green

Forty-five K!!!! That's bluddy nuts! That is a huge deductible! That is almost as bad as not having any insurance at all. With universal health care everyone here who is covered is either a landed immigrant (green card) or a Canadian citizen. Illegals must pay for their treatments. There are a few charity medical set-ups, I have heard, that will treat illegals for an immediate medical crises but if they have big expensive medical problems then they must go home for they are out of luck in Canada. Canada is tough on illegal immigrants and we don't recognize anchor babies. We give children who are born here Canadian citizenship and then kick their families out. The parents have the option of taking these children with them, knowing that the kids will eventually be able to return, or farming them out with Canadian families. My band is empty or close to it at the moment. A good thing, too, considering that my life has been puke-city since I started chemo. One of my cancer docs has told me more than once that I tolerate chemo really, really badly. I think it is true. I get the dry heaves most every day now. Hopefully I will soon be back in the land of normal. How long did it take for your trach hole to heal up? My neck skin is not tolerating the bandages at all well. It is all red and sore and so I am not taped up at the moment. This might be a bad thing, eh? Sorry, everyone, for hi-jacking this thread.

Hi, there, Kat. As a matter of fact my middle name is Kat as in Katharine. Unfortunately, my parents chose to use my first name, one I never liked as much as my middle name. I am pleased to see folks rallying around the family of that child. Up here we have universal health care and thus my illness has not had a financial impact on our life style except perhaps in a positive fashion as it has kept me out of the stores and in bed. Indeed, I am still getting cans of liquid food supplement for free. It turns out that my husband has been making my milkshakes using this stuff as the mystery ingredient. He didn't tell me because he thought I would be grossed but I went through a spell of looking really ratty, was unable to eat much, and he was concerned and felt that action must be taken. He had seen that I fared much better when I was in hosp and being force-fed the stuff via my g-tube 24/7. And even though my G-tube had been removed we had a number of cases of the stuff still lying around the house, and thus his milkshake idea was born. Well, I have grown to enjoy these shakes and so I am cool with the magic ingredient and I am still eligible to get the stuff for free. We have just had another 1200 cans delivered earlier today. I also get home visits from a home nurse, a dietician, and now a speech pathologist who is hopefully going to help me with some swallowing difficulties. All of this is covered by our universal health care. And today I was phoned to see if I needed assistance with personal hygiene, laundry, shopping - which I don't. I just try to avoid sweating. I am aware that an illness like mine can be much more than a simple emotional catastrophe south of the border; it can be a financial disaster, too. This is why it is so nice to see folks rallying around this family. Of course cancer is an illness in which one remains a long time before one either dies or gets better. I have been sick for 7 months now. I have forgotten what it is like to be healthy. My heart bleeds for that kid.

I posted this last October on this thread and, as some of you may know from posts I made elsewhere, later on discovered that my throat problem was actually cancer. In fact by the time that it was discovered that I had a tumor on my right larynx the tumor was so large that both my ability to speak and breathe were affected and I was given an emergency tracheostomy. This took place at the beginning of March. I had a level 3 tumor which, though seriously large, had luckily not spread. I spent April and May going through radiation treatments - 35 treatments in all - as well as enduring 3 chemo treatments. Since then I have had 2 rounds of chemo and must have one more before I can be signed off. At the beginning of this fight I weighed in the early 140s. Now I weigh 113 - Cancer is very slimming but in a bad way - and my problem is the opposite. Now I hafta gain weight. My health care team are amazed when I tell them that two years ago I weighed 200 lbs. I startle myself when I go hunting for food these days and try to break every rule of eating sensibly which I have spent the past couple of years teaching myself. Anyhow, my good news is that I have had one scan and there is no sign of my tumor. I have just had the trach removed as I can now breathe and speak again. I am waiting for my neck to heal and I am waiting to finish my last round of chemo. My bad news is that I have lost most of my hair. I now look like the actor William Hurt. Yep, I have chemo-patterned baldness. I figure I will be completely bald after the next round of chemo. This is my update, folks.

Thanks, E. In fact I bought myself a bunch of headgear, including a do-rag, from the hospital chemo shop when I first began losing my hair. I am lucky in that I have one of those heads which really suits headwear and the stuff I bought is soft, stylish, has deep enough coverage for bald grrls, and will look great even once my hair is back. It will help me through the dreaded short hair stage; I am one of those who really look awful with short hair. This is because my head is so big and my hair is naturally curly and, well, puffy! This makes me look like a walking pillow head. Ugh! At the moment I still look like William Hurt because I still have a thin covering of blonde hair. Chemo-pattern baldness, I like to call this. Of course I wear a cap/hat and a bit of this hair pokes its way out of the headgear leaving me looking less than completely bald. I have been sick and so my last round of chemo has been postponed until next week when hopefully I will be well enough to endure it. Chemo people, like HIV folk, are prone to getting sick because their white cell counts get messed up, in our case by the killer drugs we are on. Anyhow, I for sure get to keep the hair until my next chemo. And if that doesn't blow the hair right off of my head then it is mine to keep since this will be my very last chemo session. Then it is recovery time for this grrrrl, pure and simple! My other good news is that that item of torture, the trach, has just been removed. Now I am in recovery from that, waiting for my neck to close up.

Thanks, Elenation. I am feeling a little better than I have been lately. Hair-wise I look like the actor William Hurt. After my next chemo likely even that will be gone. *sob*

Yep, those bell-ringing sidewalk jockeys irritate the hell out of me, too.

Yep, very weird. Please post anything else you read on this case.

Dieticians seem to be weird folk. I have had dealings with 2 of them since I got cancer. Both of them were overweight, one morbidly so, and neither of them listens to me. Given that they have weight issues I think that this is pretty arrogant. Given that your BMI is good and you look fabulous I would be inclined to feel comfortable debating your dietician's advice if I were you.

If the music is causing your windows to rattle it is too loud.

I had read some months ago in one of our Canadian papers that Joe Biden was a possibility. He is an intellectual and although he lacks Obama's charm he is very knowledgeable on foreign policies, something that Obama is inexperienced in, was given as the reason for his attractiveness as VP.

The sweet flavours have come back to me. I have been told that they come back first. It is the savoury tastes with which I have real problems. Unfortunately I have never been a fan of sweets. I got fat on overeating main courses plain and simple. Now I can't enjoy a taco, a pizza or any of those great dishes. *sob* I have been living for months now on milkshakes which my husband makes out of chocolate flavoured body builder powder. He buys this at a health food store. Because I find the powder too sweet we cut this with strong home made unsweetened coffee and a lot of ice cubes. We use skim milk as I find anything else to be too rich and thus too difficult on my digestive tract. My dietician wishes I would use Carnation Instant Breakfast instead but I find these far too sweet and I don't like the texture. I have been eating a lot of fresh strawberries and really enjoying them. They are juicy enough that it helps take care of the lack of saliva problem. I can actually swallow them! I still really hate bananas, though! lol

Thanks for your good wishes, everyone. Actually I did lose most of my weight because of the lapband. I lost 30 lbs, going from 143 to 113 lbs because of the cancer. The radiation has really messed up my mouth, sense of taste is now wonky and I produce no saliva, and thus eating is a real chore at best. The fact that food is no longer a pleasure makes me very sad. I still miss it.

Making Whoopee as sung by Dr. John

Hi to Kat and to the rest of you. Here is my update. I have only one more chemo session to endure and that will take place at the end of this month. Most of my hair is gone. I now look like the actor William Hurt but I expect my final chemo session will take care of that. Then I will be Mister Ms. Green. Good thing I look good in headgear because I sure look crappy in short hair and I don't expect the bald look is gonna suit. My last scan showed that my stage 3 tumor has now disappeared. This is wonderful news for me, and everybody but me is super-excited. I still feel too sick and too weak to get excited over anything. Indeed this past month and a half have been really rough on me. Those treatments are destroying of more than just the cancerous tissues. Cancer is very slimming: I now weigh 113 lbs and that is with trying to gain weight! Go figure, eh. The last time I weighed this little was when I was a preteen. Two years ago I hadn't yet been banded and I weighed 200 lbs. What a lot has gone on since then.... Anyhow, I have found myself thinking often of you, Kat, as you have already gone through the same kinds of trials and tribulations that I am now going through. You are a real champion, grrl. (I am beginning to think that I am one, too, eh. This cancer stuff sure ain't easy.)

Give the kid a tattoo.

It seems to me that if a marriage has survived on the basis of one partner's low self-esteem and neediness this will begin to change as she or he begins to lose weight. She will begin to feel good about herself and she will rightfully feel that she deserves more than living in an unhappy relationship. If the marriage is a good one, weight loss shouldn't really change too much. It will just be another adventure which husband and wife enter into and go through together. My mate has supported me through weight loss surgery, a face lift, and now he is nursing me through throat cancer. We've been lucky, I think. Our relationship has always been a good one and it continues to be strong.

One of the nicest things about becoming an adult is that you can turn around and dish out to your parents what they handed out to you.

He was a fine comedian. I enjoyed his television show. He seemed to have a lot of kindness, a lot of soul. I was shocked and saddened when I heard that he had died at the age of 50.

A person would have to be retarded to forget about a child or animal. I can only think these individuals are stupid or don't care.

Tell her that last year's birthday present destabilized the American economy and you can't afford to do this to your country again this year. Then present her with Ang's gift card.

Green sez "Thanks."

So it sounds as though she has a sense of humour and can both take a joke and make a joke. What is wrong with that?

While I like dogs, I have allergies and so I don't like them to jump up on me or to lick me, especially if there is no soap and water near by. If folks could train their dogs to come in caution but in friendliness, that would be a good trick to pull. Anyone with pets has to remember that there are those who have allergies or phobias to treasured family pets. I am someone who has problems with snakes and I knew a guy who had a very though time with my two cats.

Well, for starters, all teenagers are upset and angry. This is something which goes along with changing hormones and is a phenonomen which has been pretty extensively documented. The teenage years are when the brain undergoes a huge amount of alteration during its development and as any parent can tell you teenagers do have very volatile emotions. This is why many countries, this one included, have a different series of punishments, ones which are less severe, for teenage criminals. Teenagers do turn to listen to and learn from their peer groups, not their families. Teenages may regard all of this as living in one giant comic book and attach little if any importance or sense of reality to all the murder and bloodshed. They will follow what goes on south of the border: we so often do. If you have absorbed negative messages about yourself it is easy to be drawn in by the messages of impowerment and belonging given out by the gangs. Also these guys do get a poor sense of their own value. Most of them come from poor and fatherless homes. Not coming from a two parent family seems to be a severe draw back the experts are now recognizing and coming from poverty is always a drag. Black kids are tending to act out more and then they get blamed more and then this is blamed on endemic racism and sometimes, just to complicate matters up a little more, the kids didn't do but were blamed anyway out of lowered expectations. This has got to hurt and to make the kid feel much more bitter. I don't know what the situation is and I don't know what it is going to take to get over it, and I don't know why the other notable by difference in skin colour minorities were able to succeed when the black brothers were not. My hunch is that it has to do with people staying together in families. Strength in numbers, eh. Anyhow, come to Toronto and you will meet a lot of very nice folks in all ethnic groups. This was a long post for me to say that I am kind of baffled about the reasons for these matters.

Ooops, sorry for the wall of text. I really didn't mean for that to happen. Argh!