During Chemo I felt ok, now I feel so incredibly scared
During Chemo I felt ok, now I feel so incredibly scared Dear All
I’m sure this is a recurrent theme, but I felt positive whilst having chemo - it finished 3 weeks ago and I start radiotherapy next week.
Now, suddenly, has surfaced this overwhelming fear of ‘what if it hasn’t worked?’
Had a mastectomy on my right boob but the lump in my left breast was found to be benign so they left it alone. This has started to ache over the passed few days and now I’ve more or less talked myself into believing that my whole body is probably being eaten away by cancer.
I’m only 34 and the passed 1 1/2 years have been the happiest of my life (due to finally finding a partner who is good for me) now i’m full of morbid thoughts and i don’t want to die!!!
I know these thoughts are normal and will pass - just needed to share - i feel so scared at the moment
madbadger if it’s any comfort we all go to pieces about the what ifs and have they got it rights… Phone your BC nurse and tell herl about it. She’ll understand and get it checked and you’ll know if it’s OK/not OK. Either way it’s better for you because you’ll stop being frightened or get it dealt with. best wishes, dilly
I started to loose the plot at about the same time in my treatment as you. In fact when I went for my rads planning I walked into the room and burst into tears! My Onc was there and referred me to the oncology councellor, I’ve had one session with her so far and it has really helped, mostly by being reassured that what I’m feeling is completely normal and I’m not going mad.
Sometimes we need to deal with our feelings rather than waiting for them to pass. Talking to someone I didn’t have to protect by hiding how frightened I am was such a relief.
Take care
Claire x
hi Madbadger,
Your not alone with these feelings,i have never felt so scared as i do at this point in my treatment. have had surgery, chemo and now on to rads and all that keeps going through my head is ‘what if’ Don’t think i could go through it all again, everyone around me is so positive and i try to join in but its there nagging at the back of my mind.
At the begining of my treatment it never crossed my mind that it wouldn’t work, but the longer were on this journey the more knowledge we get.
Don’t mean to bring you down just wanted you too know your not alone with these feelings, i take great comfort in logging on and discovering i’m not alone.
Take Care
Carole
Me too although I have done 14 out of 20 rads and Im having 12 months of herceptin,as soon as I had finished chemo I started to think that the cancer would be back. I too am having counselling as I rebuild my life again and plan things in the future i find there is very little excitment I think of all the possible what ifs and worry about those I don’t think of.I hope that we can all have more good days than the bad as time goes on,.I talked to my onc the one day about secondaries and he said not to be overly pessimistic. How hard is it not to be but Im trying. Im scared and I hate feeling scared. I thinlk its only time that may help but I don’t really know just hoping I suppose.
Anjie 
Yes strangely time does help I neve thought i’d be saying this because at diagnosis, during chemo and afterwards I was so scared of the what ifs. I have a poor prognosis…always have, always knew…had 23 nodes with cancer and vascular invasion and triple negative so no ‘insurance’ of hormonal treatments.
But suddenly and somehow it is three years since my diagnosis. There was a real shifting point for me when I was moved from 3 month to 6 month check ups in August. I begin to think I might fall on the lucky side of bad stats and live. And at the moment and for the moment my life is good…the fear walks alongside me but at a quieter and calmer pace than 6 months ago, or 18 months ago, or in the immediate aftermath of treatment when I feared so much that my recurrence could be immediate, that I’d have no well time at all.
I think our fear after treatment is finished is so real…recurrences after poor prognosis (and here I mean anyone with lymph involvement) are more likely in the early months and years…particularly for triple negatives. Somehow as those months have passed and start to become years so confidence grows…or at the very least a profound gratefulness for well time and for living in this world.
best wishes to all
Jane
node involvement It’s good to hear that someone with so much nodal involvement is still going strong - I had it in 31 out of 35 removed nodes. I’m going on Herceptin after radio and hope all of this works cos I’ve got too much fun stuff to do to die early!
for madbadger I think you’re the first person I’ve heard of in the UK since I was diagnosed who’s actually had more node involvement than me. I had 23/25 Its scary stuff isn’t it and not a record to be proud of? (Though once you get more than 10 with cancer I understand 15, 23, 25, 31 doens’t alter the statistics…)
I was her2- so no herceptin and I’m also a good deal older than you (57 now). I hope you too confound the statistics and in 18 months/3 years/10 years time will be telling someone else that you can go strong after a poor prognosis.
very best wishes
Jane