How are you all doing?

[Susan Biehl]

Hi Ladies,

I hope that everyone gets this email -- I started typing in a few names and google added this address and then I remembered that Nancy used Yahoo, so I searched that and this address came up as well.

I am hoping all is well with you and your circle of family and friends.  It is a really unnerving time and I am so grateful that I live with my daughters who have made a couple of grocery runs, even if what we want is not always there.  However, I know we are very lucky and have more than many out there.

Let us all know how things are going for you and I hope you stay safe and healthy, physically and mentally!

Love to all,

Susan

[Eleanor Burgess]

Susan et al;

So good to hear from you! I certainly think about all of you there in NJ; I am in the florida keys, isolated with my husband. My remaining breast is having a scare; two 6 month followups,

my kids are far flung but they do keep in close touch, and the weather is warm and stores well stocked.  Miami is 50 miles away so the governor is restricting us hugely and we are closed to visitors.  ….but there is only one person with covid in our town.  Hugs and strong quarantinis to you all. elle burgess

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[Nancy Latimer]

Hi Susan and Everyone!

I have been meaning to send you all an email so Susan, thanks so much for starting this. FYI, the address is cancer...@googlegroups.com.  The Yahoo address has not been used in years.

How is everyone doing....it has been such a long time since we have all seen each other or even been in touch. I think of you all often, especially now. My cousin is dealing with a Stage IV diagnosis and I was discussing with her that having cancer or even being a survivor can mean a lifetime of living in a state of off and on anxiety that can come and go or stay permanently, depending upon what is happening at the time. For example, last year I told Dr. Papish I had a cough that was going on for a long time, so I figured he'd send me for a chest x-ray. But no, I had to go for a CT scan. They found a couple of nodules; no worries, but come back in 6 months. They found a larger module; no worries, let's do it again in six months. You ALL know what I am talking about. It puts you on edge, to say the least. Some of you have dealt with this for years and years in much more serious ways, and you know much better than me about the toll it takes on your mental health. And so now I feel like everyone in the entire world understands what that overwhelming, ongoing anxiety is like. Only in some ways this almost seems worse, because at least with the cancer, in many situations though certainly not all, we can do something...anything. With this, there is nothing right now that can be done. It makes everyone feel helpless and without hope. We all know that sometimes the only thing that can keep us going is hope.

So, I try to stay focused on reading the positive things that are happening...the trials of new drugs to treat the virus, the development of a vaccine, the enormous number of very bright minds around the world who are actively working on solving this problem. I consider myself extremely fortunate that my husband, son and I can all work from home, that supporting my teachers and students keeps my mind busy, that we have food to eat and dogs and a backyard. I think about the weeds I need to clean up outside and that will give me a project to do for our "spring break" next week. I'm grateful for Facetime and email and Facebook and all the rest so that our isolation is physical and not all-encompassing. And I am grateful that we in this group are all still here, that we have survived and hopefully we will all survive this, as well.  

Okay.....so everyone, what has been happening in your lives? Elle, please tell us more about what is happening with you. What kind of followups have you been doing? How is everyone else doing? Please fill us in. As for me, my 24-year-old daughter was diagnosed with the same gene that my aunt and I have...PALB2. Greatly increased risk of breast cancer, though not as high as BRCA1/2. Closely related to those genes; they are considering renaming it to BRCA3. After seeing a genetic counselor and a breast surgeon, she is planning on doing a double mastectomy. She has it scheduled for the end of April because she just wants to get it done. I am actually praying they delay it, and I believe they will. Only because I want to be able to be with her and it's hard right now with things at school and not being able to travel and all the rest. Plus I don't want her in a hospital right now and I doubt they are going to do this anyway, as I'm sure it would be considered an elective surgery. I cannot say that I disagree with her about her choice, though. She has had several scares already....really dense tissue, "probably benign", come back in six months.....sounds exactly like my story. So as you can imagine, this scares the hell out of her. She finally was able to get a breast MRI and it was negative, so that gave us some relief. But we don't trust the medical community after what happened to me with all those mammograms and call backs and then ending up with a 5cm tumor and in the lymph nodes. "Oh, didn't see that". UGH. So I support her. I just would like her to wait until I can be there. I think that will probably happen now, ironically. Otherwise, we are doing okay. My younger son (her twin brother) is with us here in NJ. My older son moved to Tampa with his family; he has two little girls now, ages 3 and 1. The 1-year-old plays a pretty mean harmonica, so the videos we get make us laugh. Always so grateful to laugh.

Hey, I was jus thinking that if you guys are interested, we could set up a video call for our group. Let me know if you like that idea and we'll try to get something going. Everyone who drinks should be prepared with a drink in their hand, lol.

I think about you all....I admire your courage, your fortitude, your spirit. We have seen very tough times before, and some of us still continue to deal with them on a daily basis. Our individual strengths combined with our ongoing friendships within this special group will help to pull us through.

Sending you all much love.

xoxo

Nancy

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