Patty's epic adventure

  10/28/22 Well, it’s been a week since I’ve written. Stacy didn’t get to come visit this week because one of her employees was out with the flu. She couldn’t leave her store. Maybe next week. David has gone to the A&M football game this weekend. They’re playing Mississippi. He’s there with his old college buddies for the weekend. I hope he has a wonderful time. He took the RV and left in the middle of a thunderstorm. Not a good day to travel towing an RV. It’s raining cats and dogs here today and the thunder is booming. It’s going to continue on into the night tonight.  We needed the rain, but we don’t need all of the wind and lightning to go with it. I am gradually getting over most of the side effects of my medication.  I see my oncologist on Wednesday. She doesn’t know I have stopped taking it, so we’ll see how that goes. I’ll have my blood work first, then see her. 20 minutes after David left today, I got in my car to go pick up my groceries. I use curbside pick ...

  10/22/22 It's Thursday.  Font-altering day.  Changing things up a bit.  This was a monumental week of sorts.  I quit taking Tamoxifen.   The side effects were driving me batty and I could not imagine living like that for the next 10 years of my life.  That's how long they wanted me to take it.  Or, perhaps I should have said I could imagine taking that for years to come, and it seemed like an endless nightmare.  Well, even nightmares would be an improvement - at least it would mean I was sleeping....  It was not a decision I made lightly, since that's the last drug in the cancer arsenal.  It weighed heavily on my mind and it wasn't an easy decision, but I'm sticking to it.  I was told it would cut my remaining life expectancy in half if I did not take it.  Well, like I mentioned previously, breathing is not necessarily living.  I'll keep having scans and I'll keep my blood work up to date, mostly to satisfy ot...

  10/17/22 It’s Monday. I finished the steroids, but don’t think they did much good.  Can I alternate he denies on my foot her size is that they gave me. I think it is in pooping on my bed, so that’s good. OK, how many times did you read that last paragraph? I read it twice, just for grins. I’m speaking into my iPad, and that’s what came out. It was supposed to say: I alternate heat and ice on my foot and do the exercises that they gave me. I think it has helped some, so that’s good. At least nothing is pooping on my bed! I started tamoxifen last week, and so far I do not like it. I’ll give it a little time, to see if my body adjusts.  I’m tired, I get dizzy, my gut is in turmoil, the ocular migraines are back, my hair is falling out, and I have night sweats and hot flashes all during the day. They are always accompanied by chest pain and sometimes it’s severe enough to double  me over.  This had  better get better soon or I’m quitting. My nephew and his fa...

  10/9/22 It’s Sunday evening and I’ve been on steroids for almost a week now. The first couple of days were fine, but they are becoming aggravating now. Bouts of sleepiness in the middle of the day, and horrible sweats. I have two more days of them, and I will be glad when they are gone. As soon as I’m finished with them, I am going to start on Tamoxifen. I will take it until the side effects become too much to bear. If they are manageable, I will take it for the next 10 years.  My nephew and his family are flying down from Alaska to spend this week with us. I will pick them up tomorrow in Dallas. So, this next week will be delightful. My hair is becoming unmanageable. I’m going to have to go to a hairdresser soon to figure out what to do with it. David and I went out with friends Friday evening to a Cajun restaurant with live music. It was superb and David and I danced over and over and over. We even jitterbugged. We haven’t done that in years. It was amazing. My foot was no...

  10/6/22 Today is Thursday. I’m baa-aack! I had an absolutely delightful time in Idaho and the northern Oregon coast. It only rained one afternoon, and it wasn’t very hard, at that. We had quite a bit of fog, but the temperature was delightful. In Oregon, there were deer in the streets of the town, bull elk right beside the road, and bunnies that were a color I’ve never seen before. They blended into the rocks. There were dozens of sea lions directly below us on the docks. I loved watching them get on and off the dock, fighting for a place to sleep, etc. I could’ve stayed there all day watching them. They were so very close to us. I got to walk on the beach, strolling along with my feet in the 52° water. It was even better because I was walking with my best friend when I was growing up. I had lunch with my “substitute big sister” growing up, also. I grew up in Oregon and spent all summer on the Oregon coast. I never thought I’d walk on those beaches again. This was absolutely marv...