Cancer dream

I dreamt last night that my cancer had spread to my shin bone and my leg was amputated leaving a smooth stump. I had forgotten when they had cut my leg off and I was thinking that recently I had been running and how could I have done this with one leg? Also I kept going up to people to have them feel my stump and to try to make them feel sorry for me.

As usual the dream wasn't too realistic but I know what set it off. I went to a nutrition class yesterday with Marilyn at the Wellness Center-the subject being grains. There were eleven of us who introduced ourselves giving a brief background of our cancer history. Seven of us had breast cancer including the instructor-the others were brain tumor, pancreatic, and colon with liver mets (scary) and 2 non-patients. I had met all the breast cancer people before in one place or another (excepting the instructor). One of the participants has sat in on our LiveStrong class. She had been in the previous session but was invited to stretch with us as we had so many drop-outs and have room. She looks very healthy with a full head of hair etc. She started in with her intro about having breast cancer 7 years ago..and I think to myself that she's a little bit too healthy to be with us and I am already pissed at her anyway as she spends alot of time on the weight machines during OUR class time and I spend alot of time waiting because of her, blah, blah, blah...and then she adds but now it is back in my femur and I am Stage 4.

Oh.

So many things wrong with my dream other than the obvious forgetting my leg was amputated. Can't I dream medically correctly? Rarely do they amputate limbs in bone mets. If it is in one bone, it is probably in another so they treat systemically. Also bone mets rarely appear below the knees or elbows, which is good because I am more likely to feel pain in my shins or feet due to running and in the future I would like to think that any pain I feel there is probably due to running and not mets.

As for nutrition, I really have to mend my ways if I want to avoid mets. Strangely obesity is not an issue for recurrence in estrogen positive BC. I would think it would be as fat cells themselves produce estrogen. It certainly is a risk factor in getting estrogen positive BC in the first place. But only in estrogen negative BC is obesity correlated with greater chance of recurrence. It doesn't seem due to the fat cells themselves but to the high carb diet that helped produce the obesity. Insulin is proposed to be the bad actor as it is thought to be a tumor promoter. Eating foods with a high glycemic index results in high levels of insulin. Fortunately exercise reduces insulin levels. So if I want carbs, they should be ones with lower glycemic indices.

There is lots of research out there for risk factors in estrogen positive breast cancer; little specifically for TNBC other then to say that the patient profile is quite a bit different than that of estrogen positive patients. I did find one study that took a population of young, black TNBC patients and noticed no difference between levels of obesity with non-patients matched similarly.

So we had a dinner there last night using 'healthy' grains. Some of the recipes were quite tasty but time consuming to make. I see from the picture on the wall that the director had her twins. They definitely look quite a bit different from each other.

I didn't go to the UM support group last night. I'm tired of the same women plus Naomi is behind with several projects. School is over for her at the end of next week as she is a senior. Lots of neglected work since I was gone.

On my schedule today, the LiveStrong class. Then I go out somewhere with Josh for Mother's Day, which I am looking forward to. Then Naomi issues..not looking forward to that.