newly diagnosed

Hi Lee & Deb,

I hope you are both doing well. We think of you both often...

Best regards,
Wade & Kerri

Hi Turtle,

Really good to hear your second cycle went better than the first.  Information from forum members have helped me a lot to get through the whole treatment thing.

I bought B6 at the local Walgreens -- Finest is the brand, B6 100 mg per tablet. I started taking B6 last Friday.  I am also planning to take L-glutamine as recommended by forum members (the NP did not have any objections).  NP also mentioned acteyl L-carnitine -apparently UM did a small trial not sure what the results were.

I'm getting my Neulasta shot this afternoon.  My husband is pretty good at it now, once he's learned to slow down the injection rate.  With increasing cycles I noticed that I had more of the head grog/fog -- I can't tell whether it's from the chemo drugs/dexamethasone/Neulasta.  I've been trying to stay mentally active -- reading different types of articles .... (in addition to BC and science).  Really don't want to get the long term cognitive deficits that have been associated with chemo.
 
The weather here fluctuates quite a bit -- last couple of days it's in the 60s. But we had snow fall before then.  The area is notorious for some serious spring blizzards.  I can see the spring bulbs coming up.  I bought a whole bunch of bulbs and perennials to plant in April.  I love the Aurelian lilies (these are the ones that grow to > 6ft and have an incredible subtle fragrance) except for the fact that the squirrels keep digging them up and eating the bulbs -- we have to build squirrel cages around them, even then only 50% survive the planting.

Take care,

Lee

The squirrels around my area are so bad, and the damage they do to my bird feeders...my husband got me a BB gun and I shoot them. Got to be a pretty good shot too, but now I feel bad about killing anything. Still, on the days when I'm laying around, I enjoy the birds coming to the feeders, so I broke down and got the gun out again. Hopefully God will forgive me. They are food for some other animal in any case. Circle of life, right?

Hi Wade & Kerri
Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts. It means a lot to know there are people out there that have gone through the same thing.
Lee

i buy the black sunflower seeds which the birds all seem to like, and it's usually not too expensive, but the squirrels don't just eat the food, they destroy the feeders, knocking them to the ground. and meanwhile, we have loads of tasty acorns all over the place...why don't they eat them?

Hi Wade!

I hope you and Kerri are doing well! Is life returning to 'normal' or at least a new normal?? I hope her return to work was uneventful!

Deb

SE Michiganders -- did everyone survive yesterday's tornado - thunderstorm? The tornado touched down just slightly north of us in Dexter -- we were lucky.  The sirens went off, then the lightning, thunder, and hail.  Lots of rain.  We have trees all around us and were afraid that lightning might strike one of them (we had a tree felled by lightning in our backyard some years ago). Tornadoes are scary -- they weren't even predicting them until someone spotted a funnel cloud a few miles away.

Hi Lee,

These storms passed to the north and south of us. We didn't even get any rain to speak of. We are about midway between Detroit and Port Huron, a few miles from Lake St. Clair.

I saw video of the damage last night. Last I heard there were no reported injuries or deaths. Glad to hear you're OK.

Best regards,
Wade

Lee, Wade and DebB,

So glad to hear you all were out of the tornado path.
Hope any other members in that area were also out of the tornado path.

Grateful for today..............Judy

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Lee and Turtle and others,

You may already know the following.    If not, just a FYI.

Taxanes and Vit B6 and Vit B12.
There is a current clinical trial on the use of Vit B6 and Vit B12 to prevent chemo induced peripheral
neuropathy.......study completion in 2013.
Clincial Trial link: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00659269

Know some members feel glutamine is helpful. I am not an expert but it seems there is a lack of
consensus about glutamine. You were planning on speaking with your MD - always advisable.
See article at link: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/7/5/1192.full
Per the article.......note that it was from 2001!    Maybe someone else has more recent info on
glutamine to show your MD.   Don't know if later articles have resolved the question that
glutamine "might protect the tumor from cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy."
"One concern is that glutamine might protect the tumor from the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy. In this small series, we have not noted any decrease in response rate or increase in the relapse rate. Furthermore, we did not note any change in paclitaxel pharmacokinetics with glutamine administration
(data not shown) and unpublished data generated by Pharmaceutical Research Institute in mice confirm
our observation."

RE; carnitine.    The nutritionist that I spoke with thought any benefit of carnitine was in diabetic
neuropathy.
Basically, since the oncology nutritionist that I spoke with recommended only the Vit B6 during taxol
chemo, I only asked my medical oncologist about Vit B6 (and onc said VIt B6 was fine to take and I
did take Vit B6 prior-during-and for one year after taxol chemo.)    Your oncologists may have
other opinions on the glutamine and L carnitine.

With caring and positive thoughts,

Grateful for today...............Judy

Dear Lee,