AFTER RADIATION - Good news about those pills

Just received email from a health professional woman who also writes about breast cancer life and survival.  She assured me that the worst thing most women experience with Tamoxifen is remembering to take it!  Most encouraging thing I've been told so far.

Now my appointment with the medical oncologist is back to Feb 6.  Since I'm stuck at home with this sore throat/cough, I have dug around for more specifics on Tamoxifen side effects.

Even the National Cancer Institute (NCI) can baffle me.  They list cataracts as a side effect, but their one source didn't find any ' vision threatening ' effects in their study, which is not brand new.  The material did say women should have a baseline eye exam

One most discouraging thing from NCI is that diphenhydramine can slow or harm the effects of Tamoxifen.  This will be a problem for me, since I've taken it every night since the spine fusion to sleep soundly.

A lot of the NCI things I read today reference something called pub/med from the

US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health   if  you want to venture in there.

BEFORE MY MEDICAL ONCOLOGIST VISIT

I need to pack up all my meds and my list of meds including things I too in the past

Anyway, I have some new things to print and take with me,  to get, hopefully, some answers.

I need to translate some of my notes to real questions.

AT THE VISIT

And I need to write down what he says!

Just don't let me spend too much time visiting with him and abandon my questions and fears 

CONFESSION

My research skills could use improvement.

AFTER RADIATION: THROUGH DCIS EYES

Have at least one question for the radiation oncologist, about why I'm not pink now in the area I thought the Boost was targeting.  I feel awkward about asking her questions now that I've signed the release form.

Talking with a friend who has trouble with her adjuvant therapy made me very hesitant to try again for a Literacy Volunteers tutoring client.  Will the side effects make me feel like doing nothing?   It's still almost two and a half weeks before I see the medical oncologist and find out what he thinks and what medicine he advises me to take.

 And I still want and need to go to work.  Woke up hungry and too early, thinking about how to change my resume.  Preparing for a tutoring client can only be a help at a job.

One in Eight

I see contrasts between "survivors" who exercise and those who don't.  Commuting is certainly a factor - eating up as much of people's time here as in L.A.

In parking lots and in stores, I see women with parasols.  When I saw them before, the parasols seemed odd, unless the women appeared to be from a country where parasols were part of the stereotype.  Now I wonder how many of the women were having radiation and had to avoid the sun.

I'll step outside and see if it's too cold to walk outside while there are still shady places.