I was discharged last Wednesday, finish Tamoxifen in a few days …yet I do not feel relieved/happy etc.,…kind of feel the same as when treatment finished…out on a limb…even though I have open access to my breast care team.
I have suffered with anxiety and depression since dx in jan 04…and have been on medication ever since…the last few days I have been having mild anxiety attacks…think its a kind of reaction to being discharged and losing my aunt to breast cancer last week…her funeral is tomorrow.
The five year thing means absoluately nothing to me as I know it can return at any point even in many years time.
no haven’t exactly felt like this… but i do feel the world puts pressure on us to say it is all over done and dusted and the truth is that treatment continues - tamoxifen - and we are not the same, bc has changed us for life. do be kind to yourself and realise all you have already done to beat the disease. get all the help you can, is your gp any good, he/she can probably prescribe something to help you.
so sorry about your aunt… today is the day to mourn and it too will continue so remember you are coping with all that means as well.
Just a thought (and not exactly what you are asking in your post) but do you think the Tamoxifen could be the main cause of your anxiety? It will be interesting to see how you feel when you come off it.
I started to go through the menopause two years ago and suffered with severe anxiety. I was just starting to feel better when I was diagnosed with DCIS after my first routine mammogram. I had a mastectomy (I coped with the diagnosis and operation with about the amount of anxiety you would expect!) and started taking Tamoxifen, within four months I had severy anxiety again - in fact I felt exactly how I felt when I started going through the menopause. Obviously the reduction of oestrogen in my body has the effect of making me feel anxious. I am off the Tamoxifen now and starting to feel better. I have to go back to the hospital in June to get the results of a blood test to see where I am in the menopause before deciding whether to take any other hormone therapy.
Of course you have to bear in mind all the other valid reasons you have for feeling anxious eg bc diagnosis, your aunt’s death etc. I sometimes feel like a ticking timebomb! Then I think what was the point in going through all that (and you have probably had a worse time than me) not to enjoy my life. Easier said than done though.
Hi Karen, sorry to hear of the death of your aunt. I’m with you on those anxieties you’re feeling, coming to the end of your Tamoxifen and yet being so aware that cancer can return any time. As well as missing your aunt, her death is a reminder of your own uncertain future. There don’t seem to be many people posting on this site who have come to the end of their five years of ‘hormonals’. I suppose most people at this stage are grateful to be done with the drugs and happy to be free of the symptoms they bring. I’ve not been told to stop taking my Arimidex so I’m going to take it for as long as I can.
We are in a strange place which is difficult to explain. Of course we are happy to be free of cancer, as far as we know, but there are un-named fears and anxieties which surface now and then especially at times like your aunt’s funeral. I often want to talk about these fears but find there is never a place or time to do so. We’re not enduring months of debilitating treatment or facing up to terminal disease so feel guilty at whingeing on about a few insecurities.
I was diagnosed in 2003 and am pretty pleased with myself for making it this far despite a rotten prognosis. But now and again I feel very much like you, out on a limb.