It is a year since dx and I feel so down and weepy has anyone else felt like this. I have tried not to dwell on it but feel very scared as keep thinking about it coming back. Feel resigned to the fact actually. so down!!! love to all Eileen
Hi Eileen,
I think what you are feeling is very common. During treatment all your focus is on surviving the treatment, and you are cocooned by the constant involvement of the NHS. Later, you have time to dwell on things without that constant support.
You may find the following article helpful:
Oh Eileen
I’m worrying about it coming back and I haven’t even finished with this lot yet!
Sometimes it does seem like a life sentence but you have to remember that with many, many people it does not return.
Chin up and lots of love
Cecelia. x
Hi Eileen
I am where you are too.
I have my annual check up tomorrow (should have been early december, but because I have found another lump they are seeing me sooner) and for the last few days I have been useless.
I keep thinking this is IT come back, because I feel if I try and resign myself to that then if I get good news tomorrow I will be elated!!!
Every ache and pain I get I think I have secondaries???
I suffer with fibromyalgia (aching of the muscles) spondylosis in the lower back and have zoladex injection which causes aches and pains…so believe me I get ALOT of aches and pains.
I have even stopped telling my OH when something hurts, because I am sure he thinks I am paranoid.
Then in the other respect he tells me with what I have been through I have every right to feel as I do.
I know I am not going to get much sleep tonight and I have had my brother and sister and friends call to say they are thinking of me in the morning which sets me off weeping.
I even took myself off to an Ann Summers party tonight to try and lighten the mood, but have come home early depressed, that I will never look or feel sexy in any underwear again.
Sorry for going on… but back to the threat of IT returning, I don’t know how anyone could say they never think about it rearing its ugly head again, and if they do can they please let me know their secret???
Take care
Angie
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Thanks for replies ladies. Angie I have my annual check up on Thursday. I hope you are ok tomorrow please let us know. It is a strange feeling one year down the road and still shocked that I even got BC. Wish I could feel happier but don’t feel happy at all love to all Eileen
Hello Eileen. The anniversary of my diagnosis is a few weeks away yet as I was diagnosed last December but I understand very well how you feel. I have this constant feeling of fear and any little pain gets me into a dreadful state.
I find that many friends who supported and helped me in the early days think that I should just forget about it all now. I don’t think anyone understands how we feel and how impossible it is to forget about BC - except for the ladies on this board who understand very well.
I hope you get on OK on Thursday Eileen and start to feel better soon. Have you started back at work yet?
Angie - good luck tomorrow .
Love Anthi
Dear Eileen
If you feel that you would like to talk to someone in confidence about how you are feeling at the moment please call our helpline. The staff are breast care nurses and people who have had personal experience of breast cancer and can offer you support and a ‘listening ear’ along with information about our other support services which you may find helpful, such as ‘Peer support’. You can also find out more by looking under the ‘Support for you’ tab at the top of this page.
The helpline number is 0808 800 6000 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm and Sat 9am-2pm.
Best wishes
Lucy
Moderator
Breast Cancer Care
Hi everyone
I don’t know if I can help allay your fears/worries but I was diagnosed 12 years ago (have a strong family history and lobular invasive b.c.) and the odds were stacked against me in it returning at some time or other.
I remember talking to an elderly lady just after I’d finished all my treatment and I said to her how did she cope and how did she go forward in her everyday life and she said to me that none of us know what’s round the corner and what a waste all those years of living would be if you got to old age and looked back on them and they were filled with fear and anxiety.
It takes a good year to 2 years to start living comfortably with your diagnosis (some never do but the vast majority of women do) - I think the awareness of every twinge or pain in your body never totally goes away but it’s about being sensible about it and getting it checked out if you have a pain and it’s been persistent for a week or two.
I still consider myself to be one of the lucky ones (I now have secondaries) but I enjoy my life and have made so many friends through my illness with our support group and I’m determined to enjoy living for as long as I can because I still don’t know what’s round the corner and hopefully I can live with my mets for quite a few years more - it’s been 3 years since it came back but I can still love my life and all my family and friends. I was 40 when diagnosed and haven’t regretted anything that I’ve done in the last 12 years although I wouldn’t have wished this on anyone and would prefer that I didn’t have it!!
Pinkdove
Hi everyone, It is just over a year since I was diagnosed, and had a mastectomy. I have just had a mammogram on the remaining side and got the letter today to say it was ok (phew)
I agree with pink dove, if we worry, we are losing the opportunity to enjoy life to the full. At least we are being checked regularly, and medical advances are being made all the time so in the future there will be more treatments available.
I don’t feel any worse off than everyone else out there, because anyone could get what we have had. None of us know. I do panic a bit when I get unexplained aches and pains, I think it is natural, but most of the time I forget about it.
Hope you are soon feeling cheerful again.
Heidicat x
Hi Eileen:
if you’re not feeling cheerful yet don’t worry! I read something on an American website recently about the ‘tyranny of cheerfulness’ and it sure is there for those of us with breast cancer. Enormous pressure on us to be optimistic, postive and hopeful so that when we feel s*** and down its like there’s nowhere to turn.
I agree with pinkdove that it probably takes at least 2 years for many people to get their diagnosis in perspective. I was diagnosed in Oct 2003…had a lot of nodes with cancer a poor prognosis and fully expected rapid recurrence. In August 2006 I moved from 3 month to 6 month check ups and that made quite a difference to how I felt. I began tio imagine I could be in the lucky part of bad statistics. I wasn’t though cause I ggot a recurrence (regional rather than secondary but still incurable) in May this year. For me this second diagnosis was less traumatic than the first one…because it had always been expected. I hate everything about having cancer and now my fears are all about how long it will be before I get more spread. Yes I am scared a lot of the time.
But somehow as well as the scaredness I have forged quite a pleasant life where at times I can put cancer in a box and enjoy what I am doing.
Counselling has helped me enormously because in counselling there’s no pressure to keep your chin up or be cheerful or count your blessings…urh…such irritations I find.
I hope you can soon find your own way of ‘living with’ breast cancer and don’t worry if it includes crying and mourning what you have lost.
best wishes
Jane
Hi Eileen
I just wanted to say that I know just how you are feeling as my aniversary was in oct and I was so down. Regarding BC I am beginning to feel more optimistic and positive most of the time, but as Jane says, why should we be? when we’re not, we’re not and that’s fine too.
Have you returned to work yet?
Love Irene
Hi Eileen,
I seem to be in the same boat as you. One year out from initial diagnosis and had my initial follow up visit yesterday. Was dreading it. The Registrar gave me the full works as far as a physical exam was concerned and everything was fine; but the fact that she was doing it unnerved me psychologially ,I was thinking that if she’s looking for something then it must be because she thinks something’s there! Prior to this appointment, I had been enjoying a spell of optimism and now I feel dragged back into a world I thought I had left.I had missed the bit where I was told at the end of Chemo & RT that I would be followed up every three months for some time.
My prognosis, as far as anyone can tell in these things, is o.k. What i have started to do, is write down positive, encouraging facts at the front of the diary that I use for work - then if I do start to feel that I am becoming obsessed with thinking only of negatives, it drags me back to a more hopeful place.
JaneyB
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