I have been busy gathering fabric for a group that has volunteered to make Pretty Pockets for surgery patients, and busier yet finding and talking with people at the various hospitals so we can distribute these free to what started out to be breast cancer, but now has expanded to any kind of surgery that requires a ‘drain tube’ after surgery.  These drain tubes were the worst thing about having breast cancer I thought.  They consist of a six inch tubing that is inside your body, and a long 18 inch tube that hangs out.  The tube is secured in your body by stitches!!  Its very painful when these drain tubes fill and the weight drags the tube down.

I didn’t find out about this pretty little flannel pockets until two years after my experience with drain tubes.  They are a wonderful little flannel pocket that pins or clips to clothes.  There are problems with clips coming undone, so I recommend the old fashioned pin, which does not open and accidentally drop the tube.

The problem I experienced, which I am sure all surgery survivors do, is when you take a shower!  Nobody had come up with anything for this.  And its terrible to try and balance two drain tubes and take a shower in water.  Everything gets slippery.

So my goal this fall has been to come up with a waterproof pocket/s that can be worn around your neck yet still holds the pocket waterproof in place, while you shower.  Bathing in a tub is totally out during this time, but a shower is so wonderful and refreshing.  My adventure into this environment has taken me into all types of plastics, and materials.  Thanks to Tap Plastic in Bellevue, WA, my designs are coming to life but not quite there yet.  I am getting the first ones ready to distribute in January to a local hospital.

So this has been a fun thing to do, and I look forward to delivering 500 free pockets at the first of the year.  They will come in pairs of two, with two additional waterproof pockets for the shower.  They will be free, and distributed (I hope) through Cancer LifeLine.

I am always looking for donations of cute sturdy flannel fabric.  My thanks and contributions to Maryanne Arthur, who came up with an idea called Pretty  Pockets.  I am  just expanding on that idea with waterproof shower adapters.

LOL…who ever thought.  A drain tube pocket designer and distributor of surgical solutions!    Thanks to one of my favorite doctor for contributing his input and support.

Have a great holiday season, and remember to help somebody.  Its your present to yourself!!

Bonnie

The post Pretty Pockets, Cancer Surgical drains, and Happy Holidays! appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

It’s October again, and here we are in Breast Cancer Pink month….breast cancer awareness.  Pink seems to be turning up everywhere and anywhere.  Cancer survivors and current patients have such a love hate relationship with this month.  We are definitely tied of seeing pink in our lives and being involved with PINK.

SUPPORT GROUPS – The Pink Life

My support group has proved invaluable at times.  It isn’t usually until days afterwards, and I am gone from there; that I actually get ‘it’.  Dealing with feelings of anger and sadness are perfectly normal but your family and friends don’t accept that.  They don’t want to hear about it or see it.  Life is back to normal for them and ‘just you behave and act like it is all over’.

One of the women in my group says she has a cancer day once in awhile.  She just told us  ”When it gets really bad, I just tell my family I’m having a bad cancer day and go upstairs and crawl into bed.”  She is always better the next day and can cope.  Can I do that? I haven’t let myself yet, for fear I will never get out of bed again.

So working at a major hospital in a horrible part of town has lead to all kinds of emotions creeping up. Yes I see all these people with all these problems.  I am finding I am not coping with it very well.  I never wanted to work in a hospital before and now I am totally convinced I do not want to.  So luckily, I can stay out of the hospital, and work in the background in a supporting role.  It still isn’t easy some days.

I want to go to Arizona in the winter and be in the sun.  I want to relax and enjoy friends.  I want to explore the desert and putz around doing nothing while I still have time.  Because there is always that little voice in the back of your head with the ticking clock.  and I guess you have to have had cancer to appreciate that little time bomb.

I could scream at  my friends who all they think about is money.  They take life for granted.  I can’t help it, I don’t take ONE day for granted anymore.  Not one day.  Of course they don’t understand.  Everyone believes they have forever.  Even TS Elliot said “Life is a very long time”.  Tell that to everyone in the cemetery!

Is Life A Long Time?

Life is not all that long.  One day you were in high school and before you knew it, you were married and having your first baby.  Then you worked and worked, and slept from exhaustion and maybe loved your spouse, and went camping twice a year, and to Grandma’s twice if you were lucky.  Oh you made sure you made it at Christmas, gotta get those presents!

Then all of a sudden one of your parents dies unexpectedly, and you think gee now I am the adult.  No I still have one parent.  But you continue to take them for granted and as you push towards your 50s you are way to lazy to sit down with Mom and see what she is up to.  No, you figure you will do it later.  Nobody writes down the receipes, or people on the family tree and all those old photos remain in the box, album free and curling on their white edges.  Mom sits by the phone and waits for it to ring to get a call back.  But it doesn’t happen.  Pretty soon she is out with other seniors looking for ways to survive; getting this senior discount and church groups to come in and clean up the yard and wash the windows.

And then one day, you get the inevitable phone call, that Mom has  practically burned down the house.  Oh gosh you wonder, how am I going to get off work to take care of that?  Why wasn’t she more careful.  You make some excuse and a couple of days later you are on the way.  When you get there, you wonder what happened to the house.  Nothing works, the bathroom has a rug on the floor? Who would put carpet on the bathroom floor?? (Maybe somebody that falls).  You notice the dirty window sills, and the house has a broken beam outside and is hanging down - not having been painted in a long while.  Next you notice the neighbors house, with garbage and old rags, and crap piled along the side.  A dead pickup in the driveway parked sideways backed in.  What’s up with that?

Then the neighbor comes out and starts talking to you.  He is worried about your mother.  Her dog runs lose a lot, and she doesn’t appear to ever wear different clothes.  He says he picks up things for her at the store when he can.  What’s going on, you wonder.  Later that night when you have finished the strange dinner she has cooked, you ask what’s going on?  When did you start cooking breakfast for dinner.  I was hoping to have one of those good home cooked roasts you always do.  Roasts cost to much money?  Well, Mom you always had money before.  Why do you need to borrow money. You walk off now, telling yourself it isn’t your responsibility to help her out. You have enough problems yourself, and its your siblings turn cause you did it last time.  Of course, he doesn’t know what’s going on   because he hasn’t been there either.

The plight of our senior population.  If you aren’t responsible then who is?  The neighbor, the government, their old friends?  No, I think it is you.  But you don’t want to step up.  But who stepped up for you when you were a kid?  Oh, your parents were abusive.  Were they abusive all the time?  Could it have been that generations way of dealing with things?  Who are you to tell an entire generation what is wrong with the way they raised you?  Didn’t you get enough to eat most times?  Where were they when you were in the hospital? I bet they were right there.  Who was at your little league games, brownie camp outs, and taking you to Grandma and Grandpa’s.  Who always had a Christmas tree and presents of wonder  for you.  Who took you to church or sent you to church, and gave you guidance that formed your value system even if you chose a different route later?

Who was there for you when your first puppy died?  Who disposed of it without letting you know how banged up she was because she followed you on your bike, and got hit by a car?  Who provided you with homes for those animals you always brought home?  Not taking into consideration they might have new carpeting, or needed their sleep in the middle of the night?  But a puppy had to go outside.  Did you wake up?  No, you didn’t, Mom did.

And who gave you money or worked extra jobs so you could have the same things other kids did?  Your Mom did.

So when you don’t want to go, and are surprised when things are falling apart…its because it is the end of the line.  Wake up and smell the coffee.  The Season is moving on, and so are your parents.

The post Breast Cancer, Aging Parents, and Responsibilities! appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

I was suppose to be on that flight that very day.  But my daughter had pulled one of her infamous, ‘I am running away’ scenarios and I missed my flight for my meeting with the phone company.  Thank you Holli.  Or I possibly wouldn’t be here, 25 years later.

Mr. Gonzales, I discovered has written several books.  So I decided to pick up his older book called Everyday Survival, and Why Smart People Do Foolish Things.  Oh this book, I found,  is wonderful.  I haven’t’ yet gotten in to Flight 232 but this book appealed to me.  Having survived cancer (at least to this date) always brings up that question, and certainly when everyone around you is dying, why am I thriving?  It’s an interesting way to feel.  Its an unanswered question lurking in the back of your mind.  Maybe, I am having what he calls “A Vacation State of Mind”.

In Everyday Survival, I really connected with the words he said.  We often know the storm we are going into…but we don’t look, we are not aware, and we choose foolishly and without using our intelligence to really think these things through.  I have felt like that day he had; flying an airplane into an oncoming storm; one that he knew was there but didn’t believe it until the full blown realization that the sky was black and threatening and that it was happening right now.

I compare it to the oncologist telling me, yet again this month.  My odds in the first place, of getting breast cancer were one in seven.  Lucky me!  My odds of   surviving this  ER Positive cancer with surgery and medication is 83%.  Without the medication, it is 74%.  Without the surgery, I would not have survived at all.  So I have a 26% chance, it will return, because I am not taking the oral estrogen inhibitors.  I have an even higher chance of a new cancer growing.

I think he explained it to me differently before, it was like a 17% chance it would return; but to me that said it was 83% chance of not coming back.  I liked those odds and took them.  Well…….now I am two years out, I am starting to, like Mr. Gonzales, notice the stormy skies ahead and wonder if I really made the right decision and is it to late to change directions before the hail starts?

No hail storm is worth attempting.  I have already been through and survived one round.  I don’t want another one.  I had not even considered this, until I read Mr. Gonzales’ pages.  I have gained some awareness, added some knowledge to my data bank of decision making.

What fascinates me most is that our society really thinks the same way.  We live our everyday lives thinking this way.  And we are smart people, but we refuse to see.  We refuse to see what lies right in front of us.  People die every day for their choices.

We make choices to drive to work, in our single cars.  We burn fuel like it has no meaning.  Yet what is it doing to our earth resources?  What is it doing to our pollution?  Do we really have to take the car?  If all just choose once inawhile, to do it differently, You and I can actually impact our world in a positive way!!  Think of that!

But back to Mr. Gonzales, he makes a comment to the effect that “understand your rules of behavior”.  What guise are we operating under?  When I was a kid in school, we were warmed of possible wars and there were bomb shelters.  I questioned it then, did we really expect a bomb in our country?  We are the United States.  This is a safe place.  We have a great army, great leaders and we are the strongest country in the world.  It took many years, but 911 taught us all that trouble lurks in unexpected places and it comes to visit when and where we least expect it.  Of course, it doesn’t happen to us in Seattle, because no one would want to pose a threat here.  What would be the point?  What was the point in New York?  What was the point of the bomb shelter when I was a kid?  Did someone see the storm cloud in the future?  Our plane flew on into the storm.

Trouble is going to find us all in life.  Are we going to use our senses, our intelligence, our quiet sense of mind to make our decision to proceed?  Or will we react emotionally and chose something foolish?  Will there be time to correct our mistake?

We are only humans.  We think foolishly sometimes.  What are we here for?  What is the destination, and how are we going to get there?  Was there something we missed?  Is there something I have missed about my treatment?  Am I in a Vacation State of mind?

Is this state of mind going to cost me my life?  Interesting question.

Thank you Mr.  Gonzales for charting your course, and in the after effect of writing Flight 232, I picked up your other book.  Isn’t it all so interesting, how life goes around full circle?  Only not being on flight 232, had me look at Amazon.com and read the synopsis of that book only to find pages of the other book, Everyday Survival, Why Smart People Make Foolish Choices.

I do love it, when life sends me these subtle ideas to contemplate.  I love life.  Living is good.  So how is it, we make our choices?  What blindfolds do we wear?  At what cost?

Have a great day blessed day!  This summer, be aware of your vacation state of mind.

Bonnie

The post “A Vacation State of Mind” – Are you Living there? appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

Isn’t that what we are all searching for after cancer?  Some space, some place where there is an escape from the everyday repeat of the fact that we have been ill, are ill, or may get ill again?  So I have decided that I will embark upon this journey to fix up my little house and large yard.

When I started out, two years ago, the yard was quite wild.  For a big corner lot, it was mostly covered in ivy, which in itself is quite nice to look at and doesn’t require much maintenance or updating.  However, after awhile it gets boring.  So I decided to add a few items, and trim a few items.  Enter the workers that I hired to trim the bushes.  Before embarking upon such an experiment, make sure the person you are speaking to understands exactly what you want done.  Unfortunately, I did not communicate correctly what it is was that I wanted done to the three heather plants in the front yard.    I assumed he knew what a trim meant.

Let me look up trim ….recortar is the word in Spanish that I used.  It can be trim, cut back, lop off, remove ….oops.   Okay, so he cut back and dug out the roots of my heather bushes and removed them.  Now I was left with a big hole in the middle of an entire side yard of ivy.  That was a year ago.  The hole is still empty.

It was an interesting removal.  Heather is out of my life.  In more ways than one, if any of you know me.  Quickly, unexplained, surprised, empty and a total degree of other adjectives.  I find it an interesting thing that has happened, which I won’t go into here.  But my search to replace the Heather bushes go on.    Isn’t life interesting sometimes?  Its like mother nature just laughs at you.  Hmmmmm

So what to put in the empty spot in my life. Whoops…yard not life!  Interesting how God always replaces something when something is lost.  However, back to my ivy spot, I have decided to recycle some old tires.  Everything about my house is recycled.  I don’t know why I took on this effort at this time in my life.  It is sort of like my life, it’s being recycled.  I am taking the old body and trying to make something out of what is left over.

The garden has an empty spot.  Many neighbors comment.  They wonder what is coming next, or if anything is coming at all.  Since I am the first person in the community that you see as you enter, I do feel a great responsibility to replace it with something beautiful.  We are now in month number nine of me thinking about what should replace the heather.

Its all so applicable in my life.  If you only knew the story of the missing Heather.

What will I replace the missing Heather with?  Old tires?  Painted old tires?  Perhaps.  Flowers, perhaps, but they are fleeting….they would die down in the winter and look again, like an empty spot.  Sort of like relationships, don’t you think?  Seasonal.

I like the tire idea.  So I got some used tires from a friends daughter-in-law.  They are not to big, but this morning I will spray paint them.  Sounds fun?  Me and my paint!  For those of you that don’t know me, I like to paint everything.  I do it all the time.  Its part of me.  Painting has become what I do since I had cancer.  I clean things up.  I make them new.

Its who I am.  Who are you?  Do you know who you are?  Am I painting over the layers of my life and moving on?  Try it sometime, it’s wonderful.

Next topic, Have you ever given away any ‘eggs’ or ‘sperm’?  Did you wonder where they went?  Have they ever showed up at your door?  Do any of you think this might be an interesting topic?  Let me know!

Have a great day.  I am off to paint my tires!   (thank you to whomever took the picture!!)

Bonnie

The post The Spirit of Your Garden appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

Life is good.  Really good.   I am looking forward to farmers markets this summer!  I am enjoying all the pink blossoms on the trees.  I walked the UW campus and it was so beautiful this week!

and it rained and rained, but it smelled so good and it sounded wonderful on my new metal roof. I love the sound of the rain.  I love to hear the birds chirping in the morning after the rain, as I am waking up.

Life is good.  Truly good.

Bonnie

The post Life is Good! Really….Life is Good. Thank you! appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

The thing about feelings are if you wait long enough they change!  And it doesn’t take long.  Sure I get angry but then I take action.  I think that is the key in our life, that an emotion will prompt you on to take action.  A lot of people are afraid of anger.  I think I use to be really afraid of anger.  I was afraid to exhibit it, I was afraid to see it in others, and I was paralyzed after I exhibited it.  But as in anything, by ignoring it, makes the problem worse!  I am no longer afraid of it!  Bring it on, and let it move on!

And there is nothing wrong with getting angry.  But put it to good use.  Take some action.  We can only be responsible for our own actions and in actions.  Sometimes the best thing we can do is to reach out to others to talk through these feelings.

My cancer support group has proved invaluable.  Because partaking in group activities reminds us that we are not alone in this journey; that other people have traveled it and others will follow us through it.  So no matter whether you are a cancer survivor, a survivor of domestic violence or you have been in a bad car accident (we all have something) spending time with others is very important!!

I am indebted to my fellow survivors.  They carved a path, and left knowledge behind.  Whether it was an early stage survivor or my friend Ann Silberman who is Stage 4 Metster; they all leave a message.  The key is we all help each other.  Ann’s site, Breast Cancer? But Doctor I Hate Pink, has been an inspiration to me, given me links to information I needed to understand my situation.  It just goes to show, and remind us, that we all need each other!  Now we might not need each other all the time, but that is what life is about – it’s like chapters in a book.  I thank all those that helped me in this chapter in my life.

Now to my being angry.  I am also so very happy!  Yes, I am.   I work through my grief, because a lot of what this about is grief and loss.  And when I do that, I feel peace clear down in my soul.  I feel odd about talking about being happy now.  It seems weird to say that cancer was a gift.  But it was    It would be nice if we didn’t have to learn life’s lessons this way but its okay too.  I recently heard Matthew McConaughy speak about the end of life,  I would like to quote his article here, and share it with you because he had some interesting things to say about what a man regrets at the end of his life.  Enjoy:

Learn that your days are numbered Remember to spend your time doing the things that matter. Patterns/two regrets people have 2) I wish I hadn’t worked so hard This came from every single man that was dying. they pissed their children’s youth and female partners time. Number one: I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me. Culture expected of me. How many dreams have gone unfilled due to choices they had made. Health brings a freedom that very few realize until they no longer have it.

Give us the wisdom. Its biblical…Live as if your days are numbered because you will gain wisdom..

———- There is an elephant in the room.

Matthew McConaughy and the monster at the end of the story…”we all had this dream, we were gonna do this and we were with this person and then the room was dark sometimes and maybe there was something under the bed, and then in our lives there was the monster…in the end.”

He has an interesting way of putting it.  Meanwhile, it’s Saturday, I am feeling great!  It must be time to paint something again     Go forth and live!!   Thank you all for reading!!

The post Cancer Feelings – Anger and Happiness – The relationship appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

I woke up this morning, and I heard the birds chattering and singing outside.  What a wonderful sound that is to hear!  It’s Spring.  We made it.  Do you feel good in the spring? It’s my favorite time of the year in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s also the time for allergies from all the trees and grasses that are permeating the air!

Allergies remind me of just one more medication I need.  How many types of medication can one person take.  I took a strong look at my kitchen yesterday.  And here is what I see…bottles and bottles of medicine, vitamins, gummy bear vitamins, calcium chews and aspirin.  The other side of the box has a tall bottle of Tylenol adjacent to one bottle of Ibuprofen.  Sigh……is your house full of medications?

Its just one thing after another.  Now my diabetes is acting up.  I currently take three types of medication for that, because I have been resisting insulin.  Now I am beginning to rethink that option.  If I could give up two of the pills, maybe I would try it. I guess though, there is no trying it cause you just get on it and do that from then on.

This is all depressing.  Honestly, I have eaten right and exercised the last three months.  Granted now I have a cold, and my blood sugar has been high.  but then it has been high ever since all this started 18 months ago.  Tamoxifen made it the worst.  Even though I quit that, the sugar remains high.  Why does all this stuff have to go wrong at once?  I guess I should be making recommendations here for what to do..because I have to remember my goal:  to help other people on their journey.  To maybe pave a path, that will make somebody else’s life a little easier.  Remember the goal.  Stay focused.

So what can I do?  Diabetes and cancer are kind of linked.  But recently I read articles that said cancer really is not impacted by sugar.

http://www.dana-farber.org/Health-Library/Sugar-and-Cancer-Cells.aspx

This is a good article on sugar and cancer.  Read it please. It has some good information.  Fresh fruits and vegetables are very good for cancer patients.  The article references 12 grams of sugar found in a small orange and 10 grams found in a donut.  However the donut does not consider good nutrients like the orange.  The orange also has Fiber in it!  So by all means consume these good fruits and vegetables.  They have certain nutrients that actually help the immune system and block cancer agents.    That’s good news for us!  For all of us, not just people with cancer or that have had cancer.  I liked the article too because it stressed not worrying because that contributes to higher blood sugars also.

Eat healthy.  Think positive and be happy.  The be happy message is so important.  it includes being kind to yourself and cutting yourself some slack for being human!  We are all jsut human and we make mistakes.  Spend less time criticizing your self and more time loving yourself.  I am doing the best I can on taking care of my health.  I will continue to do so and manage the best I can, day to day.  That’s all I can do.  The rest is in someone elses hands

Thank you God for this day!

The post Spring Is Here At Last appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.

1.  I remember the doctor calling and her voice saying I am sorry, it is cancer.  I was in a field walking my dogs.  Isn’t technology handy, it can bring news anywhere.

2.  I remember wondering who could I call now.  My Mom has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t know me.

3.  I remember being so scared at the first appointment with the oncologist.  Where did my regular doctor go?  Who is this guy?

4.  I remember the weeks of recovering from the biopsy.  I remember the tears.  Twenty two hours of non stop bleeding.  Just apply pressure they said.  You don’t  need pain pills.  #$)*$ them.

5.  I remember the awareness of no more feeling in that breast, after the first lumpectomy.  It was a minor relief from the pain but a horror of the reality. No feeling?  Its been four months. What are unclear margins?

6.  I remember how kind the medical people were.  I constantly needed things repeated to me. No they didn’t get it all.

7.  I remember wondering if I would ever swim again.  My left arm didn’t work right.  Was this part of it?

8.  I remember wondering who would love me looking like this, and that was after surgery number one.  I should have waited until after surgery 3 to worry about that.

9.  I remember telling the surgeon he had given me the Wal-Mart version not the Nordstrom version.  It really didn’t matter because later he had to remove it all.  Rest In Peace Lefty.

10.  I remember teeth coming loose from  the removal of throat tubes when they pulled them out.  I am suppose to be ‘positive’ and not frightened with this.

11.  I remember taking the pills to keep the terror of fear at bay.  Now I don’t dare to  not take them.  Pills became my closest friend.

12.  I remember the feeling of estrogen in my body racing, feeding the cancer and the hope that the hormone blocker would work.  The verdict is still out.

13.  I remember surfing the web and reading what my future would be.  It was scary and good.  My sense of security, stability and confidence were imploded like the destruction of a building.

14.  Most of all I remember the stupid things people said to me.  I could write a whole book on this topic.  I release them and let it go. Others, like family, just stayed away.  It all hurt.

15.  I remember when I forgave myself.

I am not writing any more about this today because I can’t quit crying.

The post 50 I Remembers – Fifty feelings about Breast Cancer Diagnosis appeared first on The Tree of Cancer.