Oh gosh, I’ve a feeling I may be here some time…
At the moment, I feel totally at the end of the line with my treatment plan - it scares me witless. It seems to me that we’re damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t. This realisation has really only hit home just recently as I was feeling pretty chipper after finishing chemo. I’d had such a rough ride with it that just to not be feeling sick was enough to give me a high!
Six weeks down the line, I feel as if I have been hit with an almighty sledge hammer. And there’s me thinking I was handling things so well since diagnosis last September. I’m having rads now and if you can detach yourself enough to not feel as if you’re a bit of meat on a bacon slicer, it is (to use that much overused but very true phrase) “doable”. Thing is I JUST DON’T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE!! I am becoming such a grump about the whole thing that I resent anyone trying to get more blood out of me (and if one more nurse calls me ‘pet’ ‘poppet’ or ‘sweetheart!’…). My family keep telling me it’s for my own good but I just want to shout, ‘yes I know that but just… let me express myself for once without feeling guilty’!
Today I had my herceptins planned. And after going through the potential damage it can do the heart, I wearily signed the consent form with my onc chirpily saying ‘so that’s your next 12 months taken care of’…
We were then onto Arimidex and I was told to go home and start taking it immediately ahead of having my ovaries removed. Great. But after reading the hormone thread, I feel as if I am about to be fast tracked into middle age and plunged into immediate menopause with all the lovely side effects that go with it (weight gain, facial hair, flushes…). Now I know sex isn’t everything but it’s most definitely something… but now I feel as if I am about to kiss goodbye to any intimate relationship in the future and that is making me feel so depressed. Is there anyone out there on Arimidex who still feels sexually interested, it seems to me from reading the threads that with hormone treatment, your sex life goes out of the window. OK, so I’m single at the moment and after 6 chemos, well… you couldn’t really say that I stop traffic but… i had hoped that once I’d got chemo out of the way, then the rads, and once the hair had grown back, and once I stopped feeling so tired and achey that…I might take someone’s fancy, or they might take mine… now I am terrified that that side of life is all over and maybe the best I can hope for is someone who’s happy to holds hands and mop my sweating brow every five minutes! I’d laugh only today I can’t stop crying.
I know we are told we have to think ourselves ‘lucky’ that we can take hormones because of the all women who can’t… and I really do feel for anyone with this diagnosis and the horrid minefield of treatment that we have to negotiate… but I am sat here sweating… and with cystitis (so squirming rather than sitting)… and I’m looking at this little white pill called Arimidex and wondering… is it worth it?!
Carrie x
Carrie,
So sorry you are having a bad time I like you thought I was coping well,since October and every one commentinghow ‘brave’ I am.Ihave finished chemo 7 weeks ago, had WLE last week and due to start rads in about 4 weeks.Also started herceptin 2 weeks ago.I have spat my dummy so many times and don’t want to play any more,it feels sometimes that it is never ending.I somehow have kicked myself up the backside.Try to stay positive and think that it will be worth it.You have a lot to offer I am sure and you will find that special someone.Keep your chin up ,and rant on here as much as you like.
Mary
x
Carrie I do feel for you. I am about to have my 4th chemo next week, then I am facing rads and then herceptimin. However, I am much older than you and passed the menopause but it does seem a long haul doesn’t it? My onc said “pace yourself” whatever that means! Take the pill Carrie, it WILL be worth it. You WILL get over this. I am sure you will have sex again and hopefully with someone great. Your attractiveness doesn’t fly out of the window with your periods. Once you feel better and sexy you will attract people to you. The wonderful women on this site will support you and you will have better days ahead. I expect you will have loads of replies from women who have felt just like you and you will not feel so alone. As for me I just can’t wait for the end of chemo, it is such a hateful treatment, but necessary and thank God it is available to us.
Please take care of yourself , as that stupid advert says “you are worth it”
Much love and a hug
Judy x
Oh dear Carrie - by the sounds of things I think you might prefer the pill box to be reading cyanide as opposed to arimidex. It just all builds up and then one day it gets too much and we have a hissy fit & start throwing our toys out of the pram… been there done that! And yes - all this treatment is ‘do-able’ but it’s still not exactly the same as going for a say at the sea side. I am not geting herceptin or arimidex so can’t offer any advice or wise words on that side of things.
I can empathise with the repeated use of the phrases ‘it’s for you own good’ and ‘you are doing so well’ …and we all know that the ppl saying these things are doing so with the best intentions … but hell yes there comes a point when you just want to tell them to chuff off and shove it up their a!!!
I escaped the rigors of chemo and so I am a ‘just rads’ patient … but after 23 sessions, a burned boobie, armpit, collarbone and a patch on my back I am starting to wonder where the ‘just’ comes into it. I don;t class myself as lucky, but I do class myself luckier than some… it’s all starting to get very boring now and I just want to be back to being me and not a cancer patient.
Hope you are feeling a bit better soon … another of those trite little comments that we all hear I know.
hey… carrie… the sun is over the yard arm.
Pour that glass of wine/beer… well ok a gin and tonic would be good - umm no ice thanks
so we start from it all feels rubbish and move on to the times when we have been with blokes and it was soo funny… i am the woman that fell into a hole in the road when tryign to impress a bloke(bah students), i alsosat on the floor in a posh bar because a yahoo henry had removed my stool just as i was sitting down… i’m now laughing because i am a world away from the young woman i was - eek the heels… no way. But i am still the same.
I am doing different treatment from you - i have no idea how old you are but i am 49. I am bald, much fatter than i was… um do i feel attractive… hmmmm no. not whne it comes to how i look but i have not changed in my head so …maybe?
I’d say if you like sex now - that will carry on… we may have to work more at it - ‘use it or lose it’ girl… but carrie we are here and still able to.
this may not sound as sympathetic as i intended - i am very sorry if that is the case. i think i am trying to say - ok treatments/pills… whatever - we are still us. My bloke currently lives 5 hours away from me but i almost wish i could hop in the car and say… darling lets have goddam awful sex just to prove we can do sex… or for me to say - nah i’m tired
It will get better
jx
and i have now read some of your posts on other threads. please put my last post to one side - i think i’ll just go and lie under the duvet and never speak again. Sorry.
j
Mary, Judy, Lilacblushes (such a lovely name) and J
Thank you. You have all made me feel just that little bit better. I have scared myself stupid by reading all about arimidex and I am dreading taking it and feeling rotten… but… i have no choice! thanks for your replies, they are so much appreciated.
J - you made me smile with your post - i shall go and pour a big glass of wine and reminisce to myself about the last time I had bad/funny sex! (so long as it’s not the last time ever!!). Your post was very much taken in the spirit with which it was intended!
Love Carrie ( * goes off to retrieve dummy thrown from pram *) x
Carrie,
41 years old now, 39 when diagnosed. Chemo started my menopause, tamoxifen continued it. Two months ago I had my ovaries out. So I am well and truely menopausal for good now although my hair is growing back nicely. One thing that did me the world of good was the first time a complete stranger was flirtatious with me. What a boost to my confidence! After that, my sex drive has gone into super high mode. All is not lost, but some lubricant may come in handy as the equipment was a bit, well shall we say, rusty?
Lots of luck and love.
Caroline
Hi Carrie
I have read things that scared me and we all react differently, but find people here who are going through the cancer with us at whatever stage the most useful source.
I am about to pour my second large glass of wine and dummy is fairmly intact tonight - who knows what tomorrow will bring
Mary
x
Carrie -
Have read through this thread and just feel for you. Major hugs to you. It is not that I truly understand what you must be feeling, but it is that I do understand how terrifying cancer is, how it kills when the realization comes that it may not ever go away. I guess if our lives have been lived trying to look at the glass half full, it becomes instinctive to overlay cancer with these thoughts.
I think what all of us are trying to say is that we lift our glasses to you in solidarity. Life does go on, it just changes.
Emily
xxx
phew… I am glad it made you smile - i got quite worried that it was me being insensitive…
i threw my rattle out of the pram last week - yelling at my dearest and all weepy… just fed up of doing treatment. That is the first time since diagnosis - i have been chirpy up till now eg saying - hey, i’m half way through chemo… rather than thinking i’m only half way through, which was last week… I’ve regained composure since then.
I suppose we all get like this sometimes because treatment is SO longwinded. herceptin for u, 5 years tamoxifen or equiv for me. Well dull.
Hmmm - rusty equipment Caroline?? I think it needs using more!!
I believe I am more attractive as me now than the youngster on high heels - yes i was young and slim etc but i was very stupid in some ways!!
Maybe a new thread is needed - the wine drinker’s circle - the only rule is you have to have a glass next to you as you post … we can be suitably maudlin or disgraceful… funny…sad. an on line wine bar. Look with Emily on board in the states we have wide opening hours! If we can get seabird sarh on board that’s almost 24 hours covered - she is in Oz.
i am very glad you feel ‘better’.
Take care all
Jennifer
I’m up for 24 hour drinking. I think I have drunk more wine since I have been diagnosed than ever before and yes, I know it is an alleged risk factor - past caring. and as for sex, my equipment is so rusty, I feel like the Tin Man in Wizard of OZ. It will take more than a handsome stranger and a tube of KY to get me going again!!!
Jennifer -
What a wonderful idea! An International round of wine and good conversation! Count me in…
We can have a all out sex rant while we’re at it – sounds like a common problem to me.
Emily
xxx
I am loving the idea of the international on-line wine bar! or should I call it on-line “whine” bar! Yes, in fact I have made an executive decision and as from tomorrow I’m going to drink more wine! I pretty much gave up after diagnosis but now I am thinking ‘oh sod it’… and next week I turn 40 and life is meant to begin isn’t it… women are meant to be in their sexual prime… I’m with you Cathy, it looks like I’ll have to get the WD40 out to get me going again too!
Tomorrow I’m going to try to make friends with the radiotherapy machine! Up to now, I’ve hated my visits… going to try a different tack tomorrow though, my friend said that making friends with the machine might make me feel less lonely… come to think of it it has got a face of sorts… think I’ll call him Ray!
OK, I should go, i haven’t even had a glass of wine! Thanks so much for your lovely replies, you have all made me smile and feel a little brighter. Together we shall overcome!! Carrie x
The online wine bar sounds like a good idea! I see there’s a couple of familiar folk in this thread so I won’t feel like a stranger (Cathy/Lilac).Those of us who have teenagers know that the odd glass of wine (along with selling the kids on ebay)is great for stress relief.My hubby (accidentally, he says) ordered 4 crates of wine before we went on holiday.Co-incidentally they arrived just before I went into hospital for my op so I never drank any as I didn’t want anyone to think I was a lush when they did my bloods.I almost feel obliged to drink them now just to help you girls keep your spirits up (no pun intended!)
Carrie-you’re entitled to feel a wee bit down now and again, but I’m sure life will eventually return to a sort of normality for all of us.If you felt attractive bc, you can be just as attractive ad (after drugs!) but with even more character.
Take care of yourself.
Tricia
xxx
Thanks everyone… my round!
Tricia… i’m determined i’m not going to let myself go. Just got phone call from doc to tell me my blood test results are in and i’m now considered a post menopausal woman! oh joy, i can thank chemo for that then… at least no more horrid periods ahead of me! have a good day, chink chink and cheers! (that’s me having a virtual glass of wine!) xx
hey carrie -
look what you have started. I wonder if it might help for us to post our time zones so we can figure out a median time to allow each of us to be part of this international feast of wine sipping. What do you think?
It is 8 am now in the states.
Emily
xxx
i just took out a mortgage… virtual one… the bar IS going to be open shortly… it looks very nice!!
hey, it’s virtual, cats are allowed!
why not…
I am bringing a champagne glass filled to the brim…