Hi everyone… i’m about a year post chemo, and still trying to get a job and return to work. I’ve been trying for about 4 months - but took about 6-9 months to recover from the chemo which really knocked me around badly. (after every round i had to be admitted to hospital cuz i collapsed a few times). I was in so much pain for the last round of docetaxyl - it felt like every muscle in my body was being compressed, like a steel cable or something etc.
It just irritates me, although my parents were good during the treatment in that my mother went to all the injections with me - i could tell that they didn’t really think it was affecting me as much as it was. I think they thought i was overreacting a lot of the time. and they thought that i should start looking for a job after about 2 months after treatment. they couldn’t understand that i could still be feeling sick, and tired, and kept telling me to go for a jog etc. My heart felt weak and i had palpitations sometimes but doctors told me it was anxiety and not the drugs. Even tho epirubicin - one i had- causes heart damage in the side effects list, and i never had palpitations before the chemo.
i feel like no one knows what it feels like (i had the highest dose chemo possible cuz i’m younger - 27 at the time) - also feel that after chemo there’s no real support or check ups, everyone expects you to get on with it and go back to work. Like you see on tv - mothers juggling kids and working through the chemo. Just sick of everything; and totally have no motivation to do much at work.
I keep forgetting things and having mental blanks - anyone have the same thing? Also dont know whether to say i’m disabled or not; i’m not really so dont feel i can say it. but i’m ‘something’…
yeah; but i’m having trouble returning to work - there’s no support from the government much - i was never even on sickness benefits - just on newstart the whole time (for people looking for work who are healthy generally), and i had to keep providing doctors certificates or they cut off my payments. (which they did a few times incorrectly). If i didn’t have parents to move in with i would have ended up in some really bad boarding house or on the street because i couldn’t live on the tiny income they give you - would have had to sell my car too.
i had to quit my job cuz of the surgery and treatment(i was independent and renting) and i had to move in with my parents cuz of the low amount i got paid from the govt while having treatment. I feel like they’re irritated sometimes; i would like to get a job and be independent again; but just don’t care about anything much anymore.
one of my breasts is bigger than the other from a lumpectomy. i refused to have the mascetomy at the last minute because i read about a lot of alternative therapies, which i believe can work and i’m using some of them and feel not too bad now; but i stopped the hormone treatments as well, as they were making me sicker.
i got osteoporosis after the chemo (as a result of it) even tho i’m young. they tried to say it wasnt the chemo or they didnt know; but one of my doctors admitted it pretty much had to be.
sorry for the complaining but feeling quite cranky (incase you cant tell). I know there are people out there with way worse problems and i seem to be doing ok, so i dont have any problems really but; sometimes it just all builds up and i can’t handle it.
i think when i go back to work i might feel better.
just feel like people think i’m slack for still not having a job, even tho i’ve had interviews; but even this girl i’m friends with, who’s a scientist i can tell she thinks i’m slack for still not managing to get a job. makes me angry. she works for a drug company doing research and she also thinks i’m crazy for believing in alternative treatments and for stopping my treatment… not that i really care what she thinks. >:
