Hi there one and all. I guess I am needing some encouragement, emapthy, whatever. I had a mastectomy and node clearance in January, followed by radiotherpay and now on Arimidex for 5 years. After the surgery I was back to normal after a few weeks, cycling etc, but now I can’t summon the energy to go for a short walk let alone get on the bike.Also has a haematoma drained last week, still have seroma fluid all roud the scar and arm pit. We have just had visitors for a week and now they have gone I have done a nose dive, physically and mentally. I found it a huge effort to have visitors. I tried not to overdo it, but I guess I did and now everything aches, can only do short periods of things, feel totally frustrated, eating too much and feel close to tears a lot of the time. My husband says I am a people pleaser and shouldn’t do so much. He does stuff but not how I would and not all the things I would do so its frustrating. I’ve read other posts like this and people say a year before feeling “normal” again. I can’t imagine ever feeling the same again. How you all do it so much younger with children etc I just don’t know. I am already on anti deps so can’t take that route. Sorry for the rant…you guys who have children and jobs are amazing and in many ways i am so fortunate but right now with more visitors coming next week all be it relatives, I am sooo exhausted. Does excercise help if feeling like this or should I go with the flow and flop?!! Thanks for getting this far with the moan, it helps to write it all down!!
Maggie May
Hi MM.
If you’re on anti-d’s, perhaps you could do with changing to a different type? I’ve had several different ones and I know that some of them really didn’t suit me and made me feel worse.
Three months post treatment really is very soon for you to be expecting to feel back to normal, so please be kind on yourself. If you are able to let your standards change (I won’t say “slip”, that would be mean to your OH) then that might help the inside of your head. I find that it’s the inside of my head that is the most tricky part of this to cope with, and physical exhaustion is also mentally draining so that’s a double-whammy.
I can sympathise with the people-pleasing thing, I’m the same, but perhaps your hubbie doesn’t quite understand that pleasing people is also pleasing to you, in a way. You might need to learn to use the N word a bit more often (you know the one, rhymes with “go” and “snow” and “low”) but if you want to do stuff with and for others, then keep doing it.
Re exercise, don’t push yourself too far with it. By all means have a gentle walk when you’re feeling up to it but unless you’re feeling really spritely, avoid the forced march. And if you feel really knackered, then allow yourself to rest or sleep without feeling guilty. Just accept (if you can) that this is a positive part of your recuperation and you DESERVE to rest when your body tells you to.
Good luck, and here’s hoping it gets smoother for you in the coming months.
CM
x
Hi CM,
Many thanks for this. Today is a particuarly bad day but I do like your comment and especially to accept that this is a positive part of recuperation etc. It is all too easy to get into a fighting mode of frustration and doing too much and stop listening to my body crying out for rest.
I seem to remember you from earlier this year. I hope you are doing well and thanks again for your encouraging words.
MM X
Hiya MM…my friend felt like you do for a long while after her treatment had finished, and she gave me a hard copy of this abridged article http://www.cancercounselling.org.uk/northsouth/extra4.nsf/WebResClient/1761049276601BD68025735B00604834/FILE/article3.pdf?openElement
Just in case I needed to read it later on…my treatment ends in August…hope it may be of some help…hugs x
Hi Maryland,
Many thanks for this, I read it through briefly and it looks spot on! Will download it and read it through thoroughly. Thank you and all the best with your ongoing treatment and recovery.
Hi Margaret, it might also helt to talk to a clinical psychologist about your feelings. I have been seeing one all the way through my treatment (about 18 months now). I have found my sessions with her absolutely life saving. You can say things to the psychologist that you can’t say to your nearest and dearest and they also tend to specialise in areas. So mine is a specialist oncology psychologist. I am sure that your hospital will have the same. Talk to your breast cancer nurse to access this service. The psychologist also knows how long recovery takes and can reassure you that you are travelling in the right direction etc!
Hope that you are feeling better soon, but I agree we all need a long period of old fashioned convalescence after what we have been through. I am a bit like you and like to do things in a certain way, but I have learned to let go and go with the flow more. My OH and other friends and family have been brilliant in terms of changing with me and it also helps them to feel that they are helping me move forward. Let them help where they can!
Love Suzanne x
Hi Margaret
I know how you’re feeling, I had chemo, mx then rads finishing them the beginning of May. I worked as much as I could throughout my treatment and wasn’t signed off at all. I started working full time again from home while receiving my rads but I am now beginning to suffer! I find concentrating for any length of time difficult, many silly thing like not being able to do my work reduces me to tears but only when no-one else is around. Whenever I am in company I assume the stance that everything is all ok and things are back to normal. People at work assume now treatment has finished I can return to normal. I just wish I could. I don’t know what to do to fix it. I have read that paper and so much of it true, I guess I just don’t want to admit that now treatment is finished I cant cope, I should be better now shouldn’t I?
Weme
Thankyou for these. Suzanne I have not heard of a clinical psychologist at the hospital but will ask my BC nurse. I am going on a course in the Autumn run there about moving forward once treatment has finished which makes me think that others go through all these emotions and fatigue. I think I am my own worst enemy as I arrange things as though I am fine and then really struggle! But am beginning to realise from here that the recovery is long term and also have to take into account the arimidex and the side effects of them. Werne, I really feel for you as you are struggling to work while not feeling up to it and are obviously needing recovery time and like me, have to recognise the reality of what we have been through and how much time it takes to do that.Hope you can find someone to talk to as well. You had chemo as well as all the other so no wonder you are feeling as you are as its not long since you finished. We both have to be real about all this I guess and be kind to ourselves.
MM
Hi Margaret May,
I have put for you below the link to the area of this website where moving forward after treatment is discussed, which includes links to a number of BCC’s publications which may help you.
www2.breastcancercare.org.uk/publications/moving-forward
Take care,
Jo, Facilitator
Hello -
My treatment has been pretty much like yours, WLE, node clearance, rads and now anastrozole. After a few months i thought I was getting back to being a ‘real person’ then I just bombed out!!! Apparently it’s the rads, some people get exhausted at the time while others, like me, find the tiredness hits a few months later. So I just went with the flow (easy with no kids or partner, just 2 small dogs, and retired) and bounced back in a few months. Now I’m doing the Big Walks, having visitors, involved in social/village things, and having lots of little holidays in my wee campervan. I still find that I need a quiet day every so often, so I read a lot and refuse to feel guilty.
Hope this helps
grumpy
Hello Margaret May
I think you are being far too hard on yourself. You have been through so much its going to take far longer that a few months to feel better. Having all the treatment that we have tends to feel like you are on tredmill(probably not the best way to describe it) but its constant, appt after appt, getting to those appts having the treatment especially rads as its daily, it just goes on and on then to some degree it stops and then it all catches up with you. Everything you do will drain you, might not at the time, having visitors tends to put you on a “high” when they’re gone you suddenly realise how tired you are.
I am 8 years down the line and on Letrozole at the moment. I went back to work after treatment and found it so tiring. After 7 years of trying to cope and not getting on with Letrozole very well I gave up work last year and am now looking for a part time job but I still get tired, even now.
One thing that did help though was a daily walk, every day I would go out for at least 30 mins, just to get some fresh air. Exercise, eating healthily(we comfort ate during rads and boy did my OH and I put on the lbs during those weeks, all the waiting around and loads of biscuits etc will make you feel slugish)and loads of water will go a long way to making you feel better.
Take care
Hazel