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Patty and StephN,
Thank you for replying so we are now connected.
Patty, I am so sorry to hear that you have lost so many friends so quickly. Am I surprised that I am still here, I ask myself. "Somewhat." is the answer. I believe that as long as there is something useful for me to learn about myself in order to be more useful to others, I will be hanging here. My GP who makes home visits (can you say that in the US these days?) pointed out to me something written about me by another doctor on the multi-disciplinary team. It said he thought that I might be around for quite some time because of my attitude.
Every day brings more of a sense of gently losing ties with this domain and building ties with the next one. I would not trade places with anyone. As you can gather I am doing just as well as anyone who has submitted to all the available treatments and I dare say I feel just as good or maybe even better. There was never a sense of being let down or short-changed due to circumstances. In fact it was a miracle that I was even in the UK when I was diagnosed because if not for my husband having pushed us to come here when we did, for reasons which have nothing to do with health concerns (I was in perfect health at that time - Aug 2002) I might well have been up the creek without a paddle living in a country where there is no national health service and not much to commend the facilities and treatments available.
Living in the UK instead of the US makes a big difference in what is available and how it is paid for. I am a UK citizen and most everything is already paid for and the rest I was able to apply for in terms of funding.; ie meds, treatments, diagnostics, etc. But as you have probably heard, having this kind of system means that some drugs (herceptin is in the spotlight these days) are not available to anyone unless (terms and conditions change)...blah blah blah.
I have emailed Joe a photo of me and hope he will be able to attach it here. All the best for a good day for each of you. It is 4am here so I will go back to bed for a while. Eccles
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