I'm a jam sandwich

Step daughter #3 gave me a hug, and her partner joined in. I felt like I was the jam in the sandwich and just as sweet.

Bowling together

Bowling together [1], not alone, demonstrates friendship, networks, and links.

My girlfriends, together with their partners or child in some cases, along with some very close members of my family went ten-pin bowling for my birthday. Some friends came from very close, being neighbours, and others from miles away, people I knew when our children were small, friends from the Open University, and friends from tae kwon do.

Unfortunately friends from belly dancing and toastmasters couldn't make it or we could have had some performances and speeches.

Husband made a wonderful cake - the best tasting he's made yet, and he bakes good cakes. He iced it with numbers

00111100

People gave me wine, flowers, smellies, chocolates and books, so I'm having a week of luxuriating in the bathroom. There's sparkling Saumur left to share if you have the time to come and visit me.

I don't know who gave me a dozen pink scented roses - they're beautiful. Thank you, friend.

---

[1] Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, New York ; London.

Sixty reasons to cheer

Sixty soon and sixty friends and sixty things to do - what a long list compared to that of a six-year old - did I have a birthday party when I was six? I might have had. I know I didn't have a party when I was seven, because instead my baby brother was born, and they told us (my bigger little brother and me) in the playground at school that we had a new brother, and we went home and saw him in bed with our mother.

Following the example of a colleague who was fifty recently, here are my sixty reasons to cheer in my sixtieth birthday.

Successes!

Today has been a good day

1. Step daughter #2 had a mortgage offer
2. Son earned his Masters degree with distinction

Cancer statistics

Did I have cancer? Am I a survivor because that routine mammogram in February found the tiniest lump, diagnosed it as cancer and I had local treatment (operation & radiotherapy), followed by systemic treatment (these nasty anti-hormone tablets). I reasoned that it was such a small lump that it wouldn't have been feel-able for at least a year, and then some. So with treatment at that stage I'd certainly have lived longer than five years from last February. Now I've had the diagnosis and the treatment, of course I'm told I'm likely to survive five years and the survival statistics would look good, but I would have survived those five years anyhow!

Now there's a debate about routine mammograms resulting in over-diagnosis, consequent over-treatment and survivor stories that encourage greater take-up of mammograms. Here's the original research from America, in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Note that the authors, Welch & Frankel conclude:
"Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (with no effect on their mortality) or overdiagnosed."

Perhaps I don't need to keep taking these horrid tablets. I shall certainly argue this point with the oncologist at the next meeting in January. Perhaps it would be reasonable to stay on them only until the next mammogram in March shows that there are no more lumps. Last time I saw an oncologist, he said that if new lumps appear, it tends to be within the year or eighteen months after initial diagnosis. So perhaps I can come off the tablets after a clear year to eighteen months, instead of staying on them for five years.