I am near3 years post dx and think about it in some capacity most days
Hi Oscar,
Your comments struck a nerve with me too. I was DX March 2007 . I was fortunate in that I only had a WLE but I still find it hard to move on. I come on here every day, just for a few minuits. I still have my cancer file on the kitchen worktop and am kind of supersticious about putting it it away - just in case…
In some respects I have moved on - new job (p/t) new clothes (i’m fatter now!) . but it’s always there isn’t it and the thought of secondaries - think you just have to kind of find a new equilibirium and way of living with it.
cheers
caroline
Hi ladies
Firstly. I’d like to say everyone’s response to this disease is so individual, there is no right or wrong reaction to it and secondly, I think it also depends on your experience of it from friends, family etc.
(My sister was dx when I was 28 (I’m now 45) so I have had long term experience first and secondhand).
I am reminded of my treatment every day when I see the scars and putting on Cissy and Ada (my prostheses) and I suspect that will never change.
I am at the phase where I think ‘this time last year I was having chemo’ or something along those lines as I was dx Sept 07.
I don’t want to become someone who is thought of only in relation to BC as there is more to life than that so as I am getting further away from treatment, I trying to consciously progress on with life. Right now, my thoughts are occupied with getting married in a few weeks so the focus has changed for me.
I feel very lucky to have got to today and am grateful for what I’ve got, every day I wake up is a good one.
As the dx was not a major shock for me, this has perhaps helped come through the otherside and feel the way I do but I truly accept that others may not be so able to do so.
My heart goes out to all who are touched by cancer and we need to be kind to ourselves.
Dawnflower
Oscar,
You’ve basically said what my fears are. I too have 3 young children, 8,5,& 2 and the fear for them is huge. I also feel guilty that i have put them at risk as i have girls. I never want to leave them nor do i ever want to let them see my fears, not until they are able to fend for themselves.
Yes i want to live and move on but i didn’t realise how deep and dark fear is - no for my life but for theres.
Take care
Sukes
For what it’s worth, the incessant nag in the brain does start to drift away after a while - for those of us who fall on the good side of the statistics, and finish treatment and don’t experience a recurrence or mets. I was diagnosed first time round in 1991, and it took several years before it wasn’t one of the things that I factored into almost every decision I made - and I don’t have kids.
I did have a pretty active career and that changed considerably. Gradually, I found that although I was helping with a cancer information centre and other bc related things, it wasn’t as personal as it had been, and even more gradually, I moved away from having an involvement with cancer - my experiences seemed too long ago to be helpful to anyone having a diagnosis now.
I was narked to say the least when I found myself with a second primary in December last year - back into the tumble drier. This time round, I had to have a mastectomy, so yes, once again, I do think about it every day - partly the puddock (prosthesis to the non-Scots) but because I’m back in the uncertain bit of the statistics (except that now I know I seem to be good at doing bc). I opted out of chemo, so I haven’t had to deal with the aftermath of that, and I just hang on to having got through it last time with a judicious mixture of information seeking, selective denial and red wine. My personal coping method, not recommended to all and sundry.
Lyn
I had primary, mastectomy & lymph clearance, chemo & rads then tamoxifen (no reconstruction) in 2002-2003, Walked the Walk May 2003 at endof treatment and went back to work in the August, gradually. It took a long time to get my energy back - I would say really, a year to get it back fully, during which time I was thinking hard about what I was doing. The summer of 2004 I would say I had a lot of days when I didn’t think about it at all - getting into new career. I think I was stir crazy that summer, very active, I had to get away many weekends because I felt I’d been in the jug. But still the odd day, inevitably, when it came to mind. And in the run up to a consultation & bloods I would think about it a bit more, and hope. Oddly enough, I even got used to the puddock (see above post) and often didn’t think twice about it - apart from with sex when I have felt inadequate although my DP is very positive about my body (bless 'im) . And stick-on puddock’s (I call 'em chicken fillets) are interesting…
My husband couldn’t cope with the change in body, the mood swings, the whole scenario - and we parted a year after the treatment finished.
Moved to a different part of the country with new career, hoping it wouldn’t come back. Was just psyching myself up to have a reconstruction, when a dodgy scan result for something else this spring led to secondary dx in May this year, obviously, think about it nearly every day now, and have been fairly disturbed. But still there are odd days now I am established on letrozole, when I think I don’t think about it, primarily days when I get out into nature or really stuck into painting or carving.
I had a lot of help from the Fountain centre attached to St Luke’s Guildford - it was fabulous - counselling and all sorts of alternative therapies to ease the journey. I think this, including art therapy and music therapy, enabled to free me up from a lot of negative thinking, enabling the career change long term and I am endlessly grateful to the wonderful staff there for helping me in this way and opening up my imagination, helping me to be positive for almost 1st time in life. & one thing cancer has done for me is liberate me from offices :-)))) though I’m a lot poorer cashwise.
Lyn I like your selective denial and red wine (was my surgeon’s recommendation, Chilean Merlot…!) I’d add … fantastic friends
What a flippin tome. Well, the journey’s been long - but I’d say a lot of it I’ve not thought about it much, which is the great boon/blessing of the fantastic treatments that are available to us. My grandmother wasn’t so lucky in 1928, and died when she was in her twenties leaving two small boys.