<p>[Lung</a> Cancer Alliance - Support](<a href=“Enchanting Mother Son Dance Songs 2024 alcase.org”>Enchanting Mother Son Dance Songs 2024 alcase.org)</p>
<p>LTS,
I can’t help but otice it’s been several days since you posted. I hope your scans and chemo are going well (as possible) and lead to a full healing…</p>
<p>Hello - I am here, just having - well - not a challenge exactly, just some small disappointments. My scans went well but things are just a bit inconclusive, mostly because the scans from October were done at a different facility, different radiation oncologists, etc., and so as of Monday afternoon, my primary oncologist had only the preliminary written report of the PET and no full report, and nothing yet on the CT. But I got copies of them this morning, and they both show 1.0 cm area of uptake in the liver, which is NOT noted in the October scans. Hopefully this is not progression during first line treatment, which of course would be disastrous. The solution is that someone is going to look at the films side by side. I am hoping this either shows on the October scans but was not noted, or, perhaps it is possible to have uptake and have it not be cancerous, but, that’s hard to imagine. </p>
<p>Otherwise, the scan report looks good to my uneducated eyes, but, now there will be no radiation decision until after scans after chemo #6, sometime late January. And, I have an appointment with my radiation oncologist Friday, so, maybe she can further interpret the films for me, and perhaps ease my mind on this 1.0 cm situation. </p>
<p>I am somewhat disappointed with holiday decisions too. My daughter has been dating a very nice, kind young man for one year now. He is a senior and graduates cumma sum laude (sp??? - whatever is a 4.0 gpa) this year - he is a music engineering and computer science double major. He invited her to go to Indonesia with him for the holidays; she said she would not leave me at Christmas but would go after Christmas; his family was going to take them to Bally and Singapore for New Years. She has decided not to go so that she can be with me for chemo #6, which will be the first week of January. I am disappointed as she should be off having fun with her peers, not stuck in some chemo room with me. I am sad about this and do not want her to do this, I would like for her to go to Indonesia. But she won’t go and she tells me I have no say in the matter. </p>
<p>Otherwise, all is well. I feel terrific, and every other body part and system is working flawlessly. Even blood counts are normal and no need for any medicines. Hard to imagine I am this healthy and this very sick, all at the same time.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions, I have never seen groups of people do that exactly, but, I have observed some very frustrating behavior in waiting and treatment rooms. More than once I have stood up and given my seat to another person who looked considerably worse off, who had no place to sit, because there have been such very large collections of relatives, etc. </p>
<p>Also, people do make all sorts of goofy remarks to, and in front of, cancer patients. I’ve heard everything from “oh, did you smoke” or “bad genes?” or “my friend just died of this sort of cancer”, but, probably the worst was in a movie - D and I watched Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, and, we were very favorably impressed (and we both voted for Bush) anyway, there is a part where he segues into lung cancer, and he says “…that is NOT the way you want to die…” and then he makes some reference to what a painful horrible way it is to die. Yuck. Ouch. I don’t mind hearing that but I hated that my daughter had to hear that.</p>
<p>Epistrophy, thank you very much for the links. I knew of one site, but not the other…great find!</p>
<p>Your daughter is nothing if not consistent. 
</p>
<p>I hope you get the answers you want on Friday-- <em>crossing fingers</em>. I am glad to hear you are feeling so well overall. Keep us posted.</p>
<p>Oh, LTS, I would feel as you do about your D’s plans. Can you possibly sway her by explaining to her that her accounts and pictures of the special trip will give YOU more joy than her company during the time she could be there? That you see her taking a pass on the trip as an unnecessary additional price of your illness?</p>
<p>On the other hand, perhaps you need to accept that she simply has her mother’s determination regarding how to handle challenges! 
</p>
<p>In any event, she is a wonderful daughter of whom you can be so very proud.</p>
<p>I hope you get some more definitive and hopeful news re the scans. </p>
<p>P.S. The issue with the original thread is not forgotten, but no progress to report so far. I am going to follow up with the tech person later today. Since I can access all but the last couple of pages of that thread, please let me know if you would like me to copy what I can, page by page, into a document that I can send to you at some point.</p>
<p>All my prayers with you for good news on friday!!</p>
<p>Can you tell D that you have x more chemos and you want her there for all of them, but this time it’s just too much guilt for you; actually interferes with your happy-thoughts that particular week. Perhaps schedule back in that Rabbi or some friend for that day (likely not busy, it’s quiet season…) so she sees you have a stand-by for (just) this chemo session. Tell her she’s ESSENTIAL to your recovery but this one is a bit counter-productive; you’ll just be looking at her and feeling she should be in Indonesia. Set up cellphone contacts that day from wherever she is on the globe, through the nurse to you…whatever. I think she’s choosing unwisely too, and I’d try to dissuade her with a big dollop of guilt. She’s great, she truly is. And I guess there’s no jockeying the chemo schedule by a week because of her scheduling, meh, probably not.<br>
You’re so sweet. Summa cum laude (highest honor). I think Cumma sum laude is an Indonesian noodle dish…
Sounds like you like this young man. That’s great to see her good choices extend into this realm of life, too.</p>
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<p>Out of curiosity I just tried the “original thread” myself (it’s now on page 8), and was able to open it in just the same way that I would open any other thread - so unless this was just a fluke, that thread now seems to be working. </p>
<p>(The last couple of posts on that thread were ones that I tried to add; I was experiencing some technical difficulties when doing so and they didn’t come through properly - which may relate, in one way or another, to the subsequent technical problems with trying to open the thread altogether.)</p>
<p>^^^ Yes, I just heard back from our tech person that he fixed it over the weekend! I should have tried it first myself!</p>
<p>LTS, I can now do a “merge” of the two threads so the posts will all be in one place, in chronological order. I will wait to hear from you before proceeding on that though.</p>
<p>LTS good to hear from you and crossing fingers also for Friday.</p>
<p>This thread was “corrupted” and the end of it could not be opened so we started a “support for latetoschool Part II” thread and remamed this part I . I am now locking this Part I as it has been repaired and all new posts should go on Part II at <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/428520-support-latetoschool-part-ii.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/428520-support-latetoschool-part-ii.html</a>.
However, we may later simply merge the two threads now that the problem has been fixed. - Mod JEM</p>
<p>LTS, glad to hear from you but sorry about the possible worrisome info re the scan. Please know there are still lots of prayers for you and for your family and doctors. Blessings to you…</p>
<p>LTS, We’re all waiting with you for the interpretation of the scans. I agree that your daughter should make the Indonesia trip. But she seems to have inherited or caught some aspects of your character - and I think it is unlikely that she will change her mind. I think the suggestions about stressing that it will be better for you if she goes, and scheduling some substitute support for that time, are good.</p>
<p>JEM, thank you and the technical person for all of your efforts, it is certainly fine to merge the threads. I appreciate very much your thoughfulness and support. </p>
<p>Hopefully tomorrow is a better day, all the way around :)</p>
<p>Let me weigh in on the side of your daughter doing what she feels is right. If it were me, and it was presented to me that I should go so my mom would not feel guilty, it would become a lose, lose situation…if I went I would feel terrible, but if I stayed, I would be concerned that she would feel guilty. Respect her announced decision. </p>
<p>Good luck with the next news…I know it is a suspenseful and scary time. Hugs. Lorelei</p>
<p>OK, the threads have been successfully merged! When I looked at the stats for the merged thread I saw 777 responses on the now-combined thread. Now, that special number HAS to be a good sign!
Thread views are over 41,000!
Thanks, posters, for your support of a member and thanks, LTS, for your appreciation. The thoughts and caring of MANY are with you.</p>
<p>yea for moderators… now I can keep up more easily!</p>
<p>I did want to sort of put out here - if this is helpful to anyone else, either now or in the future, I did have my first psychiatric consultation today. I never intended to neglect this but it takes a long time to research and look for the right person with the right CV, and, then it takes some time to get on their calendar. </p>
<p>Anyway, we met for over two hours today, and, bottom line, I have all the right “stuff” in place to beat this, meaning, excellent health otherwise, stable mental health, excellent coping mechanisms, and a long, consistant history of beating seemingly impossible odds. And I am on no medicines, not even anti-depressants, and they are thinking we can get me through this without them. However, there are some issues that are simply huge, and potentially impactive to anyone who is in this general age bracket. </p>
<p>One of those issues is the empty nest symdrome. I thought I was dealing with that very well, and in fact I do get to be with my daughter more than most people get to be with their college-age and/or adult children. But it is evidently a critical psychological stress factor and a health risk for aging parents.</p>
<p>The other thing I learned is that not only is it o.k. to cry, it’s actually healthy. I was beginning to wonder why I was so weak, as there are times when this simply overwhelms me, and I cry. This is almost always isolated to chemotherapy times though - when I am with clients, or in my new offices in Washington, or busy with my work, I do not think about lung cancer, I do not worry, and I do not cry. But I learned that it’s completely o.k., and even good.</p>
<p>The last thing - and really important issue that I learned - is that it’s a very, very healthy thing to confront death. I did so in the legal sense, when I was in the hospital; I made sure that all final arrangements were in order. But I have never resolved the issue of dying in my mind, in the emotional sense. So we had a discussion of “what is a good death” - what does that mean? My headline reaction back to her was, well, a good death is one that isn’t coming for a while…preferably not for at least another 20 years, like I’d originally planned. The psychiatrist laughed at that and said that was a terrific answer (???). Anyway, we talked about the three things people want most at the time of death, and those things are (1) to be pain free; (2) to be able to breathe; (3) to not be alone. </p>
<p>So I asked her, why in the world are we talking about this? Are we on the same page? My endgame is to beat this thing, not to die of it. I want to talk about how to LIVE, not how to die. So why are we choreographing my death? She explained that we have to confront the issue of death and dying, in order to be able to put it in its box, get past it, and get back up to keep fighting.</p>
<p>We meet again Monday since I am still in town then, and she gave me a “homework exercise” to do over the next three days: I am supposed to come up with life fulfulling statements, and alternative statements for those times when I think or say “I cannot do this”…or “this is too difficult”…</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing this, lts.</p>
<p>Here’s an alternative statement for you. A friend of mine who works with MH/MD adults uses this one all the time, and it works for kids, too:</p>
<p>“Try another way.”</p>
<p>All of us have times when a puzzle seems unsolvable, when a thing seems too difficult, even impossible. Just step back and…try another way.</p>
<p>Here’s to your continued good mental health!</p>