Mikey P
Administrator
The Solar Eclipse on 8/21 was an exercise in irony for me. While the moon was passing in front of the sun, turning day to night, I was getting a breast biopsy and being informed I have a cancerous mass in my right breast. At least the dark time was very short and a lot of things were learned from the eclipse, so I am hoping that foretells this disease for me. A life-long atheist and medical/veterinary geek, I tend to dive straight into researching how to fix things and that has served me well all my life. This is no different for me.
Those who know me well; they know I am a pragmatist and am very non-emotional. They know I'm kind of a Spock or Sheldon and I will research endlessly, drive my doctors crazy, but earn some respect from them by being able to talk with them on the level of a professional.
I'm not real thrilled with my HMO, my primary or the oncologist, but I like the surgeon very much. I'm going to look into getting a Patient Advocate or Nurse Navigator to help, and also investigate changing groups or plans so I can go to a cancer center where I will get a team approach from my doctors, which I don't have currently.
If anyone has experience getting your HMO insurance to let you do that or switching insurance or groups in treatment, let me know. So far they are stonewalling. I really wish I was old enough for Medicare!
I will go in for a bilateral (double) mastectomy end of this week or beginning of the next. Two weeks to heal and wait for pathology results and then I will start chemo and radiation as required by the results. I got a lot of info from the biopsy, but we will have more accurate results when they can look at the whole thing and check the lymph nodes. PM me if you want details, but I won't bore the rest of you who aren't medical geeks like me. I will give updates as I get them.
I will be keeping the dogs and hopefully caring for them without much downtime. My husband will take off to help as needed, but if anyone wants to volunteer to come spend a couple hours cleaning dogs and/or kennels and floors we would really appreciate it, especially if you know or are willing to learn, how to express a bladder. I discussed it with the chemo doctor and she wasn't too concerned, she just said during chemo I will need to be extra careful with contamination and wear gloves and wash my hands a lot. I guess Purell will be my friend. So I will be needing all of the physical help with the dogs I can get from local people as I go through this little journey.
The GreenGlides business will go on, I should be able to handle phones through most of it and Christa is great. She has only been working a short time, but she is a quick learner....and she brings my granddaughter to work! Bonus! Karen Redard may come out of retirement here and there when things get tight. So we just ask for your patience and loyalty. If you are a distributor, I am going to be placing a large order for product this week and I suggest those who stock product order now as I probably won't place another order for a while. Through GreenGlides I support the dog sanctuary so always know every dollar you spend doesn't go into a corporation or to overseas machine shops, or for a fancy house or vacations - it goes to support my family, the families of the small businesses that supply us with plastic and machining and the old dogs. I have always had a firm belief in giving more than you get and taking care of one another
I'm a bit worried about supporting the sanctuary financially smoothly through this. My hubby will be working as much as possible, but family leave only pays 55%. We are mostly self-funded, If you can possibly think of us now and then, and send the pugs a PayPal donation when you can that would be awesome and greatly appreciated. Our PayPal address is RustyPugRetirementRanch@gmail.com we are a 501(c)3 now, so if you would like a receipt for your income tax, just let me know. I will also be updating our Amazon wish list in the next few days and I will post a link for that. At this time, I am not doing a GoFundMe or other crowd funding. I hate those and feel they get abused a lot by people who don't have real need or wish to support a lifestyle and it makes everyone leery of the whole platform. Myself included. And in these times we have a Nation dealing with so many natural disasters, I know discretionary money is spread very thin and I apologize for asking. In the scope of what is happening everywhere, especially Texas and Florida, my problems seem pretty insignificant
Those who know me well; they know I am a pragmatist and am very non-emotional. They know I'm kind of a Spock or Sheldon and I will research endlessly, drive my doctors crazy, but earn some respect from them by being able to talk with them on the level of a professional.
I'm not real thrilled with my HMO, my primary or the oncologist, but I like the surgeon very much. I'm going to look into getting a Patient Advocate or Nurse Navigator to help, and also investigate changing groups or plans so I can go to a cancer center where I will get a team approach from my doctors, which I don't have currently.
If anyone has experience getting your HMO insurance to let you do that or switching insurance or groups in treatment, let me know. So far they are stonewalling. I really wish I was old enough for Medicare!
I will go in for a bilateral (double) mastectomy end of this week or beginning of the next. Two weeks to heal and wait for pathology results and then I will start chemo and radiation as required by the results. I got a lot of info from the biopsy, but we will have more accurate results when they can look at the whole thing and check the lymph nodes. PM me if you want details, but I won't bore the rest of you who aren't medical geeks like me. I will give updates as I get them.
I will be keeping the dogs and hopefully caring for them without much downtime. My husband will take off to help as needed, but if anyone wants to volunteer to come spend a couple hours cleaning dogs and/or kennels and floors we would really appreciate it, especially if you know or are willing to learn, how to express a bladder. I discussed it with the chemo doctor and she wasn't too concerned, she just said during chemo I will need to be extra careful with contamination and wear gloves and wash my hands a lot. I guess Purell will be my friend. So I will be needing all of the physical help with the dogs I can get from local people as I go through this little journey.
The GreenGlides business will go on, I should be able to handle phones through most of it and Christa is great. She has only been working a short time, but she is a quick learner....and she brings my granddaughter to work! Bonus! Karen Redard may come out of retirement here and there when things get tight. So we just ask for your patience and loyalty. If you are a distributor, I am going to be placing a large order for product this week and I suggest those who stock product order now as I probably won't place another order for a while. Through GreenGlides I support the dog sanctuary so always know every dollar you spend doesn't go into a corporation or to overseas machine shops, or for a fancy house or vacations - it goes to support my family, the families of the small businesses that supply us with plastic and machining and the old dogs. I have always had a firm belief in giving more than you get and taking care of one another
I'm a bit worried about supporting the sanctuary financially smoothly through this. My hubby will be working as much as possible, but family leave only pays 55%. We are mostly self-funded, If you can possibly think of us now and then, and send the pugs a PayPal donation when you can that would be awesome and greatly appreciated. Our PayPal address is RustyPugRetirementRanch@gmail.com we are a 501(c)3 now, so if you would like a receipt for your income tax, just let me know. I will also be updating our Amazon wish list in the next few days and I will post a link for that. At this time, I am not doing a GoFundMe or other crowd funding. I hate those and feel they get abused a lot by people who don't have real need or wish to support a lifestyle and it makes everyone leery of the whole platform. Myself included. And in these times we have a Nation dealing with so many natural disasters, I know discretionary money is spread very thin and I apologize for asking. In the scope of what is happening everywhere, especially Texas and Florida, my problems seem pretty insignificant
