I've been MIA

Wow time flies. Didn't know it's been this long since I've blogged.

So what have I been up to? Closer to having the house ready. Got it painted and now for the flooring. Have decided to go with laminate and am in hot pursuit of a layer. Oh myyyyy


I think the light at the end of the tunnel just got brighter!

In other news besides busting lies, I'm also handing out praises. It's only fair really.

The latest lie was from Russel Stovers. Four flavor bag of sugar free chocolate. Only I got one, 1, make that 1 piece of mint chocolate in the whole darn bag. That's not a four flavor bag! So I wrote them an email. And the response I got was that there was a disclaimer on the bag that says the bag was automatically filled and it might not contain all the flavors or an even distribution of them. Well, EXCUSE ME.


How can you call it four flavors? It should be maybe four flavors...if you are lucky. But no don't fix the problem just slap a disclaimer on the bag. And yes there was one. Tiny on the back. But, Russel didn't want me to be too upset so they are mailing me free candy. I'm waiting.....

Then my NOOK bit the bed. Tried all the online fixes BnN suggested to no avail. I went to the nearby BnN store the next day all geared up for battled. The NOOK tech/rep fixed my NOOK. It needed a new battery. So far so good. And he was so helpful and a cutie patootie. Think Patrick Demsy type with a voice to melt chocolate. Oh to be 20 something again. It was a very pleasant experience. And so I wrote BnN a letter of praise. The first response I got from them was an apology and a list of things to do and a number to call and directions to the store. So I wrote them again. No no no guys this is a you did good letter not a complaint letter. And so today I got a response that said ohhhhhh well THANKS! basically.

On the medical front I had to go off the Femara. Which one was that? That's the daily pill that blocks my body from being able to use the aromatase protein needed to make estrogen. It also causes small joint pain and my hands were so bad one day I could barely turn the ignition in the car. Deal breaker. And before you start gasping here's the deal. The femara only reduces the chances of local recurrence. It does nothing to improve overall survival. I know wrap your head around that one. It took me a while. So here I'll help you. The cancer was estrogen fed we shut down the ovaries with the lupron shots and now the femara further blocks it in the breast tissue where a local recurrence would happen. But a local is very treatable. No I don't want to go through all that again but still not a death sentence. A distant met. would not be from the estrogen but rather it figured out another way to grow. So there, did that help?

No. Well here, I have about a 5 percent chance of having a local recurrence and the Femara reduces that by 16 percent. So a overall reduction of .008? I'm just not impressed. In the study they did when they first developed the drug they gave it to 4,000 women and after 2 years 75 of them developed a local recurrence. Another 4,000 women didn't get the femara and 123 of them developed a local recurrence. And they shut down the whole trial because oh myyyyyy (see video above) that was a 30 percent reduction and they put all the women on the femara. I'm still not impressed. This stuff is a bitch. I've been off since the 1st of the month and my hands are better but they are still killing me. So why are they giving this to women when really? It doesn't do anything that drastic? Because it's all they got. And honestly I'm not totally throwing in the towel on it. What I also found out from those first studies is that they gave women dosages from 100mcg to 5mg. And on ALL dosages levels of estrogen were greatly reduced and even not detectable. So why is the standard dosage 2.5mg? Because it's one size fits all folks which means we are all being over dosed. In my opinion. So instead of taking it every other day or one month on and one month off as suggested in Sept. by Dr. Barth's PA on Dec. 2nd when I see Dr. Barth I'm going to pick his brain about cutting the pill up. See if that makes his head spin.

Normal estrogen levels are between 300 and 400. 300 and 400 hundred whats? I don't know. Mine after I started lupron was a whopping 16. On femara undetectable. Whoopie.

If it was take this and the cancer will not come back it would be a no brainer. My hands would hurt. And I'd put up with it. But, that is not the case.

So I'll have lots of stuff to throw at Dr. Barth on Dec. 2nd but in the meantime....flooring, busting lies, praising good stuff and Thanksgiving before Christmas totally railroads that holiday!