 2008-12-30 17:25:01 av Ruth Haffly (1:396/45.28)
  Kommentar till text 18687 av Jim White (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Cancer (was Re: CHUGGING)
=================================
Hi Jim,

 JW> anyway!"  She  JW>> bought a pair of falsies and gets by just fine.

 RH> Sounds like she's got a good attitude about it all.  That helps in the
 RH> recovery as much or more than whatever the doctors want to do.

 JW> This was the situation of a young friend who TWICE went through
 JW> radiation and chemo to beat cancer and keep it in remission for 5 or
 JW> more years.  Marilyn had an indomitable spirit and a smile and laugh
 JW> that was contagious.  Even while recovering.  I think it was during

We had a friend in Berlin in the same situation.  Keeping a good
attitude and sense of humor is a big help.

 JW> her second round when she stopped into the lobby to say hello to the
 JW> guard.  I happened to be in the area and heard her laugh.  I walked in
 JW> to see her looking great and acting even better.  I commented that her
 JW> hair had grown back in nicely, and she replied that it was a wig.
 JW> Since it looked SO MUCH like her normal hair style, I challenged her
 JW> with a "Yeah, right!"  She reached up and yanked the wig off and
 JW> started laughing. Ok, so it wasn't her real hair, but all three of us
 JW> were roaring and others came to see what was going on.

Probably they thought you all were nuts.

 JW> The point here is that her attitude got her through this whole long
 JW> process not once but twice.  Well into the third round of treatment,
 JW> she reached a plateau that she couldn't seem to get past.  She finally
 JW> ran out or fight and we lost her.  She was always an inspiriation to
 JW> me and I think of her frequently, when I'm having a bit of a tough
 JW> time.

It is hard; our friend passed away after she left Berlin.  She left a
couple of young children besides her husband.  I heard a few years later
that he remarried.

One major issue with treatment is that the appetite bottoms out.  Chemo
does all it can to ruin the appetite and radiation takes away the energy
to eat some days.  I made an effort to keep up with cooking, even if it
was just an easy do meal like pasta while I was having my treatments.  I
knew Steve needed to eat & it would "push" me into eating something, if
not very much some days.  I'd have a small yogurt before treatment; that
was scheduled for 8:15 in the morning.  After I got home, I'd have a cup
of tea, glass of orange juice and something easy to fix, very often just
a slice of toast or whole grain toaster pastry.  To keep the potassium
level up (I couldn't take some of my normal anti-oxidant vitamins.) I'd
have half a banana.  The tea, juice and banana are still part of
breakfast almost every morning.

---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly@earthlink.net  FIDO 1:396/45.28


... I hit my CTRL key, but I'm STILL not in control

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