Hi, I am really pleased to write this post, I was diagnosed end of sep, had lumpectomy and lymph gland removal, completed radiotherapy started taking my tamoxifen New Year, that’s it job done! Hopefully I will never have to go down this hole again.
I can honestly say I have never felt so low, battered and bruised in the whole of my life and never has anything affected my friends and family around me so much, it has been devastating and absolutely life changing, but you know what I have crawled out of that hole and here I am!! I feel like me again, I know I am very lucky that I didn’t have to have chemo so my recovery has been quite quick although it feels like a lifetime.
I just wanted to write this because the majority of us do come out of this, I know others aren’t as fortunate and I REALLY DO acknowledge that, but I wanted to write this for our forum friends who will still be struggling and thinking there is no end in sight. Thought it would be nice to see a good news item.
I can’t believe the support I have found on here it has been absolutely amazing and the information too thank you all so much. I know I could leave and think that’s it I have done it but if it’s ok with you guys I would like to sick around to offer help to newbies and anywhere I can.
Sunflower x
It does seem like a very long process but reading your post had made me smile and yes although I’m still in my hole, it feels like I’m a few steps up towards that light.
Make sure you have a large glass of wine waiting for me when I get to the top haha.
Glad your feeling back to your normal self, it is horrendous what we have to go through let alone what’s going on inside our minds.
Thanks PP I really hopes this post helps, I never thought I would feel like ‘me’ again and I do it is such a lovely feeling I actually wake up now feeling fine. You were one of my first pink buddies on here and I know you have got hell of a way to go yet but I will have the largest glass of Moët and Chandon waiting for you when you crawl out of the hole, thanks for your support xx
Well done you!! I have been digging out of the hole all year, i am now teetering on the edge ( had 3 &ops chemo, awaiting RADS news??) and despite having been through it all before and escaped the hole, I admit does leave you COMPLETELY WRUNG OUT!!! glad to be climbing out for a second time and whilst we do think of our lost loved ones and I like many have lost familky and close friends to this horrible disease, I am grateful to have been able to climb out and may I, along with you all, stay out this time!!! JX
thanks J, completely wrung out just about sums it all up, looks like your life has been on total hold for a year I am lucky that it has only been just over 3 months because that feels like a year.
I do hope you can craw out very soon and stay out, wishing you all the best and thanks again x
I think that this is what has struck me the most, the fact that it is a long old haul from start to finish, and it seems, at the time, to drag on for ever and ever.
Although I still have to have another 13 doses of herceptin before my treatment can be said to be at an end, by now I liken myself to being like a piece of seaweed that has finally been left washed up ‘high and dry’ on the beach now that the tide has finally begun to turn in my favour.
I know that we will all look back on this in time as one of life’s big hiccups, but hopefully we will all be stronger and healthier for it - it’s just that we could all do without the test!
PP passing the bucket to you now with a straw
Mazzalou it does feel like a test to see if we are strong enough to come out the other side, we have no choice do we? I know one thing if in future someone I know is diagnosed, chances are they will looking at the stats, I definitely won’t say “be strong” or “oh you look well” I just have wanted to scream I’m not strong and yep I may look ok but you can’t see what is happening in my head or heart! People really haven’t got a clue, but at least they have supported me in the only way they can so I shouldn’t moan really. What a test of your body and emotions though, it’s just so unfair, I know I will never be the same again after this experience.
I am still very much in that dark hole.
I know that I am really depressed and should perhaps use anti depressanats but I don’t want anymore drugs in my body.
I do know however that the chemo affects my moods so hopefully will feel better next week .
I still find it hard accepting that this has happened and am praying that one day the worry will subside.
This week has been really hard , i feel a nothingness and feel detatched from life. I also feel like a failure for getting this and I know that this is ri ,diculous .
I’m sorry for ranting hasn’t helped that i was up last night for 3 hours with an upset stomach!
Also after 5 fec (tried cold cap) hair has now gone and I find myself hiding from the windows ashamed of how I look but more how I feel .
I am seeing a physcologist and waiting for cognitive therepy , I also have a lovely survivor who rings me so i have SO much support , so WHY cant i be braver???
x
I sort of slipped in a couple of days ago - not sure why as I have been very upbeat and positive since being diagnosed. Now chemotherapy and surgery are out of the way you would think I would be very happy but unfortunately I am not. I was a very fit person before bc and it’s not the cancer that has given me a bald head, sore fingers and toes and achy joints - its the treatments! Finding very difficult to get moving in the mornings and again if I have been sitting down for any length of time. This has left me wondering if I will always be like this, or will I improve with time?
Anyway - I am about halfway up the side of the hole and leaving bright orange “hand holds” behind so that you can follow me when you feel up to it. You will feel better when you are back in the sunshine and fresh air, I know I will.
I couldn’t put it better myself ST. My husband confiscated my passport to stop me hopping on a plane to Dignitas half way through the chemo tunnel and I’m just starting now to be grateful to him for doing this. I’ve also felt so wimpy, pathetic and wrecked while people kept telling me how brave I was and how well I looked. Just reading the posts on here made me feel that I was not alone and that so many of us are experiencing the same feelings. It’s so hard to be brave and positive when you are feeling so c…p. However, when the horrible side effects subside, however slowly, you just start to think that maybe it was all worth it and that life will perhaps taste sweet again. Hugs to all. Jan x
I have felt like this as well. Tried very hard to put up a good front in the ok bits but felt after each chemo that I just couldn’t go through it again. Depressed, weeping and desperate. Now although slightly euphoric because I have finished chemo, I’m aware that I my confidence is shot but as time passes and I try and do the one thing a day that scares me (that counts as almost anything at the moment) the pleasure of life should come back and as Jan says taste sweet again. Love to all xxx
You sounded so miserable that I just want to remind you that what you are currently going through is a passing phase, and not the rest of your life. The sooner it passes the better, of course, but it will eventually.
You ARE brave in admitting here that you feel the way that you do, and we don’t have to be brave ALL of the time anyway as you can see from what others have said here.
It is hard when you look in the mirror and see a stranger looking back at you, but you are still you inside, and the old you will look back at you from the mirror in time.
I finished chemo at the end of September (and the dreaded docetaxel at that) and my head hair is growing back as are my eyelashes, and once again I am having to shave my legs!!! Strangely enough I was euphoric when the 1st leg hairs appeared.
Try to remember that you are not alone in feeling the way you do and that to feel this way is perfectly reasonable, given what you are enduring.
Just remember that when you find yourself following Supertrouper’s bright orange ‘hand holds’ to the top, some of us will have already made it to the top and will be reaching down to you to pull you to the top with us.
Just logged on first time for days as been unwell…and slipping back into ‘the hole’ my arm from recent surgery very swollen and very sore, GP not sure if it’s lymohodeama or phlebitis and as for the pains in shoulder/collar bone etc well it’s urgent xrays tomoz to hopefully rule out ‘anything sinister’ The doc has put me on mild anti-depressants hat double as settling down nerve endings as that also may be the cause of pain??? I am more than a little fed up!!! Thanks sunflower 16 for your words of encouragement and the whole of 2011 was a bit of a nightmare…apart from my holiday , taking my kids to disney in Florida, I empathised with you soupertrouper as I feel so achey all the time and get up like a wreck??? I want to start to feel better SOON or maybe sooner XXX Love to all XXXXX
Mazzalou that brought a lump to my throat very well said, just lovely. I now have this visual of us reaching down pulling our buddies to the top of that wretched hole, not forgetting the Moët and Chandon bucket for our friend Pink Princess xx
Well Sunflower16, I now have a visual of all of us at the top, knocking back the old Moet and Chandon and ending up absolutely legless and giggling away like silly schoolgirls, so the rest of you had better hurry up to the top of that very dark hole and join in the party.
I have my odd wobbles - flashbacks to this time last year when I was waiting for an MRI to find out if it was going to be one MX or two - but I’m out of the hole and happy to reach down.
I finished active treatment (apart from tamoxifen) in Sept and was back at work full-time at the beginning of November. However, I was shattered at the end of each day, wasn’t as mentally sharp as I was before and didn’t have the the same level of confidence.
Things have been improving though and, while I’m not 100% all the time, my energy and stamina have increased - and I’ve just coped with two very full-on and stressful days without having a meltdown! Didn’t even have a sense of humour failure - although hysterical giggling was to be heard at one point. I’m back!
Hello everyone - I managed to climb out of the hole and quite relieved to be out of it! I’ve had a lot of help from a little foster dog that we took in on Monday - I HAVE to get out of bed, HAVE to take her for walks and I do feel much much better.
It might not feel like it at times but you will feel better.
Anyway - I am going to keep popping back to see who’s fallen down the hole and let down food/drink baskets on long ropes plus a torch so you can see the bright orange hand holds that I left so you can climb out.
Well i think i am definitely in the hole and i’m struggling. I was only diagnosed last week - and yes everything is still raw.
I’m just so very scared.
I’m 36 and all i want is to be a mum and i worry now i will never be. I may never get to feel that unconditional love and the overwhelming joy og holiding my baby in my arms.
I am scared my partner will leave me too. He is the most amazing guy but how is it fair on him that he has to deal with this.What if he finds a younger, healthier model!
And i know i have worse to come when i start treatment. I am dreading chemo.
I’d give anything to turn back the clock and erase the last couple of weeks.
I want to be strong and stop crying - and i just cant…
hi rae
i am 37 and was dx 4 wks ago and go in for my mx tomorrow. i have a wee boy but we were trying for another now that is not going happen. i see babies and prams everywhere. i know i am lucky to have my boy. there r treatments that can be offered so you should ask your bc nurse about these. remember you are not alon- it feel like it being diagnosed so young- i know. you are entitled to feel hard done by, cheated and robbed- i do. x
xxx