Sorry, I feel the need for a whinge, and I really don’t understand why - I think it’s part of the emotional BC thing.
I did my last rads treatment of a course of 15 today, expected to feel elated that it was all done, but instead was upset because I was on my own. I’d tried to tell my OH that I felt it was an important milestone, but he hadn’t understood and was very busy at work so didn’t go with me. So now I feel really down and even more because he feels that he wasn’t there for me. Does that make sense?
A lot of sense so sad you had to finish your milestone on your own but you have done it gud on you im sure your oh feels just as bad knowing he wasnt there Best not to dwell on it, your new life has now begun circumstances alters most cases WELL DONE to you
Well done to you - this is a major milestone and you can start to make progress on your road to recovery now.
What you felt yesterday is perfectly normal and you may find you have more days when you feel like that for no logical reason. Don’t worry about it or feel guilty or try to snap yourself out of it. Just be kind to yourself and go with the flow.
There is a really good article written by a counsellor called Peter Harvey and its been posted on here on many threads since I joined. It describes how a cancer patient feels at the end of active treatment and should help you to put this in perspective. I hope you can find it at this link, but if it doesn’t work, then Google ‘Peter Harvey Cancer Counselling’ and you’ll find it. cancercounselling.org.uk/northsouth/extra4.nsf/WebResClient/1761049276601BD68025735B00604834/FILE/article3.pdf?openElement
I finished rads at the end of February and that was when I felt at my worst - even worse than after 2 ops, 10 days in hospital and multiple platelet and blood transfusions. It has taken me months to begin to feel anything like my old self, but I’ve now had my one year check up and I am free of cancer and feeling OK.
Hang on in there and don’t worry - you are on the road to recovery now and it will get better. There is another really good thread in the last couple of days - the upside of cancer. Have a look at that and also let yourself have a rant when you need to and you will get your equilibrium back.
I know exactually how you feel, I finished 20 Rads on Friday and I also feel quite strange. It feels like a mixture of it’s all over but also a feeling of fear. Like you I have been attending hospital for a long time and now it feels like I am on my own.
I have excellent support from family friends and work collugues who are all so pleased for me, but you and I know the BC is always on our minds.
I am off on a cruise next week to celebrate. If you need to talk please feel free to send me a private message.
Thanks to all of you for your thoughts, and thanks Elsk for the link to the counselling info. I found some of it surprisingly upsetting to read, probably too close to home at the moment, but I’ll re-read it in a few days.
I think part of my problem is that I’m going to have surgery on my other breast in a few weeks to make me more symmetrical, so I’m not really off the treatment roller coaster yet.
Thanks again
Sarah x
Hi
It is a strange time when the nine months or so of slogging back and forth to hospital for treatments comes to an end. I just finished 25 sessions of radiotherapy two weeks ago. I also went on my own but wished I’d asked someone to go with me I felt slightly forlorn coming away from the hospital alone - though we did celebrate later with champagne. Throughout the treatment - chemo, surgery, rads,all sorts of scans, you just plod through it and get on with getting worse (which if you have chemo and surgery certainly happens)- then better. After the radiotherapy, I suddenly looked back and realised what I’d been through. Although I understood the ‘risks’ and the various grades and stages,and read all the reports etc these things were very much kept on the periphery of my mind whilst getting through all the appointments and treatment sessions. Once the rads had finished I had a real sense of my life having been threatened. Alsmost like a post traumatic stress reaction. I had a couple of difficult days where I felt very fragile. Now I am getting better and stronger every day. I still have to have a reconstruction, which I think cannot be for a few months yet. So yes, I understand somewhat how you must have felt. All the best. Harebell
Hi -what you are feeling makes perfect sense: my experience mirrors yours - 9 months of grotty treatment culminating in the intensive experience of daily rads,…and then, nothing.
In my hospital you are really left up the creek without a paddle as you are not seem again for over 8 months. Whether or not there is any medical justification for this I don’t know, but I think the psychological impact of the diagnosis and long treatment is not sufficiently addressed.
An early app. after the end of active treatment would give one the opportunity to express one’s fears - and would be very reassuring. It wouldn’t have to be with an onc- an experienced BCN who could give you a full half hour of her time would be fine.
In my case I would then have been happy to have had regular yearly mammos (they are 18 monthly here) but not to be seen again at the hospital unless I had symptoms or specific concerns.
I have written to my onc on these lines and he has said follow-up appointments are a current hot topic amongst the oncology community …and he agrees with me!
I finished 18 sessions of radiotherapy two weeks ago. I was lucky to have picked up a Macmillan leaflet one day about what happens next. I read that many people, instead of feeling relieved after radiotherapy, often feel abandoned and depressed.
Forewarned, I thought about the positives I got from commuting to Reading daily - feeding the ducks on the canal on the way, chatting with nurses and other patients in the waiting room - and tried to make the most of them in the last few days. I felt quite emotional the last day and bereft that afternoon when I got home.
Since finding the lump in January, I’ve had somewhere to go where people have been kind and have taken care of me. I’ve spent hours chatting in waiting rooms with people in similar and different situations. I’ve even made some friends.
It’s worth getting a couple of booklets on life after treatment.
Hi
Yes it is good to look at the positives. I also read through all the leaflets and books I could get my hands on - including Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book - which is essential reading for anyone with breast cancer. However, having all of this information does not necessarily stop the other feelings which come out of this experience, such as recognizing one’s mortality - nor should it.
It is helpful to be forewarned, read all the leaflets etc and be aware of the good things, but at the same time I realise that I cannot anymore take life for granted - I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. It is important to be able express these feelings, even though we and the professionals know there is nothing to be done about it except to go through it and come out the other side - hopefully with a decent prognosis. Sometimes I think these leaflets are written not only for the benefit of the patients but also for the professionals who themselves can feel so helpless in the face of their own helplessness - i.e. we have done everything we can for you and you still complain.
Why should we not feel entitled to a little whinge now and then. My partner tells me I have been valiant throughout this time. That meant a lot to me - to know that my own approach and demeanour in the face of this struggle was admired. Friends tell me I have been courageous - they have been wonderful and helped me through this in so many ways. I know I have a full and good life with loving and caring friends and family; but having all this does not in itself stop the disappointment of having cancer - and the effect it has on your life - together with the fear that this can all be taken away from me - and them. Do not be afraid to express your innermost feelings - everyone has them.
All good wishes
Harebell
Thank you elsk for the link. I am just about to begin radiotherapy but it describes so well how I fell - I have lost confidence in myself, my body and my world.I feel pathetic and stupid to feel this way but it really describes it so well. I think I may show it to my OH. Thank you.
I agree with all this - its so nice to actually finish RADS - but suddenly the realisation hits you and like everyone else on here I actually felt worse than I did during treatment - far more tearful and ‘depressed’.
I was aware from posts on here that it is common to feel like this and although I was almost expecting to feel that way - when I did feel so low it still came as a surprise!
I think its a phase that you have to go through and knowing it is a common feeling does help, but it doesn’t make you feel any better about those feelings - and what makes it worse is that everyone else is so excited by the fact you have finished treatment and insist on making comments like ‘its all over now’ etc etc and telling you how good you look when you feel like sh*t!
My advice would be to take someone with you to the last treatment so you have got someone to cling onto as you walk away - be kind to yourself and allow yourself to feel ‘down’ or ‘low’ and forgive yourself for these feelings. x
I am due to finish 25 sessions 8 left but I am dreading it as as you all say its lovely to see the nurses and the same faces each day and chat about your worries and how you feel what making me dread finishing rads is my partner left me in the first week of rads and even sent emails giving me wedding venues to look at. Feel so low.
Feeling really low today, finish rads on Friday and feeling all over the place. I am glad it’s coming to an end as I hate going to the hospital and laying there like a piece of meat,my onc can’t even be bothered to see me, I saw a nurse who told me she would pass a message on! enquired about some complementry therapy and basically was told it would be better to sort it out myself. At home it doesn’t get much better, with two kids,a husband and the dog you just have to get on with it. I just want a massage and some hair!
Hi Darcyb
Funny how we’re all different isn’t it? Several ladies commented on how they enjoyed seeing the nurses and having a chat with the same people every day - I hated it! I used to dread seeing the same faces again and being forced to overhear their discussions on their treatment and side effects, etc. Like you I couldn’t wait to get it over and done with, but even so it was a peculiar sensation when I left the last session. Be prepared for not feeling over the moon, as you might expect, when it’s all done. But roll on Friday, hope all goes well.
Sarah x
Hi,
My name is Allie, 39 and I’m new to the forum. I am in the early stages of breast cancer, due to have results of lumpectomy at oncology appointment on Monday, but wanted to find out (from those who’ve experienced it first-hand) about radiotherapy as my Macmillan nurse has mentioned this as a definite for post-op treatment.
My friends are great and my mother wants me to stay with her for the time I am having radiotherapy…whilst very grateful, I am keen to source other alternatives even as options… call me nuts, but more worried about the threat to independence with the physical side effects of radiotherapy treatment and the effects on those around me…
Can you drive a car,cook, clean etc. safely without much help or does it totally wipe you out ? I’d be grateful for any feedback on this.
Al x
HiAllie-sorry not to comment on your post, the most recent one:
My comments are to do with the previous ones. I, too felt a real sense of anti climax when I had my last rad app. - it seemed such an abrupt end to 9 months of treatment - but I think in my case it was more to do with the long wait before I would be seen again (8 months) .
I was certainly glad to be at the end of all that ‘being a patient’ : I certainly did not enjoy sitting in the waiting areas (in chemotherapy for many hours- and I certainly didn’t want to discuss my situation with other patients- uck!
: Maybe it is different in smaller hospitals but my experience of a large teaching hospital was of long , long waits with total strangers- I very rarely even saw another person twice - and just the occasional wry smile or look of shared ‘fed-upness’ was about all I could manage!
As for the nurses - my own BC N was lovely - but very ,very busy so I had little support from her after my intial surgery. I found the chemotherapy ‘technicians’ were very busy, often quite distant & spoke only as necessary - and I didn’t come across any other nurses in the clinics apart from those who chaperoned the oncologist - who never spoke! I found the warmth of contact I received was largely from the radiologists and the medical staff- the nurses were quite a let -down.(speaking as a former one myself)
I had 18 rounds of radiotherapy in Sep-Oct. Many people in the waiting room had family with them. There are often delays due to one thing or another and so it’s good to have someone to chat to or take something to read.
The main side-effct I experienced was tiredness. But not nearly as much as the fatigue from chemo. My skin started blistering under my breast (from friction) on day 15 (of 18) sessions. I was given some dressings which allowed the skin to do its thing and heal me and I could still shower. I had very little pain.
The disruption to the day was a nuisance. For me, radiotherapy itself took less than a minute. But there’s 5-10 mins being lined up on the table and sometimes up to 90 mins delayed appointments.
If you’re having chemotherapy, find nice things to eat and do in the first week after each chemo as I the first week after each session quite hard - nausea and generally feeling glum, not wanting to see anyone. I was fine weeks two and three. You’ll not feel like eating in the first week - I was eventually advised by my oncologist to take Domperidone regularly for a week and that helped a lot.
There’s still a lot of heebie-jeebies surrounding cancer. When I talked to people in waiting rooms, the women with breast or cervical cancer were getting on with things matter-of-factly and it was the husbands who coped less well. If you think that having your (well-meaning) friends and family with you might get you down, you don’t have to have them with you.
I went to radiotherapy alone as my husband had just started a new job. Because of the extra waiting, I think I’d have felt bad for him if he’d come to radiotherapy with me. In the end, I was fine going alone. But he came with me during chemo and I found it comforting. He thought of ways to pass the time, which was great.
Keep us posted regarding your surgery results and treatment. Did you have a sentinel node biopsy?
I had a lumpectomy in March. Lymph nodes clear (although I didn’t understand the implications of this early on).
Hi there - I haven’t posted much in the forums for one reason or another but I had my final radiotherapy session day today (36 sessions so have been going 5 days a week for the last 7 weeks)
I didn’t have chemotherapy and feel very grateful for that but the radiotherapy has hit me pretty hard (of course I don’t have the experience of chemo to compare it to, I know that I am very lucky). The main thing has been exhaustion, I am so very tired all the time and last week found myself crying on the sofa because I didn’t have the energy to get up and make myself a cup of tea!! At least I can laugh about it - some days are better than others and I do find that I need a nap most days. My husband has been brilliant but could only come with my to one session when he just happened to be off that day.
at times it felt very lonely waiting in the waiting room on my own. I know that I could have chatted to folks but like someone else said I just did not feel that I wanted to hear about others experiences so instead I buried my head in a book each time. I began a book on the first day of treatment and read the final page today - funny how it worked out like that as I only ever read this book waiting for radiotherapy - was like it was meant to be.
Unfortunately my husband couldn’t come with me today but I had arranged to meet with a friend straight after as I was worried I might be feeling a bit ‘delicate’. I am glad I did as I thought I would be fine but got very teary the moment I walked out of the hospital doors. the main feeling is one of relief, the other is exhaustion, the other is what next? but I am also excited to have my mornings and hopefully my life back.
I am 38 and we were trying for children before my diagnosis so I guess I feel that is the main worry I have to contend with now - will we be able to have children after my hormone treatment is done - who knows.
Anyway sorry for the novel - I guess I just wanted to say that it is a trudge going through it, a bit of a shock to the system emotionally to be finishing but I am now excited about the future.
I haven’t read all the posts but I know that planning for a baby was incorporated into her treatment.
With regard to feeling tired, it does get better.
I had my last radiotherapy in early October and I’m not feeling back on form. However, I think that’s because my year was generally disrupted - I have become a bit lazy! And the anxiety I didn’t have during treatment seems to have turned up as waking up several times during the night and thinking.
Yes, it is exciting to think about the a future without treatment.