Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

Sorry for the bad news. My friend works for a Dr doing clinical trials of cancer drugs. Wish I remembered what kind. She did say people typically have to do chemo first (my grandfather has stage 4 lung cancer so I have talked to her about that). I hope you get some positive news at the next appointment. Just curious why she doesn't want to do chemo? My grandfather has not been sick at all from it. He is however exhausted and confused (he's also 87).

Side note- CANCER SUCKS

Sorry to hear the news about your mom...our prayers have never ceased for you all...
The animals look Good...except those that can't be still and are a blur....I'm sure they do too, but just can't see. Those clothes look like our everyday attire around here...except for the sweatshirt....too warm for that now, just T-shirts here.

NH homesteader said:

Sorry for the bad news. My friend works for a Dr doing clinical trials of cancer drugs. Wish I remembered what kind. She did say people typically have to do chemo first (my grandfather has stage 4 lung cancer so I have talked to her about that). I hope you get some positive news at the next appointment. Just curious why she doesn't want to do chemo? My grandfather has not been sick at all from it. He is however exhausted and confused (he's also 87).

Side note- CANCER SUCKS

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My mother doesnt want chemo because it is a poison literally. I can understand her thoughts on it but still when your dealing with cancer the "what you wanna do's" only go so far. The two drugs she wants to try first Herceptin and perjeta are as bad a chemo which i have tried to tell her but she still thinks they are better.

She is also worried she wont be able to work while on chemo...again the side effects for the other two drugs are the same as chemo.

She also wants to try some insulin and low dose chemo thing she found online but i looked into it more and it looks like some kind of scam and potentially very dangerous as it involves a very sudden blood sugar drop and the low dose chemo could make it harder to treat with normal doses of chemo later.

Honestly i am trying very hard not to get upset with her, i am not all about doing what the doctor says but cancer isnt something to mess around with esp since she is already we suspect a stage 3 with N1 and quite possibly leaning towards being metastatic plus being triple positive and Her2 positive.

She keeps finding other peoples stuff online where they did this or that and it shrunk the tumor/cancer....but it doesnt say the type, location, or stage of cancer or have any proof with it and most seem to be trying to sell something like "the secret cure for cancer" or some other scam sounding thing.

The counselor they gave her is super super nice and told her most people who do chemo now are surprised that it isnt as bad as they thought it was going to be. Yes they are very tired and have other symptoms but it isnt the nightmare they thought it would be. One of the patients there that we got to talk to is a principal and didnt miss a single day of work while going thru chemo.

I think mostly my mom is scared and thinks the chemo will kill her. I would be very scared to but she is a resilient person and i think she would be alright. I'm worried if she does not do the chemo she will die in the next year or two and i dont know what i would do then or what my dad would do. My mom is only in her mid-50s i think she should be fighting this.

Of course i can not tell my mom all of this stuff because i dont want her to feel bad or like i am making her do chemo because thats not right either but its hard not to say anything and just sit and worry about her dying soon. The most worrying part is the tumor went from undetectable outside of a mammogram to the size of a walnut in 13 months and has continued to grow over the past 2 months. Now she has to wait 2 weeks for the other tests then she wants to do a treatment of perjeta and then wait a month to see if it does anything....so 6 weeks to figure out if it will work and if it doesnt work it will be another 2 weeks on top of that before they can start another treatment schedule. The tumor currently is only about half an inch from her breast bone and if it goes into the bone it will be bad bad bad which another 2 months could definitely allow it to do.

CntryBoy777 said:

Sorry to hear the news about your mom...our prayers have never ceased for you all...
The animals look Good...except those that can't be still and are a blur....I'm sure they do too, but just can't see. Those clothes look like our everyday attire around here...except for the sweatshirt....too warm for that now, just T-shirts here.

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Last night it was 36f daytime was warmer of course but that pic was at about 8:30pm.

I worked with someone who had chemo, she missed the day of chemo and the day after but that was it. My uncle had chemo and worked through it. They've come a long way, my grandmother died of cancer 10 years ago and was SO sick from chemo, but the people I know who have had it in the past few years have been ok.

I'm not trying to like force chemo down anyone's throat here, I believe people have to make their own choices. Just trying to say the upsides. I understand any decision people make for their own lives, it's theirs to make. And she's young.

The secondary proble is she has worked in a nursing home/extended care/long term care home for something like 24+yrs and she has seen people come in there being treated with chemo and radiation. I tried to tell her ummm mom those are the worst of the worst if they are in the extended care home, what kind of cancer did they have, what stage was it when it was found, how many rounds of treatment did they have, how old were they.....but she still thinks it must be extremely horrible and going to kill her. It shocks me a bit because normally my mom is a very logical person.

It is such a difficult position to be placed in and certainly to deal with, for sure. It sure sounds like she is in partial denial of the severity of the issue at hand, just hoping it will just go away if they ignore or refuse to accept it. I certainly agree with ya over such long delays with the tumor growing at such a rate and you are right about it getting to the bone. There really are no words to truly comfort ya with, it is just a really tough stuation to be in and experience. My heart truly goes out to ya, and will surely continue with increased prayer for your strength and wisdom.....

CntryBoy777 said:

It is such a difficult position to be placed in and certainly to deal with, for sure. It sure sounds like she is in partial denial of the severity of the issue at hand, just hoping it will just go away if they ignore or refuse to accept it. I certainly agree with ya over such long delays with the tumor growing at such a rate and you are right about it getting to the bone. There really are no words to truly comfort ya with, it is just a really tough stuation to be in and experience. My heart truly goes out to ya, and will surely continue with increased prayer for your strength and wisdom.....

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It really sucks but i am mostly just along for the ride it seems. I keep having dreams about my brother which are really poopy to wake up with in the morning, but slightly comforting too.

This weekend we are set i believe to go pick up 3 registered hereford pigs.....2 gilts and 1 boar. We should also be getting our new ram he is half Slack and his dam is a frame ewe so he would definitely put some nice size in the herd for us. The hereford boar should be ready to breed for 4-h piglets and the new ram should be ready to breed for fall of 2018 and will likely replace the smaller of our current two rams. I'm still shopping around for some ewe lambs to add to the herd but finding quality suffolk ewe up here is hard to do it seems.

Our 8 week old ram should be getting picked up by him new owner. AL the borrowed boar went home on Monday....it looks like Eva is in heat. If Eva didnt take she has to go to freezer camp. She didnt take the AI(always harder on gilts) and now she had been with the borrowed boar for two cycles+ so if she hasnt taken she has some sort of fertility issue. Eva is a half sister to our boar who had a fertility problem so it is possible. We currently have 11 pigs in the barn which we will be adding 3 more making a total of 14. The total includes 1 sow, 3 300-400lb gilt, 2 275lbs gilt, 1 175lbs gilt, 1 175lb boar, 1 75lb gilt, 2 50lb barrows, 2 65lb gilts, and 1 80lb barrow. I'm starting to think switching from sows to gilts all at once might have been a mistake....lesson learned. Both barrows will be sold for whole roasting in approx june/july, the 175lb boar is already sold for butcher and just needs to make weight.

The llama still seems sad he lost his "wife" but has been much more curious about what those weird furless 2 leggers are doing. The new lamb is for sale atm no takers yet. The ducks have a huge nest in the barn that the females are sharing....right next to the pig pen so hopefully when/if they hatch mom takes them the other direction.

Wow you have a lot going on! And a lot of pigs! What size do you sell as roasters?

My mom texted me this morning to ask if our pigs were missing (thank goodness they're not), on her way to work there was a big pig walking up the road.... Lol! Wonder who's missing a pig?

Oh please post pictures of your Hereford pigs!! I love their markings, they are so pretty! We are raising 3 Red Wattle feeder pigs and 1 Hampshire. The Hamp belongs to a neighbor that didn't have a pig pen, but wanted a feeder pig too. He just pays us for the feed, so it's all good.

On your Mom. You need to tell her your feelings. A real sit down, daughter/mother talk from your heart. At the rate she is going, she won't be here much longer and it will always nag at you that maybe you should have spoke up. Yes, respect her wishes, but she needs to know that her decision isn't only all about her. Her decision impacts her entire family and you need to respectfully tell her so.

My heart goes out to you because you are trying so hard to do what your Mom wants, even though you don't agree with her choice. At the same time, you don't want to push her into something she doesn't want to do, for then you will be the "bad guy". But if you do nothing and she dies, you will always wonder if maybe it would have turned out differently if you had spoken up. Choose your words carefully, speak with love, tell her your fear of losing her and make sure that she knows she has your support, no matter what her choice. This is weighing heavy on you and you need to speak your feelings or this will be a burden you bear for the rest of your life. You don't want to look back and wonder "what if".

She thinks the treatment is going to kill her. The cancer will kill her. Her fear of the treatment is greater than her fear of dying. Maybe you can help her to see that she has nothing to lose by trying.

NH homesteader said:

Wow you have a lot going on! And a lot of pigs! What size do you sell as roasters?

My mom texted me this morning to ask if our pigs were missing (thank goodness they're not), on her way to work there was a big pig walking up the road.... Lol! Wonder who's missing a pig?

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We do roasters between 100-145lbs hang weight so approx 130-190lbs live weight, our normal butcher pigs are 250-300lbs live weight and our family size whole roasters are between 50-70lbs hang weight. Our family size roasters cost the most per pound because we dont like selling them that small. Normal butcher pigs we sell for $2/lb live weight or 2.50/lb hang weight whichever the customer prefers. The bigger roaster we sell for $3-4/lb hang weight depending on the buyer sometimes more if the one guy we sell to is short and needs a second at the last minute, those pigs are more because it is typically one of our young pigs intended to be a breeder that he gets. The 145lb limit is because most commercial spits can only do up to 145lbs without killing the motor or bending the spit rod. The family size roasters are $5/lb hang weight.

Baymule said:

Oh please post pictures of your Hereford pigs!! I love their markings, they are so pretty! We are raising 3 Red Wattle feeder pigs and 1 Hampshire. The Hamp belongs to a neighbor that didn't have a pig pen, but wanted a feeder pig too. He just pays us for the feed, so it's all good.

On your Mom. You need to tell her your feelings. A real sit down, daughter/mother talk from your heart. At the rate she is going, she won't be here much longer and it will always nag at you that maybe you should have spoke up. Yes, respect her wishes, but she needs to know that her decision isn't only all about her. Her decision impacts her entire family and you need to respectfully tell her so.

My heart goes out to you because you are trying so hard to do what your Mom wants, even though you don't agree with her choice. At the same time, you don't want to push her into something she doesn't want to do, for then you will be the "bad guy". But if you do nothing and she dies, you will always wonder if maybe it would have turned out differently if you had spoken up. Choose your words carefully, speak with love, tell her your fear of losing her and make sure that she knows she has your support, no matter what her choice. This is weighing heavy on you and you need to speak your feelings or this will be a burden you bear for the rest of your life. You don't want to look back and wonder "what if".

She thinks the treatment is going to kill her. The cancer will kill her. Her fear of the treatment is greater than her fear of dying. Maybe you can help her to see that she has nothing to lose by trying.

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I love the hereford markings too....thats why i want them.
This is their sale pics, The first pic is the gilts and the second pic is the boar.



I will see if i can get better pics once i get them home and in quarantine.

My mother has told me she is likely doing chemo...thankfully...i so hope she does and quickly. I send her to a forum for triple positive breast cancer patients many of which have Her2 positive as well...so i think she might realize how serious it really is now. I believe she is currently a Stage 3a or a T3 N1 M0....the oncologist should tell us on the 5th i believe.

Picking up our ram may be delayed. The owner wants to hold him off a bit longer and make sure he is going to grow the way he wants because we are paying specifically for his Slack genes and large frame mother so he should grow and fill out like a weed. We are also picking up 2 ewe lambs from the same seller who are unrelated to the ram but are also from large frame ewe and their sire is half Slack and half Kimm. The ewe and ram should pack some serious size into our herd, muscle, and over all vigor/parasite resistance should be improved along with mothering instincts being amplified. Really Kimm work on the entire package for the meat industry not just focusing on the showing world so im super happy to be getting some of their blood in our barn.

I finally bit the bullet and ordered Oster Showmaster shears yesterday(from one vendor) another 13-tooth arizona thin comb and 2 extra cutters(different vendor). I also bought a few halters, some kool lube, and a trimming head piece.

I made a milking stand weekend before last(i think) out of scrap wood from DHs work and four 2x4x8s....i'm going to make a second one on an incline for the sheep and use the trimming/fitting stand head piece instead of the headgate style i made for the first one. Adding wheels to the front of the fitting stand for easy movement. So for less then $80 i will have one milk stand and one fitting stand. The milk stand is very strong but light enough i can still pick the whole thing up on my own(bit awkward but i can move it).

The only hitch in the plan is i am at the point of needing to attach the sliding portion of the headgate and i am not sure how much gap there should be at that bottom hinge to allow me to close it on the goats but not you know guillotine their heads as DH calls it So if anyone has a large breed milking stand and wants to get a measurement for me i would greatly appreciate it, I just need the width of the gap when the gate is closed all the way.