Posts by stormyfalcon68

ruggedmarlin2 said:After fighting ovarian cancer for five whole years—it was such an intense battle—my sweet mom passed away yesterday at 64... and I just feel completely shattered... It honestly felt like things were finally looking up, like she was actually going to handle the chemo... but then the vomiting started again, and then literally the same day she was supposed to start therapy, they told us her condition was critical... her blood pressure was tanking, her blood counts were a total disaster... and that we only had hours left... She was talking so beautifully with us that day... she seemed so peaceful, totally free from the pain... We were trying so hard to stay strong for her because she kept insisting that tomorrow would be better... that she just needed a little time to recover... I really think the doctors might not have even told her the full truth... and honestly, we didn't have the courage to say goodbye... we just kept saying "see you tomorrow"... and even until the very end, she was thinking about everyone else... asking us to grab some juices for the nurses... telling me to clean her room before they arrived... and wanting to celebrate my birthday which is in just a few days... But those few hours just flew by so fast that I couldn't even find the right words to say to her one last time... it’s like I missed my chance... and now I feel even worse because I can't shake this feeling that I didn't do enough for her... that I shouldn't have gone out with my friends over the weekend instead of staying by her side all day... that I should have hugged her every single day like it was the last... and there's just so much more... and now it's too late for any of that....

ruggedmarlin2, I am so, so sorry, truly my deepest condolences...
My dad passed away a year ago, and I spent the entire day right there with him, following the ambulance to the hospital, and I stayed with him day and night as long as the doctors and staff would let me stay. I even ran home to grab a clean pair of pajamas and a pillow just so he could be a little more comfortable during his night at the hospital.
I didn't manage to be with him at the very, very end; the nurses, who knew what was coming, wanted to spare us from that final breath, and even after a whole year, I still haven't made peace with it. The guilt and the sadness just eat at me, like I should have done more, like I should have been more determined to stay so he wouldn't have to go alone at the very end...
I keep blaming myself constantly, and I keep dreaming about those final moments...
What I really wanted to say is that you're going to have to forgive yourself, even though you don't actually have anything to forgive. No matter what we do, no matter how it happens, I feel like we will always find something to blame ourselves for, always finding that one thing that "should have" happened differently
I don't believe for a second that your mom would want you living with that kind of weight on your heart and that heavy conscience, and that's what I have to tell myself every single day
Hang in there

Hey everyone, could I grab a little help if anyone here knows how to read neck X-rays?

It shows some early signs of osteochondrosis in the lower segment...
In the soft tissue projection near the Th1 spinous process, there's an oval calcified shadow about 1cm wide...

Hang in there, Rachel Williams...

ruggedfox11, I am so incredibly sorry, my heart truly goes out to you...

I am just so, so incredibly sorry, Castor...

After that night when the doctor basically just kicked my dad out of the ER without giving him any actual relief, I ended up venting about the whole mess in a blog post.
Honestly, forget the blog part, it was really just my way of blowing off steam from all the stress we’ve been dealing with...
By the next morning, the entire hospital knew every single detail—about the doctor, my dad, my parents—it was being whispered in every hallway and passed around by the nurses and staff
I ended up cowardly deleting the post because I just didn't want anyone looking at us differently, since with everything we were going through, we definitely didn't need more drama or fighting over trivial nonsense.
If it had been about me, I wouldn't have given a single damn, seriously!
But just to keep the peace, I shut my mouth and kept it all to myself.
And who knows how many other people stay silent and just suffer through their own personal nightmares because they're terrified of being judged, or they're too exhausted to fight battles on a thousand different fronts for a million different reasons...

ruggedfox11, don't let them get you down!
We’re from the same neck of the woods, and honestly, we’ve been through such similar struggles... I remember one night when my dad was struggling to breathe at the ER, we were met by this doctor who basically just told us there was nothing she could do about his diagnosis and sent him straight home. No oxygen, no support, absolutely nothing to make things easier for him...
I honestly don't even know how we managed to stay composed or how we even survived that night, I still feel a little lightheaded just thinking back on it all...
In that moment, I just wanted her to experience exactly what we did—to see how she'd act if it were someone she actually loved fighting for their life...
Even though there are amazing doctors out there, you unfortunately run into people who have zero emotion or empathy, treating patients like they're just numbers on a spreadsheet, so please, don't let them get under your skin...
Keep being loud, keep speaking up, and demand exactly what you deserve, no matter how much anyone might judge you for it...
It's your life on the line here, and nobody has the right to make you feel guilty, because if it were one of their own in your shoes, they'd be singing a completely different tune...

ruggedfox11 How’s everyone doing?
Did you guys manage to make it in for your radiation sessions yet?

frozenharbor18 said:Robin Diaz4, honey, I am just so incredibly sorry about your dad...
Sorry if I’m kind of crashing your space like this, but I just had to say something because honestly, every time I read about someone losing their battle, it just hits me so hard...
I've been following you guys and all your stories for such a long time now, and I've learned so much from this community, and you all have meant way more to me than you probably even realize...
Of course, I've got my own two sad stories too (though one is still ongoing, and I'm really hoping for a better outcome than the first one), but I'll save that for another time...
My heart just goes out to everyone who has lost their loved ones, and to everyone still fighting right now, I'm sending you all the luck in the world, please stay strong 🙂

I spent basically the whole time during my dad's illness following this thread, soaking up every single bit of advice, and it taught me so much—especially about how to handle the situation and what to actually expect when things get tough...
My dad passed away five months ago, and I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it and dealing with that heavy feeling of helplessness that's been stuck with me since the very first diagnosis...
I still follow this thread closely, and just like you said, it's just so heartbreaking to read when someone loses their fight...
Sending you all the strength in the entire world

Hey Robin Diaz4, I am sending so much love and my deepest condolences to you and your whole family, I'm just so incredibly sorry about everything...

Robin Diaz4 said:So, Dad is actually doing a little bit better today. Honestly, God, this whole sickness is just absolutely nasty... I’m almost afraid to even type anything here because I don't want to jinx it or anything...

Hang in there, Robin Diaz4, you know how it is—just total ups and downs, one giant rollercoaster of emotions and fears that can flip completely in a single day or even just an hour...
Maybe try some blackberry wine if you aren't too nauseous, it might help boost those platelet counts...

Robin Diaz4 said:Platelets. 😢 I've been scouring the internet but honestly haven't found anything useful about how to stop this from happening or what can be done to speed up the recovery process.
Now I'm just getting really anxious because of the delay...

My dad used to deal with his platelet counts dropping super low too, so they’d end up pushing back his chemo sessions by a few days. Then, just a couple of days later, they’d bounce right back up like nothing even happened, without us having to change a single thing about his diet or anything else! Our doctor explained that it's just a totally normal side effect of the chemo treatments.
Hang in there...

Robin Diaz4 said:Yeah, I get why it sounds totally outdated for the 21st century since everything is logged in the system now... my dad's doctor is pretty old school, so who knows how things used to work back in the day...

The only thing that makes sense to me is that as a patient, I should be able to tell a doctor, "Hey, don't share my diagnosis with my family." I have a friend who didn't even realize her dad was sick until he passed away... her dad actually turned down chemo because he knew his family would hold him responsible for it...

Sent from my B1-770 using Reddit

Robin Diaz4, I honestly don't think there's any way to fake test results ethically or even realistically... after every single CT scan, my dad's results went straight to a medical board to figure out the next steps, the specific treatment line, and the chemo dosage... I can't even imagine the chaos if those results were being faked...
When my dad's condition started getting worse, they didn't tell him directly, but they definitely told me and my mom... He eventually figured it out himself once they decided to stop the chemo and further treatments, but they told him we should just wait a month or two for him to recover a bit before deciding what to do next... It was just that little tactical dose of humanity and empathy so he wouldn't go home, lie down, and just wait for the end...
If you're having any doubts at all, you can always just ask for a second opinion...

Rachel Williams said:Hey, I've got some seriously awesome news to share with you all! So, my friend's mom was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer about 15 months ago, but get this—she just got her CT scan results back yesterday and everything came back totally clear... even her tumor markers are looking great now, and the doctors are saying there's about a 65% chance she’ll never have to deal with cancer ever again... isn't that just incredible?! 🙏

Such beautiful news to hear, especially when we're dealing with such a heavy and heartbreaking topic like this one...
Keep your heads up, everyone, and just take it one day at a time...

wanderingcobra76 said:Nah, honestly, that sounds like a super positive change based on what they said... so just scheduling a follow-up checkup in six months should be totally fine...

Thanks, wanderingcobra76! 🙂
I mean, I thought I had it all figured out, but honestly, that little seed of doubt just won't stop nagging at me...

I wasn't really sure where to post this, but since this thread seems to be the liveliest one around, I figured I'd just throw it out there and see if anyone knows what's up
Breast ultrasound results;

The skin and subcutaneous fat look totally normal.
The glandular tissue is pretty thin—just a small strip—which is basically expected for my age (37), especially with quite a bit of fatty infiltration taking its place.
On the right side, right near the upper quadrants, there's this elongated cystic zone, which mostly looks like ductal ectasia.
No suspicious or enlarged lymph nodes found in the armpits.
Involutive type
BI-RADS 2
Schedule a mammogram in the near future

Is there any reason to freak out?

ruggedfox11;
You can actually get a PET/CT scan through Quest Diagnostics just like Magda mentioned, and since it's covered by Medicare, just give them a ring to set up an appointment... honestly, you don't even have to wait forever like you usually do in this slippery little city we live in

Robin Diaz4 said:I just couldn't sit through watching that, I started tearing up just from the announcement alone...
My dad's pain just won't let up today, so I'm heading back to the doctor again to see if they can bump up his dosage or something, because honestly, when he's hurting this much, I can't even get a decent night's sleep myself... I haven't managed more than thirty minutes of actual rest at a time for two days straight now.
It hasn't been nearly this brutal before he started chemo...

My dad also went through those intense pains, especially in his bones and shoulders after his chemo sessions, but those Transtec patches actually helped him out quite a bit! The pain would usually start creeping up around the third day, right before it was time to swap out the patch for a new one...

Good luck, ruggedfox11, I'm really pulling for you and hoping everything goes perfectly smoothly... 🙂

Robin Diaz4 said:Thanks so much for the advice. Things have already started getting complicated on our end, my dad caught a fever so they've had to push back his chemo for now. I feel like such a mess... somehow we went from having no clue what was happening to getting a full diagnosis in just one week, and chemo was supposed to start right away, so I really had this hope that things would just get better, I was still feeling positive just yesterday, but today it's just total despair...
I just wasn't ready for any of this, and honestly, I'm still not.

Man, I know exactly how you're feeling right now
It always seems to catch us totally off guard, and then it feels like we're just plummeting straight into the abyss...
You've just gotta try to keep a level head through it all. Since it's peak flu and cold season here in the States, a fever isn't even that unusual at this time of year, so hopefully it passes quickly.
At this point, it is what it is, once the fever breaks, you can just take things one little step at a time.
Maybe focus on boosting his immune system a bit before the chemo starts, assuming the fever clears up first...

Did the doctors give you the specific diagnosis yet? Like the exact type and stage of the cancer?