[Andrew K Fletcher]

http://www.health-science.com/breast_cancer.html

Oestrogen is well documented to influence the growth of certain cancers, breast cancer is one of these. Natural Progesterone on the other hand has been shown to inhibit the growth and destroy the cells through apoptosis.

 http://www.health-science.com/breast_cancer.html

The receptors occupied by natural progesterone from what I have read prevent the oestrogen from linking to the same receptors. So it follows that high oestrogen levels can alter the cells adversely and reducing the oestrogen levels can do the reverse.

Uterine fibroids, which is what we used this logic to address appear to respond to reducing the oestrogen levels and increasing the progesterone levels, just as John Lee M.D said it would. We have taken care to avoid oestrogen rich foods and therefore pomegranate is a known phyto-oestrogen so logically we avoided it. However, there are many reports saying the reverse, yet I have not found case histories, whereas I did find case histories with the natural progesterone.

Fibroids also vanish when post menopause and post menopause starves the body of oestrogen and increases progesterone.

Oestrogen hormone replacement therapy has been indicated to increase the risk of breast cancer. 


Farm Fresh Foods for asparagus 0.89p for a portion with no waste and around 2x larger than the fresh portions.

[OldDragon (OP)]

Karen, I can certainly empathise with you and the restrictions that health conditions impose. I get good days and bad, and at all positions along the see-saw! Some days I can manage to walk as far as the horses field and back, if I take things steadily, other days I'm struggling to get from here to the bathroom, which is on the ground floor. When mobile, I can get upstairs, but coming down can be more of a challenge.

Today I am feeling good. Managed to do some of the stretching exercises given me by a physiotherapist, but can't yet get the full range with my left arm. I just do these slowly and gently but repeat them a couple of times an hour when at the PC. Sometimes I can hear the joints cracking out loud. I do similar things with my legs, too.

I don't need either of my inhalers at the moment, but will once there's more grass pollen around. Tree pollen's over now for this year, thank goodness.

There is a challenge on now for charity and part of that involves the members guessing my weight and that of my opponent, so I can't post that here yet, but I will say that I had a shock when they weighed me at the chemists today. I went in for batteries for m scales but they had none, but stepped in as there's this charity challenge involved. They have a little consulting room there.

I also got a great deal on a blood pressure monitor, so I am just waiting for my son to get me a lump of wood and incline my sofa - and find my shorts so that I can expose my varicose veins - and I'll be ready to go for the trail that Andrew is doing. I look on that as a positive challenge and in a similar way to lots of others I do, it's just for a different reason or cause. Might as well do something that I can do instead of sitting around thinking about the things I can't. I also belong to various other groups where I can get involved, and have interests in common. Okay, so many are online now, but it doesn't matter. It gets me out of dwelling in me, even if not always out of the house. What I lack physically now, I try and make up for with mental agility games that are of the nature I can manage easily - then push myself to tackle the next player and so on. It doesn't have to cost anything, but usually those of us who play put up some small stake for a good cause, and feel better for doing that. I usually make things, and there are others involved who even use off-cuts from what I make to produce things like cat toys to send to cat rescues. We have lots of fun doing in, feel better for doing so, it involves others too, and we pass on the benefit to something we want to support. All are winners, and that's positive. Another of the groups I belong to supports a respite care centre for terminally ill children, and for that I simply pot up spare plants - sometimes just into yoghurt pots or paper cups - and those either go to a lady up the road who sells them to her launderette customers, with them putting the money into a collection box for that cause or, if mobile enough, I take some down to their charity shop in town.

We have other members who can do little more than perhaps research quiz questions and answers either from books or on the net. Those are then used in quizzes with the prizes that various people make or buy and donate going to wherever winners nominate, and depending upon the people and prizes concerned. It's easy to adapt accordingly and I know I get more pleasure and positivity from it than I put in. That just seems to flow in - but often faster than I can put it out! Lol

Yes, I get periods when I feel lousy, and have to swallow my pride and ask friends and relations for help with things. Yes, it goes against the grain to do so, but it teaches me a lot in the process about myself. Also to feel grateful and appreciative of what others do for me when I can't.

Sometimes the easy bit is giving and the hardest of all accepting what is given to me. For example, that daft old Wildcat Team mate having sat around here half the night, bless him. Gave me a great opportunity to enjoy some roast butt and aged beefcake on a plate when I managed to catch up with him napping at his office desk earlier. I might be wrecked, but I'm not dead yet! Lol Perhaps now he will trust my dogs? (But we have another member on here who could prove useful for something positive as a result.)

That reminds me, I'd best check up on something here for work before I forget - my memory can be terrible, but some things I don't forget. Until it became too difficult to travel a distance on a reliable basis and I felt I had to quit, I was working voluntarily with offenders and in a couple of HMPs. I loved the work, and still keep my hand in a little. However, sometimes the offenders are just playing games and putting me to the test. I need to deal with one of those now. Just a little research before I plan my strategy and commit it to memory, you understand?

As soon as I can without throwing a spanner in the works for another forum's challenge, I'll 'fess-up' my weight on here. No qualms at all. But I am so looking forward to my next challenge that I'll let you share in it...

The Dragon's Fire Challenge - I've been waiting years to get into a position to play this fellow, and not just because he once blew up one of my computers either. Lol This is my 'Olympic Challenge' and I'm going for gold! Lol Win or lose, I am really going to enjoy this one.

Andrew...

This is all fascinating to me. The mass they found at the time I had my hysterectomy was fibroids, and I'm hormone receptive apparently. Although I still have one oviary, surely that must be past producing anything - or would it still do so because encysted? I had a mare some years ago with cystic oviaries and she was constantly in season and looking for the stallion, even though surely that should only happen after the egg follicle has been released at its maturity? We always used to try the mares with the stallion three days after they first came into season, then on the fifth day. However, mares known to have cystic oviaris were the nymphomanics of the equine world. Why, I wonder? Hormones? (Lol - Do I need a cold shower?)

Must find out how near our nearest Farm Fresh place is. I really do love asparagus. I was once told, when in the Evesham/Pershore area where a lot is grown, that it is akin to oysters as an aphrodisiac. Trying to recall what I was doing then and when not feasting on the stuff.. working my butt off, I expect, as all students were on peacework rates and built up quite a thirst in the fields.

[Karen W.]

It sounds like you are keeping very busy.. thats good.. I sometimes fail at that.. had some bad depression.. which has not helped.. I start to feeling better then wham!! Back down again.. like someone lowered the boom... I love to sew and have not been able to do so for awhile.. with all the stress and crap happening... I am slowly working my way back to that and have taken steps to get there.
I have an apron project that I need to finish for a preschool friend... I believe she is donating them...

I like art projects but am having difficulty completeing my projects ... I work on them little by little!

I am hoping that I get them finished soon. I really need to hurry up.. as they are important to me to get completed.

I am sorry that things have been so rough for you.. too. I am glad to hear about all you are accomplishing despite the difficulties .. You are amazing! Thank you so much for posting here.. Its just exactly what I needed ... You are wonderful motivation... THank you for sharing so much of yourself here in Our forum.. I respect your determination and stamina to pick yourself up and keep going.. well done!

[OldDragon (OP)]

Karen, I can recall a time prior to an original diagnosis of CFS/sero negative poly arthropathy, and when my SI joint was still locked up into the wrong position after the accident - it took about 12 years for that to be discovered! - that I was on some 26 assorted pills a day, including anti-depressants.

I was so 'down' that I used up any remaining energy planning the best way to get off the planet. The trouble is, I was born contrary and with a question on my tongue, and if I feel that I am right about something when someone far more qualified in the matter than I am is wrong, then I will take them on until one or other of us is proven right.

I did not believe that I was clinically depressed, but psychologically so. The latter, given a chance and clear head, I knew I could deal with, and if permitted to try. I'll let you decide if I was right.

That challenge nearly beat me though, and as I beat my head against a wall trying to get through to various doctors, and I came literally millimetres away from killing myself - and it was not a cry for help. I'd been asking for the right help for a few years by then but somehow failing to communicate properly with the doctors concerned. It was only catching the expression in one of my dogs eyes that stopped me on the point of no return, kicked my rational brain in its tender parts, and I started to think that if I could put so much energy into negative, destructive thoughts and actions, then perhaps I could turn that effort  and energy into positive thought and action. Bring on the challenges!

Frustration and anger are manifestations of fear. By identifying my own root fears and facing them, and then conquoring them by addressing all the little things that contributed to them, one at a time and as and when able, I am gradually moving a mountain and seeing the benefits - even if only a teaspoonful, or a pill-sized portion at a time. Lol

I was lucky. I had people around me who knew me, and what I am capable of, and one of them even attended doctor's appointments with me while I challenged the need for this or that drug, or questioned this or that diagnosis. I was off my head much of the time from both pain and the effects of all the medication, and that pal was present as much to protect the doctor from me as me from myself! Lol

I can laugh now, but it was horrendous at the time, and my behaviour appalling. (My language even worse!)

Doctor's don't take kindly to being told to 'take the cotton wool out of their 'so-and-so' ears, shove it into their mouths and to learn to listen', believe me! They do not like having boxes of medication dumped back on their desks because it's the same junk as they'd previously prescribed and that I knew to be causing more problems that it was helping. And they most certainly do not like being addressed as Dr. God! (And that is only a fraction of the whole from that period - I was NUTS! Probably still am, but I'm not dangerous today... just for today.)

It's been my experience that we all respond or react to others in the manner they respond or react towards us. If we listen to our emotions and use the information we receive from them to identify what it is that may be disturbing us to good effect, we can take back control when we feel that has been lost, and have the tools at our disposal to recognise that we are powerless over the first THOUGHT but not over the second. We don't have to act on the first thought, but have the choice to replace it with a better one.

For example, when facing an arrogant doctor who wasn't listening, instead of automatically reacting on my first though, and with my own arrogance and anger (because I was afraid of the medication and its effect on me), it was possible to act on a second more assertive, less aggressive, thought. If the doctor concerned wasn't so far up himself as to be beyond reach, then the result was much improved, discussion and a furthering of the learning process achieved.

I changed doctors several times, and until my emotions were telling me I'd one with whom I could communicate in a manner of mutual respect. That even if that doctor admitted openly that he didn't have the knowledge I sought but would try to find out more and work with me, rather than attempt to control the uncontrollable!

I felt as if my present one was willing to work with me and allow me to try doing some of the things I wanted to do with my medications because of the combined side effects. In MY CASE, that was to come off as much of it as possible and starting with the anti-depressants. I was convinced I didn't need them and that they were causing more problems than they were addressing. I needed control of my rational head back before I did something either stupid or dangerous and that could have had me locked up, in one place or another.

In all, it was a heck of a cocktail of drugs that I was taking, including opioids on which I was hallucinating but that weren't addressing the pain they'd been prescribed for. With the exception of the inhalers, I was soon down to taking just a single low dose codeine phosphate in the mornings to help control the IBS, and a salicylic acid based anti-inflammatory three times a day. The latter worked, but was still in too high a dose, as I was covered in bruises. With the help of the doctor, I tried other NSAIDs but finally chose to opt for common aspirin and to monitor its effects and dosage for myself, as required to manage inflammation on the principle that less is more. That didn't upset my stomach or affect my cognitive ability. I felt my fears letting go.

With the aspirin working reasonably, I was able to look at what might, in my diet, be affecting the IBS, and now it's only very rarely that I need to medicate for that, but can manage it with diet.

At last. I could actually start to 'feel' my body working again and listen to what it was telling me I needed, not what someone else thought it needed. Once off so much unnecessary medication, my ability to communicate my needs or concerns to the doctor improved, too, as did my attitude - but I don't always get it right. I do, however, feel as I have a lot more control over managing and living with my conditions, and that helps me to feel more positive all around.

I honestly believe that much of the problems I've experienced over the past six weeks or so have come about because of the effects of having to cease the aspirins and allow yet another cocktail of assorted medications attempt to deal with everything that's happened to my body during that time. My own natural body chemistry is still haywire, and well out of control, although I do feel as if I'm beginning to make some progress toward getting things back on track. There are some things I know that I can't manage without, others I know that I must. We are all different. What works for one, won't for another.

As for art and craft projects, I don't have to tackle a large, long term project. Just making a dog lead or collar that takes me only five minutes instead of a coat that might take half or three-quarters of an hour, is fine. It is still one small bit of mountain shifted from 'raw materials' to 'finished product', and there's a mountain of webbing here! Lol

It's the boost from seeing that little bit of progress that provides the positive little highs which build up a good reserve for emergencies. Parcels packed and into the post bag are done one at a time, and each one is another positive high. If I looked at the whole lot at once, I'd feel daunted and nothing would get done! (Just as it doesn't if on too much medication. Lol )

If I want the little highs to keep me topped up, then I can have them paced suitably and a little bit at a time, so as not to overload myself.

Obviously there are many differences between us and what we each have to do or take for our conditions to be managed, but I'd suggest you don't look at the differences, look at the similarities instead. Build on or adapt any that you think are right and suitable for you.

Positives come in small packages for a good reason - they can better fill holes.

[Karen W.]

*tears*... Thank you for your words tonight...

[grumpy old mare]

Old dragon, I wonder if you have any idea how often you have helped me (and, I'm sure, others on the TRPD forum) to get my act together and look at the many many positive things in my life instead of the couple of really rather minor problems! And the funny thing is - once you start feeling better because of concentrating on all the positive stuff, the other problems do become 'smaller' and/or just not (very) important!

(I started a few years ago on the other forum for which the old dragon makes the leads etc., when my back was still quite bad,  - and it has helped me through many bad times by keeping me company and letting me do something positive and worthwhile, therefore not feeling so bl*&*y useless anymore)

[OldDragon (OP)]

And the amazing thing is, that forum is MEMBER RUN and has NO MODERATORS! Everyone who joins for the right reasons, and has a desire to support its aims and primary purpose, and who turn the desire into action and become more deeply involved according to their personal circumstances, time available etc., gets more out of it than they bargained for and in ways they never imagined! Lol

That being the case, people who know it and me through it, will understand when I say that everyone gets out of it to the degree they put in and often three fold!

If the same principles and (lack of) management structure were put in place on behalf of any other positive and worthy cause anyone would care to mention and that its supporters wanted to benefit, it could work just as well.

It's all so simple at basic level that so many miss it, and yet it caters for all, regardless of age between 13 and as old as we get; ability/disability; race/ethnicity/nationality and so on.

What's more, it has grown as a result of a handful of groups created for the purpose of psychological study back in 1971, and that simply refused to disband after the study wa completed!

Did I say completed? Who am I kidding? It's like a mushroom or a triffid - spreads everywhere, even here on TNS forum there seem to be at least four or five - no, six now - members who are now both TRPD & TNS members as well.

Who was it said (Triune) psychology wasn't a science? Then again, it is also an Art, surely? Indeed, it's all things to all people and whatever they choose to make of it, and it will work if they work it.

Whatever, I think it works great for me, an I'm still here - if not all there.

[OldDragon (OP)]

How are you doing, Karen? I have been thinking of you. Trying to send you some of my surplus positive energy.

Had a great laugh this morning. Having predicted that those two fellows who had teamed up and from opposing Wolf and Wildcat teams would get fleas off each other, sure enough one of them felt a tickle on his leg this morning and discovered a real, live flea! LOL

He had to head off to the local vet's for stuff to treat his dogs with - and that meant putting his hand in his pocket, too. Oh, the pain!

Good to have the opposition on the run, and have a meeting shortly with my team mate for the challenge. There's life in the old dragon yet.

[Karen W.]

I am here.. Had not slept for a couple days and was Kinda wiped out yesterday again.. and no sleep again last night.. am still going with no sign of sleep.. I have horrible heartburn.. but I think whilst trying to get some sleep in my chair I laid back to soon and my Doxycycline got the better of my throat or esophagus!

Fleas are the pits..  Hope you did not get bit!

How was your meeting?

[OldDragon (OP)]

So sorry to hear that you are having difficulties sleeping, Karen. I can empathise very closely with you in that respect at present. Over the last 4 nights I have only had sleep during one of them. My body feels wiped out, and yet my brain doesn't seem at all fogged.

It does, however, appear to be having an effect on the amount of blood and plasma being drawn out through the drain that I STILL have in situ 19 days after my  last operation. It was supposed to have been removed today. The specialist nurse at the hospital asked me to ask the district nurse to remove it, and to check back to her if necessary. (I don't think they trust me at all, somehow!) Because the fluids had doubled on yesterday's output of 40ml (after I had had some sleep) to 80 ml today, after a sleepless night, the nurse refused without checking. All she could get was the answerphone, so I am still stuck with this infernal drain!

My back is once again sending me signals that tend to precede the onset of those horrendous muscle spasms, and I would so desperately like to run a deep, warm bath and sink into that to try that way to settle it down, but can't with the drain still in situ! I have now threatened to remove it myself, as something feels very wrong, considering I've not been physically overdoing things and even have the affected arm supported as I use the keyboard to avoid any repetitive actions from the elbow up. Getting to feel a bit like a caged bear now, so those lads can look out tomorrow in that challenge, as it won't be a plague of fleas they'll be facing then if this keeps up, but an old dragon with a bear's sore head on its shoulders! Lol (That's either if I get some sleep or not and, if the latter, I can stay awake!) Could be I'll only be fit enough to sit back and let my defensive playing partner do all the work. Nothing like throwing them in at the deep end to force them to learn to swim!

I think it is only that challenge, and the preparation etc., that is holding me back now from either removing the drain myself or removing someone's head verbally. Have about 30 hours left now before I can legitimately remove a couple of heads and rearrange them in the challenge, but hoping that perhaps someone might manage to rearrange mine too in the process! lol Would much prefer NOT to take a grizzly bear's head into the challenge, if it can be helped. (That  even if I have more the body of a bear well prepared for hibernation,  than the sleek physique of a lythe, darting dragon. )

Oh, well, I live in hope.

[Karen W.]

Sorry they were unable to remove the drain. I always hated those things! Yes the no sleep thing can be killer, I am tired I just cannot get to sleep!.. Maybe later. I have been getting in the position around *:00 pm in the evenings and trying to concentrate on sleep but nothing works consistently and well. and what may work one time will not always work the next time so its certainly a battle!.. I would like a really warm bubble bath but my tub stinks and is tiny and uncomfortable and one in it is difficult for me to get out of that flat on the floor position!

Anyway a big hot tub could possibly aid the sleep thing... My old hot tub is history ... and I don't have a the money to buy a new one! LOL..
I need a shoulder replacement but am not a candidate for one due to weight illness and heart stuff.. etc... so like you my shoulder is real bad... Is your shoulder damaged from accident or the cancer?
I get a lot of the between the shoulder blade pain with mine but not spasms back there unless my arm blows out again then the spasms seem to go from fingers clear into my back and shoulder blades.

I hope you heal fast!

[OldDragon (OP)]

Such a killer, I agree, Karen, and I still haven't slept! I was nearly there earlier and drifting away when someone hammered the door in that urgent sort of way people do when something like the horses have escaped and are galloping up the main road. Of course, I shot up, the back had a minor spasm, I tripped, stubbed my toe, turned the air a virulent shade of blue, and by the time I reached the door the salesman for the (presumably) double glazing company wa about five houses on up the road... Lucky him!

Since then the back's been playing havoc and a friend has brought down her husband's vibrating heat pad, which I am now sitting against. Hoping it will ease things enough to stop it getting any worse until I can do something more to deal with it.

I think the drain tube has probably stuck to me inside the wound as that's healing, and it is likely that which is pulling as I move and causing the fresh blood and plasma that is now increasing instead of decreasing. With it being stitched in, it can't be turned or manipulated a bit to stop that.

My shoulder joint is arthritic, but not badly so, and it was the accident in 1991 that kicked off the original spinal damage, but the SI joint was locked up at that time, then not spotted for twelve years. By that time I'd been complaining about feeling as if I'd one leg longer than the other and sitting uneven when riding the horse (on the times I could mangage to do that) for years and was just being told I've some sort of curvature higher up and needed to improve my postture. It was a physiotherapist who found the problem, and actually freed it but, of course, after so long like it, all hell broke out then much further up the spine, Guess I'd had years of the vertebrae trying to repair bone that had worn and fill up wider gaps in the thoracic region. Now it's probably busy wearing out bits it's built and fraying the nerve endings and goodness knows what besides. I was able to do exercises that helped prior to the last op, but can't get the full extension to do them yet and since. It almost feels as if the wrong bits are connected, but probably just healing scar tissue from where all the nodes were taken.

[SIMike]

A little peace offering, perhaps?

newbielink:http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/jefferson_airplane/comin_back_to_me.html [nonactive]

[OldDragon (OP)]

I don't know about coming back to you, but thankfully, my head is coming back to me... thought I'd lose it, if not quite the plot, yesterday.

Not a pretty sight at the best of time, but a headless old dragon is truly a grotesque sight to behold! Lol

I recall a Drugs and Alcohol Misuse Seminar back in '93, and a certain Irish guitarist's conversation with the organisers. They hadn't a clue what he was talking about, and I have to admit it was an education for me hearing what they had to say, and how little they had heard of what that musician had shared with them.

I have a link to a piece he then wrote following that and which may prove interesting reading for any health professionals or interested parties here: OBSERVATIONS MADE AT AN ALCOHOL AND DRUGS SEMINAR - 7.10.93

He makes points, and in most colourful language, that could hold clues for me as to why I have so much trouble communicating with some of the people trying to help me through the cancer at this present time. However, I think they are beginning to get the picture now, and after the last few days of sharing with them just where my head is after only 4 hours or so of sleep on one night from the last six, and also just what I meant, way back before the first operation, when I said that I was more concerned about the effect of whatever was to come regarding the impact of the cancer treatment on my back, than I was about the cancer itself!

Yes, cancer is a serious, life threatening disease, I am not in denial of that and I do take what is said to me seriously, and however many humorous comments I might make - but MY cancer is only a threat to ME.

My back condition - and the effects that can have on my system, plus the many areas it impacts on in my life, and when  given my past medical history, level of training and life experiences (very little exposed here to date) - makes dealing with my back several levels  higher as a priority when it come to a threat to life!

I don't need a smoking gun in my hands to kill. I don't even need to raise my right fist to do that. There is more than one way to die, believe me.

Words don't even need to appear as blood on the page or screen to kill and it is not only the pen that is mightier than the sword. The voice alone can gut a man, even a man one loves, given the knowledge of how to do that and the opportunity and skills to be able to put him back together again slightly rearranged and to the advantage of all concerned.

I'm a woman, but I'm still here after the same experience, and thankfully, no damage done to anyone in the process.

My drain is out now, and I could not believe how much of that plastic tubing was coiled up inside my oxter! Around 9" - 10" of it!

Off now for a long soak and a sleep before that old limo with comfy cushions arrives to take me into battle again. Alas, I do like my comfort these days, and even an eighteen years old Mercedes worth under £500 beats James Bond's Aston Martin any day of the week for me.

'Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.'

[Karen W.]

Such a killer, I agree, Karen, and I still haven't slept! I was nearly there earlier and drifting away when someone hammered the door in that urgent sort of way people do when something like the horses have escaped and are galloping up the main road. Of course, I shot up, the back had a minor spasm, I tripped, stubbed my toe, turned the air a virulent shade of blue, and by the time I reached the door the salesman for the (presumably) double glazing company wa about five houses on up the road... Lucky him!

Since then the back's been playing havoc and a friend has brought down her husband's vibrating heat pad, which I am now sitting against. Hoping it will ease things enough to stop it getting any worse until I can do something more to deal with it.

I think the drain tube has probably stuck to me inside the wound as that's healing, and it is likely that which is pulling as I move and causing the fresh blood and plasma that is now increasing instead of decreasing. With it being stitched in, it can't be turned or manipulated a bit to stop that.

My shoulder joint is arthritic, but not badly so, and it was the accident in 1991 that kicked off the original spinal damage, but the SI joint was locked up at that time, then not spotted for twelve years. By that time I'd been complaining about feeling as if I'd one leg longer than the other and sitting uneven when riding the horse (on the times I could mangage to do that) for years and was just being told I've some sort of curvature higher up and needed to improve my postture. It was a physiotherapist who found the problem, and actually freed it but, of course, after so long like it, all hell broke out then much further up the spine, Guess I'd had years of the vertebrae trying to repair bone that had worn and fill up wider gaps in the thoracic region. Now it's probably busy wearing out bits it's built and fraying the nerve endings and goodness knows what besides. I was able to do exercises that helped prior to the last op, but can't get the full extension to do them yet and since. It almost feels as if the wrong bits are connected, but probably just healing scar tissue from where all the nodes were taken.

I hate when that happens!! It is lucky he was gone! LOL.... I have gotten where I don't answer if I am trying to sleep cause its just so hard to get back in that mode.. I usually go pile my bed with pillows sit myself up if its daytime lock front door turn on TV in living room so it is some noise.. then go in shut my bedroom doors close the blinds and sit in the darkened room with my head and shoulders up and my arm propped to avoid pain then I don't move short of a fire or emergency! especially if I finally feel lucky! YAYYYYYY! the TV
 and shutting the door and my apnea machine all seem to help with hearing the door usually!

I am glad they pulled your tube.. and you had a bath! Yayyyyy!
That must feel better.

My shoulder has really bad arthritus but more trouble with a few muscle tears and damage from an old injury! It has moved down covering the area of my shoulder rotator cuff with bone spurs from hell down into my elbow and wrist and hand causing the left side of my hands and three fingers to tingle and get numb regularly!,, I need a shoulder replacement so says the Osteo surgeon...

I am sorry about your shoulder we share that pain and lack of mobility and extension their.. It effects more then the arm though the shouler blades etc.. as you know..

I wish that the surgery had helped you more, but the nature of these kind of things can be as such and sometimes help a lot but do not relieve it altogether..

I had a bit of sleep but am pretty tired today!  Wish I had more energy.. blood pressure ids low and am just tired.. I hope you are ok from lasts  challenges... I am thinking of you and wish you good thoughts!

Hugs,

Karen

 

[OldDragon (OP)]

(((Hugs))), Karen.

Will be thinking of you when all the positive energy starts really powering-up later on, and doing my best to send you as much as I can and that you may need. No promises because, as I am sure you realise, the 'Old Dragon' is no real shamaness, it's just a role I play in the game - but who knows, perhaps a little bit of the magic of role-play and the music really can make a difference?

I would like to think so.

BTW, my surgery wasn't to address any arthritic shoulder problems, but because my breast cancer had spread into the lymph nodes under my arm. My next appointment's with the oncologist and early in July. Looking like a three-fold attack on he cancer front and with chemo, radiotherapy and hormone treatments. I have great faith in the power of 3 - me being involved with Triune/TRPD anyway. Lol

[OldDragon (OP)]

Just to let you know that, thanks to a superlative performance on the part of the newly named 'Natural Born Dragon', we wiped out the opponents in an all-time record time of 4 minutes 57 seconds! YES! Bring 'em on! Lol

It took considerably longer to put their bits back together again, and slightly rearranged, as per requirements.

The Wolves' team's Shaman was presented as Mr. Mincemeat on a plate to his thrilled and grateful wife, who declared herself (I think) to be 'around the moon', but even if her native tongue predominated, it was clear she she'd no complaints, even if her 'Cooks and Crooks Group' hubby was looking decidedly sheepish after the battle.

Stoned Indian Mike (SIMike here) just managed to fess-up in defence of Mr Mincemeat in time to avoid becoming Catgut, and had to enter the battle ground as 'Ghost Warrior' (aka Dead Man Walking) and having come out of retirement to play with a band of other rejects from the music world, proved himself worthy of acclaim as one of the band members of Dead Men Walking - and what an inspiration and tribute to survival those guys were last night. Were it not for the talents they wasted in the gutter during youthful insanity, they would be up with the best of those surviving decades at the top of the industry. I have to fess-up, I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes just watching and listening to them play. If I'd been wearing  cap I'd have thrown it on stage to you all.

The Natural Born Dragon and his Princess Amirah asked me to formally announce their engagement and to bless that after the battle challenge, too, and I am happy to say I was delighted to do so and that I am still...  the Old Dragon.

Seems as if a good night was had by all.

[Karen W.]

(((Hugs))), Karen.

Will be thinking of you when all the positive energy starts really powering-up later on, and doing my best to send you as much as I can and that you may need. No promises because, as I am sure you realise, the 'Old Dragon' is no real shamaness, it's just a role I play in the game - but who knows, perhaps a little bit of the magic of role-play and the music really can make a difference?

I would like to think so.

BTW, my surgery wasn't to address any arthritic shoulder problems, but because my breast cancer had spread into the lymph nodes under my arm. My next appointment's with the oncologist and early in July. Looking like a three-fold attack on he cancer front and with chemo, radiotherapy and hormone treatments. I have great faith in the power of 3 - me being involved with Triune/TRPD anyway. Lol

Thanks Old Dragon but the way I see it good energy is good no matter Who or where it comes from.. Thanks so much!

I wish you the best and was aware of that. I wish you lots of good energy also.. Just keep up the faith and be strong.. you can do it if anyone can.. you are an inspiration to others , so don't ever stop being an inspiration to yourself.. I don't know you, but from what I do know.. you are a remarkable human being!! Hugs!

[OldDragon (OP)]

Karen, whatever you might think of me, you need to know the people behind me and who originally challenged me to offer my still-living body for medical research on here.  [] I wouldn't be here at all today, were it not for them - and not just on one occasion have they picked this wreck of a body up and kicked it back onto the rails. In truth, I have lost count of the number of times they have done it, or in how many ways, and recharged me with huge doses of positivity.

So what if they tease me over a multitude of failings and shortcomings, even having renamed me 'Dead Woman Talking' - and there was some controversy over whether that should have been 'Dead Woman STILL B****Y Talking' - I know exactly what they are doing and what they really feel. The only time they tell me to shut up is when it's delivered along the lines of: 'FFS take the cotton wool out of your ears, shove it in your mouth and LISTEN!'  [] That's when I take notice. (Although, being a little hard of hearing, they sometimes have to repeat themselves a few times for the message to penetrate. I am sure language is a science, you know... []  []

I had the same problems as a child at school, with listening skills, and seemingly at either end of a see-saw. It got me into a lot of trouble, one way or another.

I went to a church school prior to secondary school, and once, when very young, asked what one teacher meant when she said 'Suffer little children who(instead of 'to')come unto me.' and when supposedly quoting from the bible.

I guess she was having a bad day, for the next thing I knew, I'd been dragged out of the classroom and into the area where there were the little wash basins, and was having my mouth forceably washed out with carbolic soap and while held over a sink kicking and gurgling!... But there's nothing wrong with teachers, of course, they represent authority, don't ya know. [] (And that's likely only one of the early examples of an element of PTSD that I can still recall at times... 'I'll teach you to question MY authority!' are words that I often hear ringing in my ears at the strangest of times, even today, some fifty years on. 

I couldn't answer her back at the time, one can't when choking and gagging on a bar of soap, but yes, she DID teach me to question authority. For that I thank her rotten corpse - unless she's well over a hundred and still fighting to prove her own immortality, that is? [] Just the scent of carbolic can bring that memory to the front of my mind - but nowadays I can deal with that one rationally. It doesn't stop me in my tracks, rigid with fear - and no, that's not the one that got me into a survivor's group. These things can build on each other for years and suddenly something else, some other trauma occurs, and it just tips the balance. I was lucky, the right people were in the right place at the right time - and they are the ones that taught me to deal, and not just cope, with these things. To face fear and recover, or keep suffering - and that IS optional, Karen. []

I'm only sharing with you what I learned from some of the people still alive and playing in those thrown together band the other night. Some of the drummers are ex-military guys who have been through far worse than I have and are much more physically disabled than me, with more acute PTSD to deal with and that has wrecked their lives and that of their families in some cases BUT if ever you need to draw in some positive energy, just try listening to some really good military drumming and you'll find yourself marching along with it.

As for that other band, we only to have to watch the decline of some of the present day, very talented people in the music industry and the media reports surrounding them, to grasp where those old guys are coming from, and to realise what they have achieved simply by being still around and capable of climbing onto a stage, let alone as well as they did! Every one of them knows they are a dead man walking, and that is a lot of miracles on one little stage. Proves miracles can happen, I reckon, and that gives me HOPE, I don't know about you?

It'll let another secret out of the bag here too. There have been times in my life that I have been afraid I'd lose hope and give in, so I had a symbol of Hope tattooed onto my left upper arm, and a good few years ago now, just so that I couldn't lose it!  [] Better that than superstions about wearing odd pairs of trainers or lucky socks which have long fallen into holes, as a certain Mr. Mincemeat has now realise won't save him from the Old Dragon in a challenge.  [] His wife is still declaring herself 'around the moon' at his transformation, and he's getting used to his new clothes. So much so, that he's been entertaining kids with his own version of the fairy story about the 'Emperor's New Clothes' today... Can't help wondering what the next Am-Dram pantomime will turn out to be, but I could hazard a guess!  []

Grab yourself a picture of rainbow, Karen, pin it on the wall to look at whenever you need to, and who knows what magic can happen.  []

[OldDragon (OP)]

I won't be around much later today - in hospital as a day patient while they fill me up with radioactive dye and scan my bones... Well the dark bits are the old bones, and the light bits the regenerated bone growth... Next they will be telling me I am riddled with arthritis because they have somehow lost that info from my medical records, I suppose?

Had one doc once ask me what I took for it after an x-ray on either a foot or a hand, I can't recall which? Told him aspirin when I needed anything. He looked a bit odd at that, so asked if he thought my jaw might improved if I chewed it straight from willow bark or something. He said the thought my jaw got enough exercise, as it was already well worn out from yakking... No, that last bit's a fib... a psychologist pal told me that bit. [] The 'real' doc didn't have an answer, so just reached for the prescription pad and gave me some opioid based pills instead. The effect wore off after three days and as my body got used to them, and when the dose doubled, still with no effect, my system just ejected the junk.