Thank you for your support and understanding hippychick.
I’m feeling the ‘hug’ through the airwaves.
Today was better than the others and so I move onto the next…
Take good care, Welsh girl x
I’m not coping again!
I’ve been crying for two days now!
I really don’t know how to stop. I feel I was assaulted by my BCN yesterday.
A 45 minute appt was eroded into 15, where I had asked for a physical examination of my scar area and pain points (I have been dx with Mondor’s disease/cording through my breast and I have a frozen shoulder caused by tendonitis, so I’m in considerable pain and relying on painkillers fulltime again!) My BCN stopped me from talking about my pain or anything else and proceeded to fit a prosthesis without any warning! I can’t even wear a bra yet and am relying on cushion pinned into a vest, so having a silicone ‘lump’ being pushed into my space was degrading and humiliating! Having someone’s hand invading the space where my breast once was felt like a sexual assault! Her hand kept zipping in and out of the borrowed bra as if she was trying to ‘build’ me rather than help create my new body outline. She kept pushing one in after the other as if she was trying to solve a puzzle! Which piece would fit???
It all happened so quickly, the puzzle was completed within minutes,the piece boxed up and I was dismissed!!!
She rushed off down the corridor and left me standing.
I just began to sob uncontrollably and it went on for hours…
I can’t believe a professional could treat someone like that. I hope no other woman has to go through the same experience as I did.
I felt humiliated and degraded.
This piece of silicone I now possess,should have represented a huge part of my emotional recovery and will become my womanly outline to others.
For me, the way it was fitted, with haste and a lack of dignity it has become the source of my worthlessness.
I wasn’t worth the time to be treated fairly or kindly.
What am I to do?
Hi Welsh girl
So sorry you are feeling so down. I have been lucky in that my BCN has always treated me with respect and has always been very helpful.
What you have gone through with your BCN sounds terrible.
I just felt the need to reply and send you a big cyber hug xx
Dear Welshgirl
I am sorry to read that you are feeling so low, please feel free to call our helpline for further support and to talk through how you are feeling, our helpliners will be able to suggest other forms of support to you too. The number is 0808 800 6000, weekdays 9-5 and Sat 9-2.
Take care
Lucy
Hi Welshgirl,
What an awful experience for you. As you rightly say, getting our ‘new’ breast is an important time for us and if you are in pain the last thing you need is someone prodding around uneccecerily. It’s a very sensitive thing both physically and emotionally and should be treated as so.
I hope you ring the BCC number that Lucy has posted for you as it sounds like you really need to talk to someone.
In the meantime, big hugs and keep posting here, you know that people here will support you.
Take care,
Love Esme x
Hi Welshgirl
What a HORRIBLE experience for you ! Please phone the support line Lucy has posted, to see if an experienced counsellor can help you. You are always so helpful & supportive to us, I wish I could do more to help. I could cry myself to think of you in such physical & emotional pain.
I have to say I disliked my BCN on first meeting, & although I thought I was supposed to ‘bond’ with her, I have seen her very little, & haven’t heard from her since about November. Not that I’ve missed her. But people said that perhaps I could ask for a different one, since not everybody takes to everybody else. I never did it, & don’t know who I would have asked about it to be honest, but maybe it’s something you could do. She sounds so unsympathetic. Where do they find these people? And how do they get these jobs if they can’t empathise at all?
Please post again to say how you are now that it’s another day.
Thinking of you
Love & hugs x
Hi Welshgirl
“it has become the source of my worthlessness …I wasn’t worth the time to be treated fairly or kindly”.
It feels as if there is something in there about your own feelings about yourself right now? which it sounds like you have had ‘affirmed’ by this thoughtless nurse, from whom you would expect ‘so’ much more.
You are NOT WORTHLESS, you are someone who is going through a deep emotional and physical hurt, who deserves some time, dignity and respect. I am sorry that you did not have your needs met by your BCN, and I would encourage you (if you have the energy) to let her (or her superiors) know how you feel, to ensure that others do not experience the same fate.
DO NOT ALLOW THIS EXPERIENCE TO DEFINE YOU!
It is hard enough to endure everything that you have gone through without having this adding ‘insult to injury’.
I hope that you are ‘ok’ in this moment.
Love and hugs
HC xxxxx
Hi Welshgirl
So very sorry to read about your bad experience, you have had so much good advice l can only back up what everyone has said.
My Love and Thoughts are with you, stay strong and know there are people out there that do care, sending big hugs (((((X)))))
so sorry to hear of your upsetting and humiliating experience, you must have and be feeling very fragile, I dont know how I would react, but as an on looker I would say report hwer to your surgeon, but then thata easy for me to say.
hope you are felling a little stronger now,it does show how fragile we all are at these times
take care xx
I just wanted to say that your allowed to feel bad, cry, laugh, feel frustrated or angry. These are just emotions and to feel means that you are fighting - KEEP FIGHTING. I too am on my own although Charing Cross has not let me down yet.
Be what YOU want to be and not the cancer, the doctors or anyone else. You are the most important of these and should recognise it.
Good can come from bad and I now have a grandson and another
grandchild on the way. I am going with the season and seeing the spring come about has raised my outlook.
Please do not allow others to pull you down you are feeling weak but practice a few words to yourself everyday ~ value yourself - look what you have achieved already - on your own. You have fought through all you have gone through so far and you just need to phone the nurse and tell her how you felt - I am sure that you can make a difference for others who have that nurse - perhaps because you didnt say anything then she took it you just wanted to get out of there quickly as so many of us do!
Acknowledge all you have done so far - write it on a piece of paper and include all the nights you have cried and still awoke in the morning and got on with life. Include how you managed to go to appointments when you think everyone is looking at you or that your joint pain is making it hard for you to walk (me) or that you got through the day and actually found it was enjoyable.
Read it through ~ yes that amazing person you are looking at is: YOU
God bless
xx
I am calmer now and stopped crying, eventually!
Thank you to you all for your support and kindness, it helped me to get through some very dark days this week.
Hippychick you certainly helped me realise that I felt worthless beforehand, and my BCN affirmed that feeling,but she did not cause it!.
The episode with the fitting of my prosthesis was not handled well and I have fed back some pointers to improve the process in future. My BCN was so sorry about the rushed procedure, and upset. She blamed overwork for the haste. She has been a wonderful support to me and I will indeed write to her line managers, not to complain but to praise her worth. She is doing the work of two nurses because the other one has not been replaced!!!
I may not be able to tell her exactly how badly I felt during the fitting but I told YOU and you were so supportive. I thank you all for your kindness and care. Through your words I have been able to rebuild some inner strength and believe I do have a worth.
Thank you to you wonderful women. I have met some of you before who have helped me in the past, I am overwhelmed by your concern for me.
Together you’ve helped me through another trauma!
I am even more grateful for this after reading Signet’s post tonight (GOODBYE) where she is leaving the forum because she hasn’t felt heard. My heart goes out to her.
The feeling of isolation can destroy you, I know that feeling all too well.
My love and thanks to you all from Welsh girl xx
My BCN wants to rearrange another fitting appt to make sure she can address some of the unanswered questions I had. She is trying desperately to make up for the pain involved last time. I know she wants to make my beginning of having a female outline, a positive beginning. I think maybe the second attempt will help the healing…
Hi Welshgirl,
Glad to hear that you are feeling a lot more positive and that you have been able to give some feedback to your BCN, it can take a lot of courage to do that when you are feeling low.
Hope you and all the other ladies here have a good Easter weekend.
Love Esme x
Sorry W, only just read this thread again for the first time in a wee while. I’m so sorry you had another bad experience and i’m very glad you’ve come through and out the other side - a real sign of inner strength! I will pm you soon to see how you’re doing.
Lynnx.
Lovely to hear from you Esme again. As I said before you’re always there for me when I fall… Thank you again for your support. (I’m thinking you may be a guardian angel.)
I have put events into the right perspective now and building up from there. Even been able to support others who were really in a low state! Even the lowest experiences give you an insight into how others might be feeling…
Today is the first day in ages when I haven’t had medical appointments so really enjoying relaxing and not having to rush around. Pity it’s not warmer! I’m on the Kent coast and it’s raining again! So I’m hoping to do a spot of craftwork while I munch my way through several hot X buns… Hoping your day is progressing ok.
Lynn, good to hear you’re through the initial days after your chemo. I read your post and hope S.E.s are not too bad this time.
Look after yourself and let others cherish you too.
Best Friday wishes to all of you here.
Lol from Welsh girl x