We are still waiting!

I haven't nagged in a while but I would like to remind the world that all of us unhealthy people are waiting for that cure. We have aches and pains and doctor appointments and prescriptions (out the whazoo!). We would like those cures so we could return to our normal life as soon as possible.

Once diagnosed with something nasty, life changes (and we are told there is this new normal - that doesn't exist) and are stuck in a yucky limbo waiting for medical advancements to put us back together.

There are a lot of politics and corporate policies and big brother and much more involved in medical research. We don't really care. Take your billions and fix us.
K? Thanks.

PS I am whining and in a cranky mood today.

Who has the time?

I started wondering (which I admit can be a dangerous proposition) who has the time to waste spend on all this pinkification? It takes a lot of shopping to buy all the pink crap, time getting dressed in all the pink stuff, and everything that goes with it?

I am just amazed at the people I see out almost in a costume of pink at this time of year. Everything from jewelry, feather boas, shoes, bags, clothing, etc. Then there are the pink ribbons on everything. NFL players have pink towels. Buildings are lit up in pink.

I admit I bought a pink t-shirt with some slogan on the back of it to wear to chemo. I wore it once to my second infusion and never took it out of the closet again. I like the color pink and wear it often but I do not pinkify myself.

Personally I do not have the time or the energy to allow any one thing to take over my life like that. I live a multi-faceted life (note the big word early in the day) and allow myself to enjoy many different things, and squeeze in a few million doctor appointments.

I cannot imagine allowing anything to monopolize my life like that. I think a bad medical diagnosis, like breast cancer, is a wake up call that life is important. But it is not appropriate or healthy to obsess over it and allow it to monopolize your life. No one thing should be so important in anyone's life. Life is meant to be enjoyed and not have an obsession. Don't waste your time on any one thing.

When I do something I do it right

So back at the end of July, I fell and my knee bent sideways (or my knee bent sideways and I fell). I was told at that time that the x-ray showed no bone issues and it was probably all ligament and tendon. I was later told by my knee doctor (yes I am amassing doctors for each body part) that it was probably not that bad and PT was the first step. The PT guy thought it was probably only my meniscus.

I went back to the knee doctor after PT and he sent me for an MRI to find out more about my knee. I had a follow up yesterday.

Well, it turns out when I do something I do it right. It turns out I tore my ACL and I have an edema on the top of my tibia. Basically that means that I have a crack in the bone that is not impacting the function much (think of the coffee cup you have with a crack in it that still holds your coffee - my knee doctor asked me if he could quote me on that because it was pretty much an exact description).

So now the plan is to wait another four weeks and have more x-rays and then decide what to do. He wants my tibia to continue to heal before anything and for me to step up my PT. He said the pain is caused by the bone and the lack of stability is caused by the ACL. I said I don't care about the pain but do care about the stability issue.

I told him I don't want to even think about surgery until after the first of the year.

Now I can say it, to quote Charlie Brown:
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Early detection and saving lives

Laurie over at Not Just About Cancer blogged about the myth of early detection and linked to a very good article on the same subject in Psychology Today. Early detection is supposed to be a good thing meaning they caught your disease (whatever it maybe) before it got really nasty.

Amy Robach and others say 'my mammogram saved my life'. But is this really true? I am not saying that they are lying but the question is did their mammogram really save their life? I have friends who believe the same thing. They attribute their still being alive because of their 'life saving mammogram'.

Let's take a look at this. First of all, as the Psychology Today article points out, if we were detecting more cancers earlier wouldn't the numbers for late detection or deaths be decreasing? They aren't.

"But this dramatic increase in "early-stage" diagnoses has not been followed with a decline in advanced breast cancers, as would be expected if early detection was the key to stopping progression."

Next, breast cancer is not a linear disease. There are many types which are more or less treatable and some it doesn't matter when they are caught, they are still going to kill you. And others are never going to be fatal and will resolve themselves. We just aren't very good about telling them apart. 

"For all we do not know about breast cancer (i.e., what exactly causes it, how to prevent it, how to keep it from recurring, how to keep people from dying from it if it spreads), there are things we do know. Breast cancer is complex. It stems from multiple causes, some of which include radiation, carcinogenic chemicals, and cancer promoters such as endocrine disrupting compounds(link is external). There are at least ten subtypes of breast cancer that behave and respond to treatments differently. One-size-fits-all treatment does not work. Mammograms do not prevent breast cancer; nor do they guarantee that the cancer found on a mammogram (if it is found on a mammogram) is indolent, lethal, or somewhere in between. Acknowledging these complexities would not only help to shift the breast cancer paradigm, it would serve those who want to be well informed."

So if you feel your mammogram saved your life, you may or may not be right.

What were we thinking?

We had a 'great' idea to move. Now that our house is almost ready to go on the market we are packing like mad. Everything is going into boxes to depersonalize the house. Which means we cannot find anything.

Including the big bin of all the knitting projects I did last winter, spring and, summer for craft shows this fall. All the stuff I got ready is now missing. Its lost. Totally.

We started unpacking the pod in the driveway. I even climbed up on top of all the boxes with a flashlight to see if I could the missing bin. My only hope is that we get a new house and move in so we unpack and I can find it. Otherwise, I have to start knitting like mad to make more stuff to sell.

I have been looking at pictures of houses for sale on line and look how empty they are. I have no idea how we are going to do that. I have friends who are coming over to help pack. Including one friend who has weeded and mulched all the gardens. I only got hurt once so far, when I fell over the bags of mulch yesterday. I have a booboo on my elbow from landing on the cement patio but do not feel any other damage (which is a good thing because I can't deal with any more issues right now).

But really, what were we thinking? Moving sucks.