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A milestone of sorts.
Asked by nancyjac on Thursday, November 1, 2012
A milestone of sorts.
Just got home from my annual physical with my PCP. It was during my physical with her last year that she first suspected inflammatory breast cancer. Unfortunately, she was dead on. The next 12 months were a whirlwind of diagnostic scans, biopsies, chemo, surgeries, radiation, and aromatase inhibitors. Somewhere during all of that I also got osteoarthritis and my osteopenia and auto-immune thyroiditis got worse. But at least so far there haven't been any new surprises.
No real question here, just a reminder to all that we still need to keep up with stuff that isn't cancer related. It's really hard to do because for a time, everything else becomes secondary to cancer treatment and often it gets to the point where you can't tell what symptoms are from cancer or it's treatment vs. something else.
14 Answers from the Community
po18guy
Painting the house takes second place to the fire in the kitchen. But, when the fire's out... ;-)
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over 8 years agoFreeBird
"everything else becomes secondary to cancer treatment and often it gets to the point where you can't tell what symptoms are from cancer or it's treatment vs. something else."
That's an important thing for people to know. There's so much going on all at once, you could write a book on your symptoms to hand the doctor each time. It's hard to know what's even worth mentioning sometimes. Happy anniversary. You must be doing something right. Don't get any more osteoanythings. You got enough.
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over 8 years agoFreeBird
p.s. Do they make flame-retardant paint? Something to think about.
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over 8 years agonancyjac
LOL....you guys crack me up.....wait.....is cracking up another osteosomething? ;-)
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over 8 years agokaren1956
congrats on 1 year....wishing you many more years of celebrating!!!
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over 8 years agoGGP
Nancy, once my doctor came rushing in the exam room with a file and tests in his hand, exclaiming frantically, "We have a Problem"! This was about 6 months after my treatments were over and I was just having checkups. I asked, what is it now, I expected the worst since I had just beat it down for the second time. He says, "your cholesterol is out of line"!
I shook my head and asked him, do you think I care about CHOLESTEROL? He about gave me a heart attack.
But I do understand we do need to look after those other things that seem to come up on us easier than they do on a healthy person.
Glad your still doing well.
Greg P
Team WhatNext
Community Mgr
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over 8 years agopackerbacker
I'm glad there are no new surprises. We need you! You give such great feedback! A good reminder to us all to remember the "other" stuff, too.
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over 8 years agolynn1950
Congratulations on achieving a milestone of significance! May you celebrate many, many similar milestones. (I also have osteoarthritis, osteopenia, and Hashimoto's. We are definitely pink sisters.)
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over 8 years agoJennyMiller
I will see my PCP on Nov 12 --- 1 year and 1day after my cancer was found (11/11/11) -- He is very thorough and will keep a check on all the other stuff. I have a lot of "borderline stuff" going on in regards to blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, etc. I can depend on him to remind me that losing some weight would help, etc. I have to agree that this now all seems very secondary to my cancer battle. Apparently, we were going through that "whirlwind" at the same time -- I also describe it as being in a "Twilight Zone" -- or just a plain old nightmare!!! Now, as we return to the world -- it really is a relief to get past each one of these follow-up appointments. I am sorry you ended up with the osteo problems. Be sure to take care -- you are truly a treasured friend to all of us on this site.
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over 8 years agoCrash
Congratulations!! At the very least, you should have some Chocolate!!!
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over 8 years agoCarol-Charlie
My regular doctor said I totally shocked her when I showed up for my annual physical and mamogram. I told her I wasn't fighting ovarian cancer to die of breast cancer.... She quotes me to other patients Nancy I've been cancer fee for almost 7 years and still going for annual physical. Your cat is beautiful!
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over 8 years agoJoachima
Thank you for this reminder ... I pray that we never become neglectful of any other symptoms or even preventative care.
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over 8 years agoHarry
My "wakeup" this week was a huge pain in the jaw starting in the middle of the night. It wasn't cancer, "just" an abcess. It has already caused more pain than WM ever did and will cause even more when I get the root canal.
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over 8 years agoPaprika
Yeah, it's been a crazy whirlwind year of chemo, radiation and body parts being snipped off (does this count as weight loss? ha ha)..My 'normal' annual check up is Nov 9th, which is kind of scary cuz that's when this whole thing started when my GP said "humm, this lump feels a little weird..." BUT I'm going, now I'm praying he'll just say, "gee, you're still a little plump-let's work on that now..." WHATEVER! I'm ready! BRING IT ON!! OK-let's all take care of ourselves in ALL ways!!
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