| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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Just so you know. |
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There's also St. Lucy and her eyes, St. Barbara and her head, and sadly, I can't think of any other martyred saints who are portrayed holding their body parts. |
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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36964 |
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and what do Islamic Fundamentalists have to do with Catholic saints? I mean, I'd really like to hear the logic behind that. |
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I was rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last week and thought of something. I know it's fiction, but what if saints really weren't blessed by God? What if they were all wizards? |
aren't we all? |
She starts chemo on April 1 and doesn't know yet how long the treatment will be, but her doctor said it will be less grueling than her last chemo treatments (which were a double dose -- to get the breast and the uterine cancer -- and lasted 18 weeks). She did pretty well last time, with only fatigue as a side effect, and it was nothing unmanageable, so she's feeling pretty optimistic. Her doctor said something weird, though -- she said my mom will have these lung tumors "forever" (the chemo is just to shrink them) and that she and my mom will have a relationship for the rest of my mom's life. This was said in a joking way, so my mom took it to mean that she'll be 80 years old and still have these tumors and still have to go to this woman for checkups every so often. But I wonder if this wasn't a gentle way of saying the cancer is terminal. But I don't know. I asked my mom if the doctor said what stage of cancer this was or what kind of tumor it was, and my mom said she didn't think to ask. I don't know what to think. |
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i need to preface this with two things. one, i am not an oncologist. two, i did work in cancer research for 3 years and while that was 12 years ago i still try to keep up with the latest. okay, first it is critical that you and your mother find out what stage the cancer is. the stage will tell you a lot about her real prognosis. typically if uterine cancer (or breast cancer for that matter) has spread to distant sites in the body (lung, liver, bone or brain) it is diagnosed as Stage IVB. secondly, is sounds rather obvious to me either your mother isn't telling you the whole story, or her oncologist isn't telling her the whole story. either way, i recommend talking to her oncologist yourself and have a list of questions ready. lastly, only her doctor can give you and your mother a prognosis, but once you know the stage, it's easy to find the statistics (if you want to know them) on cancer.org. they are there to look at in black and white. but keep in mind that any other factors affect a person's actual survival rate, like their general health and how the cancer responds to chemo. i don't really have anything else to add, except that i'm really sorry to hear this news. you have every right to be concerned, and you have every right to seek out answers. |
I'm probably going to stay with her in the next couple weeks when her chemo begins, so I'll find out more for sure then. The thing is, she has tons of cancer in her family, but no one has ever died of it. My grandfather, for example, had colon cancer in the 80s and is still alive today and will be turning 100 in July. So I'm hoping for the best. Thanks, Sarah. |
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She hasn't given me any more info on her condition, and I don't know if it's because she hasn't asked or because she wants to tell me in person. Anyway, I think I'll be visiting her next week so that I'm with her for her first chemo session, and when I'm there I'll ask the nurse or doctor as many questions I can think of. |
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that up? I'm so fucking sick of that attitude. It comes dangerously close to all that new agey, LOA crap that I hate just about more than anything in the world. I'll be thinking of your mom, Spider. |
I know, let's get some vodka and debate. Let's separate mind from body and keep the established medical establishment of western allopathic traditions (of the past 100 years...for it does not go back further) overcharging and doing needless cut and paste jobs lining pockets of nearsighted surgeons and the drug companies. Oh yes, let's carve out spirit. Let's never say that cancer is cancer, or that cancer is resentment and anger, let's say that diabetics are not responsible for their illness any more than getting a broken leg. Accidents happen, but why? Let's say that the sore throat comes from not giving voice to something needing to be said, or that the broken leg, the left one, resulted from not being able to take information in, an obstinacy. Certainly not new age but really quite old age and cross cultural (Eliade, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy) And I personally am an addict, with a disease, but you know, I am responsible for my illness, and yes I couldn't help my genes, but i could have stopped the craziness long before I did. I love the asshole who wrote the "Cure" book just recently. How many drunks will that book kill? And I am diabetic, and yes I eat all the wrong things and don't exercise and have a high stress life. And take the wrong fucking medications that cause me to gain weight, have higher blood pressure, and put me at risk for heart failure (google Avandia), but certainly keep me taking more medication for those wonderful side effects engineered by the drug companies. Let's quit blaming everyone else and take some responsibility: for health, for healthcare (which we do not and likely will not have in this country--we must be ill to access benefits if we have them at all), for love and fish and ocean acidity and global warming and yes, even cancer, diabetes, and accidental limb damage. (Read the exspose on the conspiracy of drug companies in "Comfortably Numb, the medicating of a Nation," bY Charles Barber). Sorry, Kazu, I don't even think you were responding to me...and I don't think that your thoughts of Spider's mom will go unnoticed. Dont forget to memorize "The People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn before responding to any sorabji posts. And then we have "On The Justice of Roosting Chickens" about the "peace loving" war-faring violent nation we have always been. Or "Bowling Alone" Prozac for everyone selling aluminum siding to homeowners of brick bungelows. Prozac for everyone!! |
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And he died. At twelve. The human body is capable of amazing things. But you can't will away cancer with hope and positivity. |
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with love, spider and agatha and kazu |
her words were "attitude has a lot to do with people's health outcomes". do you have anything more than anecdotal evidence to the contrary? i mean, that was kinda bitchy reply, no? i have experienced first hand the mind's will over the body and the power of positive thinking with our recent pregnancy and hypnosis. implanting positive thoughts into the unconscious can absolutely help one to endure pain, heal and overcome. im surprised to that you so blatantly call bullshit on such an idea. is it absolute? of course not. But at the same time, like daniel indicates, everything becomes a diagnosis, a condition, a disorder and most likely there's a pill for it. but perhaps there isnt the simple support, love, mindfulness, empathy and compassion etc etc etc to support the science. rather than viewing how hope failed your childhood friend, why not take it as an example of human strengh by the mere fact that he had hope and spirit despite such a horrific reality. im hoping that came across as clear. 5 weeks with not more 3-5 hours sleep per night....talking about hopelessness. |
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patrick i was just going to ask you in another thread how things are going. i have stuff for baby girl, but was waiting to send it along with candy. what's the latest? how are baby and mamma? how are you? |
That is a nice thing. And yes, we do feel connected. Sometimes my replies are rants to no one inparticular, here, because I know you all will mostly ignore me. But like each of you, I feel the love between the words, even the insulta and good natured ribbing and down n dirty arguments. We mostly keep mostly coming mostly back....mostly. Where's Droopy? |
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Really? I'm am and always will be supportive of unmedicated childbirth because I don't believe that child birth not a condition that needs to be managed. And because in many cases it's a good idea to keep interventions to a minimum. But in my experience, it really had nothing to do with positive thoughts and everything to do with personal pain tolerance. And luck. Luck that your body won't betray you. I did all the research and meditation and positive visualization, and I still wound up with a needle in my spine. Because despite a fairly manageable labor, I wound up having seizure-like shakes over which I had no control, and which made it impossible for me to deal with the pain of labor. I did everything right. So, why couldn't I endure the pain? I guess I just wasn't positive enough. Or maybe Andy wasn't supportive enough. Or, maybe I missed the chapter on the shakes. Or maybe, it was just bad luck. It's a mystery. So you have your experience and I have mine. Usually I feel pretty good about my birth, but every now and then someone starts going on about the mind's amazing power over the body and then I remember that I am a natural birthing failure. I also spent month after month with postpartum depression thinking that if I just put my mind to it, I could overcome it. I could have been enjoying life as a mother but instead I was miserable, filled with regrets, and terrified that my husband was going to leave me. I HATED being a mother, and had serious thoughts of giving Ian Michael up for adoption. Three weeks after I started taking anti-depressants, I really liked being a mom. I'll take my allopathic western medicine. I've been far, far more disappointed by the "alternative." |
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folks have an aptitude. Don't worry about it, kazu. If you don't worry about it enough eventually you'll do it. Maybe. And of course attitude can have an effect on illness. We accept it as fact now that Type A folks have more heart attacks and strokes. It's plainly not an absolute effect, but it's well documented and the general mechanisms are clear. Why reject other possible physical effects of a positive attitude? |
Depressed people under stress need everything they can get and often that is medication. Attitude and love and support, I happen to need those things too, or the medication feels pretty hollow. You're a healthy baby birth success. I am sorry to hear about your postpartum experience, it sounds truly awful. |
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visualization and so forth my woman did, she too also wound up with a spinal and being invaded and having the baby removed. which is still a very traumatic event for us both. we both lay awake at times thinking about that hour in that awful room, her on a table, a curtain, and the awful sounds and sensations and the post-proc hemorrhaging etc. so i get what you're saying. sarah, we're doing pretty good. we've had some ups and downs, mostly surrounding feeding but they've gotten their rhythm and baby is smiling at us, even when she's not farting up a shit storm. |
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This will be cancer that can go into remission but will never go away completely. She currently is in no pain and has only a small issue with getting out of breath a little more easily, so she's starting from a good place. Today she had her first treatment of Taxol. It went well, no side effects, and fortunately Taxol does not cause nausea or other digestive issues. She felt completely fine afterwards...plenty of energy. I seem to recall that last time, she'd only feel very tired the day after chemo, so we'll see how she's doing tomorrow. I was glad I was with her when she met with her doctor, because she kept making jokes and teasing the doctor (a very nice woman) about this other male doctor that my mom has a crush on...basically, giggling and making all the doctor's statements into innuendos. It was a little weird. Luckily, I was my regular prudish self and kept her on track, asking the doctor the practical questions that she wasn't asking herself. So you see, sometimes being uncomfortable about hearing your mom making sex jokes is a good thing. :) |
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