Posted 7/29/2008 6:15 AM (GMT 0)
Dee,
God bless you! I'm a 7 year survivor. I went through chemo, rads and tamoxifen Mine was stage Ib - that is, it was almost stage II - 1.5 cm, infiltrating - but NO NODES! That was the 'saving grace" - I have a long-time friend who's battling stage IV - Some quack she was seeing diagnosed asthma when she was having trouble breathing - without a chest xray - and when she got too bad and switched docs, it was too late. An x-ray showed massive pleural effusions, etc., which turned out to be cancerous - as well as fluid around the heart, spots in the liver, spine and spleen. For now, she's 'stable' - it's neither growing nor decreasing.
As for being pc saavy...At 37, I went back to school to become a nurse. Two years later, hubby was killed, so I dropped out to take care of the kids. I worked various jobs - some temporary, some permanent. I'd been a word processor before all this, so renewed my skills, and by this time, word processing was done on pc's instead of stand-alone units (like the old xerox 860's, etc.). My mom gave me dad's old Apple II and I met a lady who taught me all she knew about the macs and apple machines. A former boyfriend of hers then offered me a 'job' (volunteer at the time) helping teachers get on a system that was supposed to filter out 'bad' internet sites for schools in that area - turned out it was a 'burb of Detroit. The tech support manager liked how I was doing stuff, and when I got laid off from my job in IL, he offered me a job there - TRA helped fund my move (the company sent a lot of stuff to Mexico, I was displaced due to that), and I went down there. At the tender age of 50, I was learning unix, learning how to build websites (I do light website creation at home - I've been on a hiatus from it lately due to recurrent pneumonias. I have GERD, COPD and sleep apnea, and my immune system is shot, due to chemo (only half my bone marrow makes cells, and tends to go on strike when I get sick, so I end up getting blood transfusions) and prednisone, which I'm on due to COPD (yeah, too many years smoking, plus GERD, both of which have scarred my lungs (nevermind the pneumonias) by aspirating contents of my stomach (GERD) and other stuff (gasping awake from sleep apnea), but ...I've had 8 bouts in 2004/2005; and 9 bouts in 2007/2008 - of pneumonia, that is. If the measures we're taking now (BIPAP for sleep apnea, possibly surgery for gerd) keep me from getting more pneumonia, I'm going to become more active at webdesign and so on. Unfortunately, my clients I did have were poor - one paid me when he could; the other paid me in kind - he used to work for an NBC affiliate here, so has access to free tickets and so on - nice, but they don't pay the bills! (well, I guess, I could sell 'em, oh well). But, yes...two mantras everyone should remember on a computer:
NOTHING you can do with the software will hurt the hardware!
the only stupid question is the one NOT asked!
And...bearing in mind the first one...as long as you have backups of your programs AND data, don't be afraid to experiment and find out what this key does, and what that key does. Go into a program, click on the menu items, find out what they do! 99% of your programs will always say: "are you sure???" before you do something irreversable. It's annoying when you know the program, but is a godsend while you're learning! Don't just read the book, DO THE PROGRAM!!!!! Ask yourself...what's the worst scenario? If it's restarting the computer, setting it back a few days (system tools in 2000 and XP), reinstalling the program, then do it! Those are only annoyances compared to the annoyance if you don't!
Sorry for rambling on :)
Grannymac (I'm a granny, and use a mac <G>)