I'll start us on Thursday
Good morning, sistas!
Hope everyone is doing well today. It's a beautiful sunny morning here after all the dreary rain the past several days. And it's COOL, too!
Not sure what all we might do today. Right now I'm babysitting as Chris has taken Benny to school and then had to take her car to be serviced. Mom has already had her shower, but I still have to take mine. Still, we're in no hurry today. We do have an appointment to look at another apartment at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon. I'm quite hopeful about this place for Mom. It meets all her requirements and is less expensive than the first place we found on Monday.
Oh, dear, I think I have "baby brain"! I forgot to pay my Visa bill last week! First time I have ever done that! Had to pay a late fee and the interest on several thousand dollars! Eek! (Just FYI, I charge everything--bills, groceries, gas--on my Visa each month and pay it off in full each time. I don't like to write checks!) I feel like such a dope.
Butch and I have started the "downhill slide" once again. That's what we call it when he has less than 2 weeks left in a hitch. Only this is our second downhill slide in a row! LOL! Feels more like an avalanche to me. Still, I am grateful that we have less than two weeks left. Oh, and for those of you who have asked, Butch is working 6 weeks this time, and then he'll be home for 2 weeks. But he will go back in November for 2 more weeks and THEN he'll come home for good. He has to work his total of 8 weeks this fall to be carried on the payroll to the end of December. But they have agreed to let him trade out his two extra weeks THIS time for two additional weeks off in November. So he'll fly home the day before Thanksgiving and then that's it. He'll officially retire in January 2014.
(Unless he decides to go back to work as a consultant! He is now talking about this possibility, but I am remaining calm. He would go back and forth as needed to move the jackup rigs in the Middle East. I know it would be good money, but I would rather have him HOME. However, I will cross that bridge when and if it come up.)
Today is my last day of hormone pills. Thank goodness! Yesterday I had terrible hot flashes all day. I would be cold and so I would pull on sweat pants, socks, long sleeved top, and then I would be HOT and strip everything off! Back and forth all day long. Ugh.
Ain't it grand to be an OFF woman!
Hoping we hear from everyone today! I miss it when we all don't post. Love you all!
Vickie
Ih my goodness! Im home!!!!!! I already miss my baby!!!!! My cat was all over me when I walked in the door!!!!! I need to go to the grocery store!!!!
And i gained six pounds!!!!!Medifast here I come!!!!!!
To much junk food in my daughters house and to much temtation in Chicago!!!!!! It is a food mecca there!!!!! but I cant stay away from my baby!!!!! next trip is December!!!!!
Carla
Good Morning Vickie, Carla and OFF-
Vickie glad you're on the downhill slide again. Sorry you had the blue funk yesterday. I had one too and fell into the food big time when I got home last night. But today is another day and a new beginning. I will pedal on the elliptical tonight to work off the glider food, potato chips.
Carla glad you're home to your own bed and you have slipped into the dark side of grandmotherhood. My personal observation is that you all miss them when they're not around and want to smother them with love! Not a criticism, just an observation. My mother completely changed when she became a grandmother.
Today is pack the car day. I'm packing all the cleaning supplies in a tote. Emptying the medicine cabinet, emptying the canned good cabinet. I'm also working on finishing piecing one more quilt and sandwiching it. I sandwiched two of them on Tuesday. All three plus fabric will go with me to Texas. The three sandwiched ones can be worked on in hotel rooms while traveling.
Note to Jennifer - Thank you for sharing your experience with your diagnosis and what's available to you in Canada. It's a frightening time for you and you are in my thoughts. I'll weigh in on the situation by saying that if it were me, I would go for the mastectomy simply because I would want as much safe margin as possible and perhaps not have to have any additional treatments like chemo and radiation. So you're lopsided, you can always where giant pompoms on the shallow side. But most of all the choice is yours and you have to have confidence and peace with your decision so bon courage!
Connie- Hope you're feeling better today. I think we all must have been influenced by the blue funk yesterday. Hang in there something will come through for you! I've been looking at a website that advertises for housesitters. I'm thinking that will be a way to experience different areas of the country that I might want to finally retire to.
Well, I can't procrastinate any longer, back to packing. Positive thoughts to all of you as the sun breaks through the clouds here in Maine.
Cindi
Today am leaning towards radical mastectomy. I'm 68 but have perky boobs thanks to breast reduction in 1992. Even if you opt for lumpectomy, your boobie will be smaller, dimpled, and your headlamp possibly focused somewhere different.
Yup, think it will be mastectomy for peace of mind. Calling surgeon's assistant tomorrow who may want to kill me as she has confirmed 4 Nov for lumpectomy surgery (1.5 hours ORtime) comparec to 2.5 hours for mastectomy.
Assistant is going to curse me, as she is going to have to shuffle patients around. She told me she hates Mondays, because patients needing nuclear medicine, injection of dyes into sentinel nodes, etc, are not done on Sunday as that dept is closed, whereas rest of week she scheds those patients to go day before. On Monday am first surgery has to be totally uncomplicated no tests, while she sends the others to their pre-op apts for their injection tests, and now, after she has scheduled me for 1.5 hours she is going to reschedule who knows how many others because I need 2.5 hours for a mast'y.
I want my MRI, in case of other foci, plus if they find something in left breast maybe false positive, I might have to be rescheduled for double mastectomy ( double mast'y means less worry years after for me).
Anyway, I like my assigned surgeon, could have asked for someone else and then would have had to wait until available....which I would have done had I not liked this first available one ...even now could ask for a preferred surgeon under our system, but am going with the one assigned as like him first impression. Think he's gay, but walks like a panther, and is over 6 ft, and so calm and unrushed that he made me calm...good vibes there.
Hey girls, am going to lose my perky booby as in 1992 I got free breast reduction from our universal health system with a great plastic surgeon, and have had perky cute upturned boobies since then, after 900 gms removed from one, and 1100 gms removed from the other, so total of 2 kilos......made me feel pearshaped ever since as the bazongas were fabulous after surgery....they didnt suffer as a result of WLS in 2008.
Ok that's my report for today.
Jennifer
Jennifer-
Tough if you make someone do their job by changing your mind and having to be rescheduled Hope the MRI is scheduled soon and that you get good news. I don't know your whole story but I'm hoping that you will have someone to come stay with you and help you care for yourself. Make lots of little casseroles to put in the freezer so you'll have something to zap when you don't feel like cooking.
Where do you live in Canada? I'm on the Canadian border in Maine. In fact I watch New Brunswick from my living room. I tell everyone I'm on alert all the time to make sure that you Canadians don't invade us.
If you were nearby I would try to get together with you next spring.
I'll continue thinking positive thoughts and if you want to talk feel free to call me 603-560-0749. I'm a good listener.
Cindi
Am going to freeze crockpot stuff in portions including Eileen's salsa chicken, and look into seniors's residence offering short term post-op care 5 or 7 days after surgery, as girlfriends already saying can only come one night as busy, or maybe if I need chemo, etc...you know, the "sorry I am busy" after they fell all over each other offering to stay with me...think post op care in a seniors residence renting out spare suites for a short week is the way to go as nurse takes your vitals, brings meals, etc. Not covered by my private insurance but can deduct portion from income taxes as medical necessity as I live alone.
Will keep you all posted, I am sharing this trip with you!
I came in from the other direction. It was in the middle of nowhere without a town around. I picked her up from Baxter State Park, Mt Katahdin. It isn't that far from Houlton as the crow Fly but by car everything around there is a Drive 
BAND REMOVED 9-4-12-fought insurance to get sleeve and won! Sleeved 1/22/13! Five years out and trying to get that last 15 pounds back off.
