Hi, I’m looking for others’ thoughts on this.
I was diagnosed with IDC nearly a month ago, have had mammograms, core biopsy of breast and later of node, MRI, stereotactic biopsy. For some reason it just doesn’t feel real. Not in the way that I’m in denial, just that it’s not it doesn’t seem to be hitting me at all.
Waiting for the diagnosis was tense and since that I’ve completely chilled out to the point I’ve had days where it’s hardly crossed my mind. Surely that can’t be an expected way to react?!
I’m waiting for the stereotactic results to see how big it is and to get my treatment plan, that’s another week or so away still.
I know there’s no right or wrong way to react, but I don’t feel like I’m reacting at all! My partner had a very challenging event at work last week and that’s caused more of a reaction in me than the cancer diagnosis!
Has anyone else received a diagnosis and then just carried on as before or is it just me being a bit out of the ordinary?!
I’m the same even now through chemo to an extent. I’m autistic and not a very reactive or emotional person in general but I totally agree that it doesn’t feel real. Maybe it will more after surgery or if I get really sick from the ec chemo I’m about to start. I think I’m a bit more sentimental and appreciative of little things but I was just saying to a friend about having Covid badly and how I feel much better now… not really thinking of the obvious there
I felt very much the same. I didn’t cry and had a real feeling of unreality even through chemotherapy, operation etc. I finished my ‘active’ treatment in March/April and in a way whats happened has become more real since then!
I was concerned about what I saw as my lack of reaction initially, but I think it was a case of getting my head down and getting through the grind of treatments. Once that was all over, after about a year, there was more time and energy to think about what had actually happened. I still do have a feeling of unreality to a certain extent though.
I have been very much like this. Apart from the initial panic at finding the lump, I have seemed to manage the whole diagnosis journey relatively well (obviously that “relatively” covers a few things). I have kept cheerful and leaned into my sense of humour a lot. People seemed to want to probe into how I was “really" feeling, as if I was somehow pretending to be okay…
Maybe it was coping mechanism but I wasn’t going to knock it. It’s all feeling a bit real now with dealing with chemo but even with the shock of that I can feel my self recalibrating a bit now .
I don’t think there’s a template for when /how things hit you . Even when my boob got removed it still didn’t really hit! I suspect I may have more trouble adjusting when the main treatment is done and I have to re-find myself.
But (to cut through my waffle) I think it’s totally normal to not hit you, or hit you, or hit you at unexpected times or vice versa!
I am feeling similar to this. When I first was referred for scans I fell apart for a few days but now I feel fine. In fact I almost feel better having been taken off HRT (which was making my boobs really sore) than I did before.
I’m still waiting on biopsy results for next week to find out exactly what’s happening. I have lumps on both sides, which seem very different in nature but could be linked. RHS is spiculated mass to one lymph node on scans, LHS was single fibrous mass.
I feel exactly the same. I was recalled following a routine mammogram. I had no symptoms so was surprised to be diagnosed with cancer. I am still in a state of disbelief because I feel fine. I am wondering when it will hit me but reading through posts maybe it won’t. I am having a lumpectomy on the 25th. It all seems so unreal. Good to know that I am not alone in my feelings.
I’ve been puzzled by my own lack of reaction too. When I went to Poole Hospital for my biopsy results, two staff led my husband and me into a room with armchairs and sofas. A box of tissues was placed strategically on the coffee table.
Of course, I already knew there must be something to tell me as they would hardly have given me an appointment involving a 60 mile round trip just for them to give me the all clear. But when I mentioned this they seemed genuinely surprised that I’d worked this out!!
Anyway, one of the breast care nurses adopted this very serious tone as she told me I had DCIS. I didn’t know what that was and the second woman pulled out the DCIS leaflet and explained. The words I concentrated on were ‘non-invasive’ and ‘in situ’.
I was told the next step would be surgery but that I’d be referred to a closer-to-home hospital for that.
I didn’t cry. I wasn’t emotional. I wasn’t scared. If anything, I was relieved it had been discovered early and delighted that, as a woman over 70, three years before I had put a reminder in my phone to request a mammogram.
My husband was the same! We cracked jokes during that appointment and, as we got up to leave, my husband pointed out to the nurse that we hadn’t needed the tissues. She said they never know how someone will react.
Friends and family look serious, adopt that serious tone and express sympathy when I mention my results or my surgery (this Wednesday). But I bat it back. I don’t want sympathy. I want to encourage all the women in my circle to check their breasts and go for their mammograms.
I’ve been surprised by my own reaction or lack of it. My mother died from cancer (lung). How can I be so upbeat, so relaxed about imminent surgery, radiotherapy and hormone therapy? I have wondered at myself but it’s reassuring to know I’m not the only one reacting this way. We are all different and nothing confirms this more!
I’ve had a Mastectomy and am mid way through chemo. I’ve recently returned to work and have noticed that I’m saying “ I was diagnosed with breast cancer” rather than “ I have breast cancer”
There’s just that bit of detachment from it all. I’ve wondered whether I’ll collapse into a ball when it’s all over, but I feel like I’ll probably just go “ phew!” and then crack on.
@2kittens - I’m sorry to hear you’ve received a Breast cancer diagnosis . Breast Cancer now is a wonderful forum and will hopefully be a great source of support for you x
I personally found that when I was diagnosed with cancer it felt odd because in the first instance I didn’t feel ill
I’d literally just gone to my GP with symptoms but I felt well , in fact strangely I felt the best I have done for quite awhile physically. Although I was still trying to process my diagnosis, I did still carry on working and I did have to check in with my self and remind myself that I’ve just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I returned to work way too quickly really, just two weeks after my breast cancer surgery to have a left sided mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy. This was more just because I was desperate for a sense of returning to normal if that makes any sense? But I remember I was absolutely exhausted. I went to a large work event that was an all weekend event, and even then I still found it hard to take on board the fact that I have been diagnosed with breast cancer even though I was missing a breast. I carried on working until just a few days before my first chemotherapy session because I just needed to keep myself busy and it wasn’t really until the day that I arrived for my first chemotherapy that it finally hit me that I had in fact been diagnosed with breast cancer and it finally sunk in at last.
Even now a year almost to the day since I started my chemotherapy I still look at myself in the mirror and think I had cancer! And it sounds really odd to say it “I had cancer.”
I’ve known lots of people who have been diagnosed with various different cancers and their diagnosis is usually followed on from them being really quite poorly and therefore I think that’s why it does feel different for us maybe because apart from maybe finding a lump or whatever issues we’ve got going on with our breast or breasts, we don’t generally tend to feel unwell (although we are all individual in how we feel physically) and so it feels a shock even more so when you’re about to put yourself through some treatment that can in fact make you feel unwell , so yes I think what you’re feeling is perfectly normal.
Some people can disassociate a little bit from their diagnosis as a little bit of a coping mechanism It can make things feel a little bit surreal and possibly not really happening to you as well.
The breast cancer nurses here at breast cancer now are fantastic , please don’t hesitate to get in touch with them if you have any questions at all.
I was exactly the same. I had a small idc and a larger Dcis and only needed a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. I went to work the day after being diagnosed and just told my work family, they were very supportive but I didn’t really feel anything. Everyone said it would sink in eventually but I felt the same all the way through. That was back in October 2023.
The only time I get nervous now is when my yearly mammogram is due and waiting for the results.
Just had my 2 year all clear.
Good luck on your journey and don’t feel that it’s wrong to be calm. There is no right or wrong
Arty1 