General Chat

Kathryn, ignore pm, I should have read this first lol

So the moral of the story is, don't tell K. secrets if you want to them to stay secret lol

Bless you, hon, the strain must have been enormous, probably best it is out in the open even if it has now been brushed under the carpet! Hope your sis will let your brother know for testing and hope all goes well with the treatments and biopsies etc.

Will you be able to keep all these balls in the air at one time or do you think you will have one person having the other's treatment, whatever?

Wish you luck, it will be a long hard road for all the wimmin folk in your family but I am sure you will manage to do what's expected of you whenever it is needed.

Lizxx

Hi Kathryn

I don't often look on Chat, so I hadn't seen this thread before.

I was so sorry to hear the news .... and the juggling that you are having to do. Families can be the pits can't they?



I give you a French Canadian greeting ..... a buss on each facial cheek!!!!


for what it's worth ............... I'm a cancer survivor, since 1995.




hugs you, and runs back to Vancouver!




sylvia

You could make this saga into a "Carry On" movie :)

Are you back home yet, or are you there for Thanksgiving?

Glad everything went relatively OK.

Deb

Good to see you back - I'm glad everything is at last in the open.

Gwynne

I WAS ONLY CHILD


NO ONE TO YELL AT

GOOD LUCK

Hello! Good to "see" you again. I must admit, a few pages back, I wondered if it was you.
Anyway, another GR member also doesn't do hugs; she does sticky buns instead. So -

(((STICKY BUN)))
x

Oh dear, Kathryn... you must feel so frazzled!! I am the eldest, too..... so have been where you are a couple of times!! I am also the oldest girl in my generation of my mother's family... so got it from my cousins as well, when they became ill....

sometimes you just have to light the blue touch paper, stand back, and let those family fireworks happen........ it'll all find it's own balance, eventually, even if the initial display resembles Vesuvius in full flow!!. Stand well back and admire the spectacular display.... but try not to get too near or you'll get damaged!!

Love and those nasty things ;¬)) (Shame to waste them, they are going spare... do try one, they are rather good, even if I say so myself.... and homemade and wholesome, none of your mass produced stuff... go on, I dare you... try it for size? lol) xxxxxxxxxx

Daff ((()))

Dearest Janey,
Its good to see to hear from you..and i am sorry you are having a tough time....but...I can see the funny side of this........you write about it well.... as its exactly whats happpening in my own family......keeping myself bright and sunny, whilst dealing with mom and dads illnesses, and yet also knowing there are others who are ill too, and keeping secrets....trying not to let 'things out of the bag'......trying to remember coversations.in case you let something 'slip' ..including trying to keep my own aches and pains quite....and of course there are the siblings who need a kick up the rear..to get to do their bit.....I am worn out....just like you must be............
best wishes to you and your family
xxxxxxxxxxxxx cmd xx

OMG, I'm sure it wasn't meant to be funny, but your latest entries had me laughing, how did you manage to know where you were supposed to be and when?/
with all that subtefuge you could join MI5 xx

A very funny read,for what is a serious subject.I am not surprised you let something slip.It was bound to happen at some time.
You certainly have your handful with your lot.Good luck,if they weren't so poorly I would like to bang their heads together!!!!!!!!!!!
Helen....High fives ..no hug

Welcome back Kathryn, don't have anything sensible to say at the minute...except that I know why I am one for just coming straight out with things lol...it avoids all this secrecy bit!

I think you have coped brilliantly.... so hard being 'piggy in the middle'!

xx

Hello Kathryn,

Well you have been and gone and done it now! As the escaped moggy is probably either tearing all around the family or cowering under the furniture just sit back and see who makes the first comment. Your sister and mother will surely speak with each other but you know them best.

BTW I am the youngest in what was, one of the most dysfunctional familes in the UK, thanks to Father!

Sue x

Welcome back Kathryn:)

Bet you're glad to be back home to relative sanity :)

Coming from the most dysfunctional family I know I can identify with how you feel. It's bloody hard work isn't it trying to keep all the balls in the air at the same time.

I really do hope that your Mum's fears are ungrounded.

Jean .

Welcome back

What a saga! I am so sorry it has been such a nightmare and you have been so frazzled.

I really think it's perhaps time to tell everyone everything......no secrets. This is all getting a bit over the top and it isn't fair for you to be stuck in the middle trying to make the peace.

Take care of yourself.

Sue
x

Chat board archaeology!

I didn't really get a chance to express real appreciation for all the thoughts in this thread. I also very much appreciated people who kept in touch to ask after the sickos and share their encouragement while I was away.

I just want to let everyone who was kind enough to contribute to this thread know what the developments have been.

Little sis finished her chemo (she was in the middle of it when we last spoke here) and went on to daily radiation treatments in the big city for five weeks in the fall. Scans then showed that her cancer was operable, so the surgery was done two weeks before Christmas. They removed the tumour and the affected lymph nodes, and other lymph nodes that turned out not to have been affected. They believe they "got it". She's now back on biweekly chemo, still wearing a pack, and getting fed up. But the outlook is good.

The genetic screening test results came back, and it turned out her cancer is a fluke - not related to my dad's melanoma, not related to the breast and uterine cancers on my mum's side, although they'd thought it would be, since she's so young and all.

Oh, and the brothers did eventually get told, and she's even kind of speaking to the obnoxious one again. (Yes, I know, it's so hard to tell which one is "the obnoxious one" in my family ;).)

My mum's lymphoma was confirmed, although it took a couple of biopsies and much anxious waiting for the final diagnosis. Everyone was quite optimistic, and ultimately, the last surgeon she saw before starting chemo the next day announced that he was pretty sure he could not just treat it (the usual prognosis - treatment and 5-10 years survival) -- he could cure it.

So she's had four chemo sessions (every three weeks) and is waiting to know whether more are required before she starts radiation. That will be every day for four weeks. A cancer society volunteer will drive her 30 miles to the regional hospital (so she doesn't have to pay hospital parking charges there for a day!), where she gets a shuttle bus for the next 50 miles into the big city, and then back again. At least this has got dragged out so she's not having to do it in winter. Of course, in winter she could wear the fuzzy had I knitted her when she lost (some, not all) her hair.

Yes, spring is here in the frozen north! Crocuses and bluebells are blooming in my desolate garden, tulips will be budding soon, and life will be sunnier.

Thanks again all -- and please don't anybody start deleting their posts just because I've dredged this up now. ;) The thread does mean a lot to me and I like the idea of it being here ... well, not forever maybe, if the rumours are true, but y'know. ;)

Janey, I am so pleased everyone has the prospect of brilliant outcomes... in spite of the $%&*$£ treatment needed to get them there.

*Sits on hands so can't send any (((((((huggy things))))))

Love

Daff xxxx

That's brilliiant Janey, things sound like they're on the up. :o))

Had my Dad over today, he had his surgery for cancer of the oesophagus in early December, the surgery went well, but two days later, we nearly lost him, still not really sure what went so badly wrong after it, but hey.

He's only now finding his feet, but he's here, and the surgeon's confident he removed everything that had to go. So to summarise, it's been a long few months, but I can totally empathise with you (I seem to have some wonky family members too...!) and I'm glad, like me, your family's picking up too.

I've already said it elsewhere, but it's good to *see* you back.

Good to hear that things for your Mum & sister are looking on the positive side Janey. Hope you are ok ((((((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))))))

and a big hug as always for our lovely Daff((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))))))

It's when it happens to you that you hear about how many it's happened to ...

I'm leaving before long to have dinner with a couple of old friends, one I see often and one who comes to town every couple of years. The friend here in town lost her dad a year before I did, then her mum two years ago. I was feeilng like I was following in her footsteps when my sister got sick - my friend, the eldest child, lost her youngest bro, the one born when she was 14 just like my little sis was when I was 14, to liver cancer three years ago. Hopefully I'll be falling out of step.

Joining the fatherless daughter club was a tough one. Most of my friends are a little older than me, and it just seemed like in the space of two or three years, all our fathers left the stage, with me bringing up the rear at the end. I hope yours stays in the game for a long time now, Heidi.

Awww Janey...thats brilliant news and certainly moving in the right direction. (((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))whether you want em or not, just to take to your mum and sis.

Yep spring here too, the british bluebells are just coming out in the woods, daffodils and crocuses are finished now, but tulips giving a good show still. Leaves are beginning to appear on the trees, and its raining here after a lovely day.