finding a lump in your breast

2seaoat wrote:The oncologist explained that making her more healthy right now does nothing to help him remove the cancer, but after his treatment there would be no problem in a more holistic approach which actually would benefit her long term.

They are on their way up to Mayo now, and hopefully she will calmly listen to rational options for treatment on Monday, but I am afraid this is only going to get worse.

OK, that makes sense now, thanks. But obviously she wanted more/different opinions.

I sure hope things don't get worse. Someone needs to tell this woman to get moving on a valid treatment plan, NOW.

Please don't forget to let us know what happens at Mayo. Hoping for a good meeting with a positive outcome.

We have only talked to the husband as they have been up there for three days and he said that his wife is buying completely into what Mayo is recommending. We simply have not heard from her and expect them back sometime this weekend. She is hopelessly influenced by facebook and we worry about irrational influences.

2seaoat wrote:She is hopelessly influenced by facebook and we worry about irrational influences.

But if she's "buying completely into Mayo" isn't that a good sign?

My wife spoke with her this morning. She came in and told me she had lost her mind. She is afraid, and her behavior is getting crazy. She went into a gas station which is owned by Muslims and saw another Muslim give the owner some cash. She followed the car of the man who she described as dark as she called local police and wanted the man's car stopped, and they blew her off and told her to call crimestoppers, and then she ranted about Muslims at our local airport and they need to get investigated. She is one of the robotons who are avid Trump supporters, and sadly they are going back to Mayo for more testing on Wed, but she is talking about avoiding surgery and using homeopathic remedies for breast cancer where her brain seems to be damaged with erratic conversation and behavior. My wife is a good friend who listens, and after she had ranted for an hour she apologized to my wife, but it was this irrational rant about a titanium marker they want to insert to track her tumor where it has become insane.....she wants the doctors to certify that the marker is not from China.....this after she has already insulted a chinese doctor in Illinois.

Her husband is the only thing between this insanity and her getting proper medical care. Cancer sucks. Some people freak, some people become withdrawn, and some people simply play the cards which have been dealt, but it so important that friends and family have patience with her right now.

Good grief and a half. Mrs. Seaoat deserves a medal for listening to all this - a loyal friend indeed. The poor woman does sound deranged. And is this homeopathic method something Mayo recommended?? That would surprise me, I think. Of course, by this time Mrs. Sea is probably not certain about anything she's being told.

She does not know how much longer she can listen in her current mental state. Hopefully, things will get better with their visit to Mayo this week, but she is talking about some homeopathic treatment at the University of MN........which is just off the wall, but we will wait until late next week to get an update. The fear has her losing her mind, and the internet is not doing her any favors where she absorbs all the Russian propaganda and spews nonsense....to the point that she is interfering with her treatment. She is not an educated woman, but she was intelligent and we never saw twenty years ago these bizarre ideas.

She could possibly have lesion on the brain or she just totally lost her mind.

She could possibly have lesion on the brain or she just totally lost her mind.


This has crossed our mind, but we suspect she was always a heavy pot smoker and we think her foggy thinking is partially connected to chronic pot smoking, and self medication for depression. She looks eighty, and is only 66 and we think she has not been happy by the cruel aging process she is experiencing as her complexion had too much sun exposure in her youth and she is having major dental problems. It is just some horrible cards being dealt and her panic is complex, but we hope her mental state will NOT interfere with sound medical treatment.

She allowed the doctors to put a tracker next to her tumor. This could only happen if they assured her it was American made. No lymph node involvement, as it appears that Mayo will present a plan of attack next week. My wife was able to cut her ramblings off as we were traveling with the grandkids, but she is talking crazy talk off the internet.....her husband has reached his limits and we really worry about her mental health. My wife will visit with her in person Wed, hoping that will go better than some of the recent phone calls.

She is going off the deep end. Spent two hours with my wife on the phone. Mayo is ready to schedule a double in two weeks. This will require about a week in Minneapolis area hotels after being released from the hospital. She does not want to stay in a hotel....she wants to go home, but there are many important post surgery conferences which require her to stay in MN.......her answer....she wants to go to Northwestern in Chicago because she only lives fifty miles away. They found some large areas of shadow in her chest which they said will require biopsy when they open her up......but now she is dragging her feet and being irrational.

She was a reasonably rational person for the first twenty five years we knew her, but since she started watching these incredible propaganda on facebook, she thinks these morons have redefined the world from logic and truth to these hidden conspiracy theories. The whole political propaganda which got Trump elected has damaged so many people who eat up lies and when facts matter in medical choices......she is incapable of understanding reality, science, facts, and what medical care is necessary. It is a very sad story which is indicative of how easily manipulated once rational people have become.

What do you mean, "large areas of shadow in her chest"?    In her breasts, in her lungs, where?  If you know, of course.

In any event, it sounds as if she's genuinely terrified, and needs some professional mental help to get her off dead center and moving forward on a treatment plan.   At this rate, though, she may be dead first.

Some PhD candidate might find your premise about the particular type of damage Trump & company have caused to be fertile ground for a thesis.   Seriously.

There used to be a period where knowledge and truth were honored in our rich academic history. However, facebook has created this populist alternative to science and truth. A person who flunked fifth grade can puke up theories and tell a person they do not know what they are talking about. Structured scientific discovery has been replaced by ad hoc posts on the internet which suddenly are given credence. She is mentally Ill at this point. She has done counseling and has been given medication, but she is off the rails and we feel helpless to help her and try to give as much support to both her and her husband. My wife just got another crazy facebook post from one of her mutual friends spewing some lies about Obama.......it just has to stop, and truth must prevail. My anger of recent weeks against the democratic party has been their failure to address the truth......as they run to emulate the Trump method.....pure insanity, and in this case she could kill herself with all the noise in the room.

Sounds like she desperately trying to delay surgery. Not good. I imagine Mayo has a hotel connected to the facility like many hospitals that receive many referrals from out of town.

We have mutual friends who she knows who stayed up there for about four surgeries or procedures, and loved it. This is simple fear driving a growing irrationality.

2seaoat wrote:This is simple fear driving a growing irrationality.

It's good of Mrs. Seaoat to continue giving the gift of time to listen, but I don't see what else she can do for the poor woman, especially as her first concern has to be the man posting on this thread.

We went over to her house for dinner sunday night. She is suffering from full blown mental illness or early onset dementia. When we arrived she was in a manic state pacing around the house yelling about conspiracies and that she will no longer eat food from California. My wife and her went to the porch and the husband came over to me crying, and said "I am ready to leave.....I am not strong enough for this" I explained that after forty years of marriage his strength has never been needed more. She yelled at me about how I had eaten poison because the Chinese are intentionally poisoning Americans. I kept amping up as she explained how the doctors at Mayo are just trying to make money as they had scheduled her double Mac without reconstruction which she said she wanted, but she kept interrupting the doctor on how she wanted the sequences to work. The female doctor very gently leaned over and put her hand on her arm.....C Mayo clinic has approved modalities of the medical standard of care and patients do not change those protocols, but you are free to choose another facility which meets your expectations.......SHE LEFT MAYO.

Now she is doctor shopping, trying to find a doctor which will tell her what she wants to hear......she has an appointment with a chiropractor who can count cancer locations with some kind of scan......absolutely nuts and changing every moment. I finally very firmly said that you are seeking a perfect solution to the word Cancer, but perfect is the enemy of good and the Mayo doctors have told her they have a 93% success rate at this point, with only a 6% remission rate. Time is of the essence and now that they are seeing shadows on your liver, your probabilities are going to rapidly change. At which time she walks by me and explains that she is a witch and that she came from a long line of witches who have intuition in their guts and know the answers........as she opens the porch door to join my wife for another smoke.

The husband then says to me Mrs. Seaoat and I were the only two humans who would have stayed. I explained again that mental illness cannot interfere with her proper medical care and they must immediately have a family meeting with the kids, but he explained his son asked her to leave his house the week before because he could not take her ramblings and he is very conflicted about cancer and death. The daughter is quickly reaching the same condition because none of them know how to deal with mental illness or dementia. I spent a career dealing with these issues so I used me best skills to get her to sit down and listen. I explained that she needs to write down what each doctor has recommended, and score their recommendations. It will be your decision, but the one thing you cannot do is doctor shop and delay because a very curable form of breast cancer can become a death sentence. I told her I do not care what her choice will be because that is a personal choice, but it must be made. She got very calm and she listened. She started talking about her choices and how she did not want to recover in dirty hotels. So we discussed Northwestern, and they are having a meeting with the Northwestern doctors, and I am hopeful this will line up quickly.

She earlier had come up to me while her husband was grilling steaks, and said her husband was trying to kill her and she thinks he is poisoning her socks, and he once forgot to turn off the grill and tried to kill her by burning down the house. She was much calmer when we left, but her physical and mental illness have us very sad. This is a couple that we have taken vacations with and golfed with in couple golf for thirty years. She never was an educated woman, but she was intelligent, and what we loved about her was her outspoken nature and she was a loyal friend. As friends Mrs. Seaoat realizes that those hour phone calls no matter how disturbing must continue until she gets treatment. Mrs. Seaoat turned to me in the car, and said thank you. She explained that as I have been dying I have been concerned about what was best for the family as I handled the disease. Getting Paranoid and angry does nothing to cure cancer or help the caretakers. She said the husband is going to break, and she fears if her mental illness is not treated she is simply going to take a cureable cancer and sign her own death sentence. There is so much more to tell, but it is all sad. I can only hope that Northwestern can get in and do surgery before she completely looses her mind.

She is reposting on facebook Pro Trump insane lies. I think facebook has contributed to the mental illness or dementia. Wife will spend time with her on Thursday.

My wife has concluded that our friend in the end is a spoiled privileged wealthy uneducated person who has made every bad decision on her breast cancer surgery because she is in denial that she has real cancer......hers is cureable......so after walking away from Mayo because she does not like dirty hotel rooms to recover, she has gone back to NW, but rather than having them do the surgery, she has chose one of the worst local hospitals in Northern Illinois and her logic is that her son's friend's wife works on surgeries and will have her back......Pure mental illness or dementia, and her calls are lasting an hour where she repeats everything......this is hard because she still has scheduled no surgery after almost three months of dicking around, and we know exactly how this is going to end......one more stupid person given bad information from the internet, where intellect and knowledge is seen as one big conspiracy theory.......this nation is in deep deep trouble. Her husband and children are losing their minds dealing with her.

2seaoat wrote: she still has scheduled no surgery after almost three months of dicking around

Purely pitiful. Ask her if she has a death wish. (Only half kidding.)

She does.

I have tried tough love with her by being very blunt. However, the mental illness, dementia, or internet truths have so diminished her capacity that I have seriously spoke to my wife about seeking a psych evaluation and getting her to voluntarily submit to the same. I feel like my world is turned upside down when I turn on the TV and speak to people who are gobbling up the propaganda. Our enemies abroad honestly have caused damage with their propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Most likely she has a stress induced psychosis...she needs to see a psychiatrist ASAP.


The cancer diagnosis has caused this.


Stress—Intense stress can cause psychosis. In this particular cause, there may be no other conditions or diseases involved. This kind of psychosis lasts for less than one month. Stress can also trigger symptoms in people who are particularly at risk for psychotic disorders.

2seaoat wrote:Our enemies abroad honestly have caused damage with their propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Who needs enemies abroad when we have enemies domestic right here in the good ol' USA, spreading their own propaganda and conspiracy theories, and starting at the very top with our supposed "leader"?? What a terrible time for all of us, but especially for the vulnerable such as your mentally ill friend, whose cancer diagnosis (Joani's right) had already run her off the rails?

Nope, she is constantly talking about money grabbing doctors.........she is being fed pure chit from the internet, from cures for cancer, to racism where she was upset with a black nurse at Northwestern who made a comment about her being spoiled.....it probably was inappropriate, but she does not want blacks and mexicans caring for her......it is more than cancer......this irrationality started from the internet and before the cancer.....it has only gotten worse. This country has a cancer on it and I can only pray that Wed. we wake up to a society which chooses civilization, science, truth, and morality. This country is in a depressed condition with the mental illness which tries to get passed as sanity.