Cancer-first week of June

 I actually thought I would be gone by now.  The progress of the cancer seemed pretty aggressive so I thought I had, maybe a month. But here I am. 

I think some people have an idea they might be dying. At least I found that with some people.  You just need to listen.

My mother always joked about what she would do when my father died. Oh me and Mae are going to do  this..and that...  But then one day when my father was telling her where the Military is burying the veterans, she said, Oh you are not leaving me here alone. You are not going first.  This was very unusual for her to say. She was right.

  Another time was, I was telling her about Agnes graduating middle school and she said she would not be here for it. I said Ma, it's only 2 years away. And no, she did not make it. So those are changes to look out for. 

Also, Christmas. My daughters mother in law sent unusual gifts for Christmas. Once I saw that, I knew this was going to be her last Christmas. 

I knew last Christmas would be my last. I almost told my daughter, but  I thought to myself...Rita, why not just ruin Christmas with a big downer like that. 

It seems like your body and or your subconscious mind knows what is going on. There is a change, a knowing.  I think this might happen mostly if you do have a sickness, your body knows it.  

That is just my thoughts on that.  

I still see the hospice nurse once a week, so that has not increased yet.

  My mouth is progressing, my speech is very rough, my daughter understands me the best but it is even hard for her to know what I am saying at times.

Till the next time..........

Cancer -First week of April 2024

When I  asked the cancer doctor, what the survival rate was for this cancer,  stage 4 in a 73 year old woman...she talked fast and said 85%, and continued talking.

What she quoted was stage 1, I know because I researched.  It was something like 13% in my case.  This was only slightly less than the survival rate of this cancer with treatment which was 14%.

She continued with, I have to TRY, telling me we would start  chemo with 3 sessions, once a week. It would take hours in the day and I will lose a lot of weight. I will need a pic (?) which can be inserted in the neck or near the arm pit,  should she order it now? No, not now. 

Next stop the radiologist,  who wanted a 7 week session, 5 days a week.  I will need a stomach tube, since my throat will be useless for weeks, everything affected by cancer will bleed...ect.  It would take months maybe a year to recover from the treatments.

NO ONE SAID, sorry, you are too old to withstand these treatments, your cancer is too advanced.

Next trip back to the cancer doctor for me to tell her I am going to decline treatment all treatments, not doing chemo either. She is upset, I am not even trying. I tell her I am not strong enough to go through these treatments and she said she thought I was a strong woman.

After numerous NO's she finally says, the only thing for her to do is put it in Gods hands.

I liked both these doctors but I felt they did not really, put my best interest first.

I am on Hospice. I get a visit once a week now since I am still in good shape. I can still do everything with out help, my Vital's are still good, I can still swallow and medication is at my fingertips. 

So, we go from here......

a Number of these articles on line..this is one.

Do oncologists get paid commissions for the chemotherapy drugs they prescribe?

These are the old prices and benefits.

The Oncologists never get commissions from the Drug Companies; it is illegal, but they charge each dosage of Chemotherapy $12,000, they receive $5,000 from the insurance company for each dosage and the insurance company pays $7,000 to the Drug Manufacturer.

In this case, it is not called the commission; it is the legal business.

With this Business model, the oncologists become the best protectors of the Pharmaceutical Trust.

If the Doctors and Oncologists find someone that practice Cancer-Cure Without Chemo, they denounce the Practitioner on total egality!!!

You will find that in these conditions the LAW that is more important than the lives of the Patients are thoroughly respected!!!

In some Hospitals, the Hospital charges the Chemotherapies, but the employed oncologists have a substantial Salaries plus a Bonus for each Prescribed Chemo. Dosage.

The independent Scientific Researchers that work on Cancer-Cure without using Chemotherapy get legally killed or suicided, and their Laboratory and their Research Results get destroyed.

In the new future, when the people wak-up and brings this Criminal, inhuman association to the court, The Oncologist will say that "we were not taught that Chemotherapy is Dangerous", while a 2end year student on Chemical or Biological Science can affirm that Chemotherapy melts down the Serotonin stock of the organs and kills immune system.

Infliction of death under the most horrible tortures!!! BUT, legal!!

Flushing High School, NY - 1960's

 I started high school in Sept. of 1965. I had decided I did not want to go to a Catholic high school. I was sick of Nuns, plus our 8th grade nun, Sister Kevin Mary,  was a miserable witch. 

Coming from a small Catholic elementary school to a large public high school was a shock.

You could choose from three courses. Academic, you took this if you were going to go to college to be a teacher ect. Commercial, mainly for office/secretarial work, which I took. And General...I am not sure what that was for. 

I took the bus to school, and walked 3 blocks from the bus stop. The outside of the school was beautiful. My 2 sisters and cousins went there.

I had to get used to changing classes. Sometimes you had a class on the 4th floor, then had only a certain amount of time to change classes, which was impossible if gym was your next glass at basement lvl.A teachers note was required.
If you look up history, it was a very racial time between blacks and whites.  College Point was a white town, so I had no dealings with Black kids since leaving the Bronx. This may sound racist, but this is how it was. There were black girls who would gang up on white girls. I was told, never give a black girl money because she would never leave you alone.

I was sitting in the lunch room with a girlfriend when a couple a black girls came over harassing her for money. She said she didn't have any, but she did give them money in the past. 
They asked me for money and I said no, before going away one of them punched me in the back.
I didn't even realize that is what happened for a few seconds.  My friend left and I sat there finishing my lunch. I guess a boy saw what happened  and came and sat next to me, he said nothing, just sat there.

I did like Art class. I had a very good teacher, Mrs.Tupperman. She was also beautiful. She was tall, wore red a lot, she had blue eyes  and blonde hair she always wore up in a french twist. No boy every cut her class. lol 
I drew a very good picture of a band, like the Beatles because of her. I wish I still had it.

I also loved Stenography, but I was much better reading it than writing it. I liked typing too but back then we only had manual typewriters and it was not easy pressing those keys, especially the pinky keys.

I never had Gym before so this was an experience for me. We had to wear a green one piece jumper, we had a big locker room and we all changed together, This was very hard for me to do. I grew up in a modest house. 
I learned how to dress for gym class. I would wear a half slip under my skirt (we could not wear pants to school) and pull that up over my bra and it would cover me while getting the jumper on.
The first semester we had basketball, I loved it. I was a good enough to be a rover, we won 2 semesters and I had two stripes on my gym uniform.
The next term was gymnastics which I hated and by that point I was cutting school alot.

Most of my teachers were old, probably close to retirement and they had no passion for their work or students. I had one teacher who never once looked at his students, I know because my desk was right in front of him.  
I hated school and did everything I could to avoid it. I cut classes all the time and spent a good amount of time in detention. Instead of going home, you sat in the auditorium doing nothing for a period. How long detention lasted depended on how long you cut.
High school was an 8 hour day and it was rush hour on the way home and dark in the winter. 

My parents knew I was going to quit at 16. My sister Peggy did. My sister Barbara graduated, the first one in the family to Graduate High School.

When writing this post, I just let whatever memories popped into my head. 





 

May 24th

 

Today would have been my anniversary. I would have been married 54 years. Hard to believe.

I was a few months into being 18 and 7 months pregnant. We were supposed to get married after Christmas. We had the marriage license, most of my gifts that Christmas were things I would need in my apartment. I don't know why. maybe laziness,  but we did not get married then and the license expired.

We were just getting married, no fanfare. I didn't even want anyone at the church, just get it over with. We got a new license. 

It was a sunny hot day. I wore a yellow dress, yellow headband, white sandals. Maria , it was her birthday, was my maid of Honor (witness) and Karl was the best man (witness). Peggy didn't listen and came to the church with her kids. We got married inbetween nice weddings so the church was nicely decorated. 

I did not want pictures taken, so there are no pictures of this wonderful event.

That was that. We went home to see my parents then we  went to my father in laws, we were staying there till the apartment was finished. We had to get the stuff out the previous renter had,  and paint. 

My in laws decided we should go to a hotel for the night so they drove us (and paid for) a night at the LaGuardia Hotel or Motel, I don't remember now and it was torn down soon after. We left the next morning. 

So, that was my wedding day.

Did I ever regret not having a big wedding?

No. 

My 2 older sisters and 2 cousins had weddings. All that stress. 

My father said he would give $1,000 to a daughter that did not want a wedding. That was a nice little sum of money back in the 1960s. I was the only one that took him up on it.

potato chips 1950s/60s

 Now when you buy potato chips, they are usually close to the same size and color. 

But years ago you didn't know what you would get when you opened the bag. They would have all different size chips. Small, medium and bigger than medium. lol 

Also you could have a normal looking chip and burnt chips, different shades of brown. 

My sister Peggy liked the burnt chips and I liked the regular ones, so between the two, we would finish a bag and both of us would be happy.  No fights over who gets what chip.

But it was so frustrating to spend your last 10 cents on a bag of chips and open it to find most of them were burnt!

I don't remember if there were a bunch of different flavor chips. I do remember having BBQ chips at some point. I wasn't a big fan of those since the seasoning was not consistent, just like the chip color was not consistent.

As the years went on, the chips you know today, became the norm.  So, think kindly of the old people that were test subjects till they got it right. :D

Baking a cake, 1950's

 My mother used a cake mix. She was not much on baking. We never got a store bought cake, it was made at home. She usually used a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

She would pour the ingredients in her yellow bowl, that was a set of 3, all different sizes.  We did not have an electric mixer. Most people didn't have one at that time. 

On the box it was say, turn 300 times till smooth. You would make a complete turn around the bowl and that would be one turn. You did that 300 times. That's how we mixed a cake.

Years later it would give the Turn instructions and Mixer instructions (mix on high for 3 minutes..ect.) as they became popular and then the Turn instructions were left off eventually.

Once the cake were in the pans and in the oven, the next danger point was no loud noises! A slammed door, running up the stairs ect.  could cause a cake to fall.  It will not rise and the cake will be flat.  You were not supposed to eat a flat cake because it could upset your stomach. 

I remember at least once, running up the stairs into the house and my mother yelling at me as she headed towards the oven  to see the flat cakes. 

You don't have to worry about that now when baking a cake. 

My mother -1922/1981

 Some little facts and about my mother.

Mom with Barbara, Peggy and Johnny. 1940's 

She was the first of two daughters born to Mary and Joe (real first name Patrick).  Her sister was born 2 years later. Her parents separated but got back together when the girls were in their late teens, early twenties. She had blue eyes and dark Auburn hair.

She got her appendix out when she was 16.

She almost died giving birth to her first child and needed blood transfusions. My fathers american indian friend donated blood, so she would always say we have indian blood in us. 

When she was pregnant there was something in her urine that saved babies, so she would pee in a bucket and get paid for it.

She could not ride a bike, swim or drive a car, so she wanted to make sure her daughters could.  When I was 19 she bought me driving lessons for my birthday.

She was waking her husband up for dinner one day, and half asleep, he  swong his fists at her. Ever since then she would tell one of us kids to go in and wake your father. 

She would only go in the backyard pool with a tire inner tube around her waist.

She rarely drank but she would on occasion. 7&7 (whisky&7up) or beer, were a favorite.

She was afraid of birds.

She liked animals, but not in her house. She had 6 kids who at different times, would beg for a dog or cat, but she never gave in. Her favorite saying was, when you have your own house you can have all the animals you want.

I never lived more than a few blocks away from her.

Her inside attire was her house dress with an apron and her leather blue slippers. Out doors was a dress with her  black open toe low  heels. Later she would wear pantsuits like on the TV show, Maude. She would wear boots in the winter, but she never wore a regular shoe.

Her favorite movie was, The Quiet Man, with John Wayne. I made the mistake of calling her once when she was watching it, I never did that again. LOL

She liked to listen to the Mills Brothers, the Andrew Sisters, Dean Martin, Big band albums. She liked some of the later music too.

She loved to read mysteries, her favorite being Agatha Christie books.

She liked mayonnaise sandwiches.

John Wayne was a favorite but she loved Tyrone Power.

She saw The Andrew Sisters in concert. Apple blossom time was her favorite song of theirs.

I liked when she sang along with the old songs. I thought she had a good voice.

She liked western and War movies too. She would cry during sad movies, sometimes.

She smoked most of her life. Menthol cigarettes later.

She loved halava. No one else in the house liked it.

She was a tea drinker and drank many cups in the course of the day. Lipton tea.

She was a good cook, not a fancy cook.

She liked going to the drive inn with us.

She liked Bingo. I went with her once. It was the only time I ever went to bingo.

She would look up the horse races in the newspaper and pick a horse then listen to the race later, on the radio.

She loved wrestling and didn't know it was fake till her sisters husband told her. She was upset.

She liked the Roller Derby too.

Her daughters were not allowed to curse in front of her.

She did not like Nick Knacks. She said they were dust collectors.

She did not like jewelry, her wedding band/engagement ring set is all she wore. She would wear her pearl necklace and watch when going to a wedding ect., sometimes a brooch and also her anniversary diamond ring my father bought her, Agnes has it now.

She would get a corn on the bottom of her heel that would get cut out about once a year. She had frozen shoulders when she was older.

She needed reading glasses later in life.

My daughter was her favorite grandchild.

She was my best friend.