This seems to be happening to me every so often, in that I have a mental meltdown inside myself.
I’ve been awake since 4am my brain is whirring constantly about all the negative what ifs. I feel like this is it, there’s no future. Does anyone else get these thoughts. I know I have to be positive but it’s just so hard.
How do you cope with this? I can’t concentrate on anything. I have a couple of mindful apps, they aren’t enough if you ask me. I have no one around all day as everyone is at work and leading their normal every day life’s, which is obviously as life should be.
Treatment wise, I’m waiting for rads to start in a week or so and I started taking Tamoxifen a week ago today, I’m a bit achy and I feel like I could eat a horse, it’s jockey and the blooming stable hand!!
Does anyone have any tips coping with this on a general day to day basis please and how to actually stop or just get a break from thinking about it? I just feel totally consumed by it. I feel like every one else with this diagnosis is coping great but I’m not, sorry to sound so miserable and negative but this is how I really feel. I’d really love some advice from you x
I was diagnosed on Monday with breast cancer. I’m awaiting biopsy results to confirm type/grade/stage etc which I’ll gwt next Thursday. This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. My GP preached some sleeping tablets to help me over this difficult stage. Yesterday I was strong, ready to fight. Today I’m an emotional mess. Every twinge I get I convince myself it’s cancer. Even though the consultants were convinced it hasn’t spread to my lymph nodes, I feel like I can feel a lump in my throat. I hate this. Xx
I’m going to pass onto you you what my brilliant breastcare nurse got me to understand - something clicked. She asked how I’d feel if I was told I had a 98% chance of survival. Obviously great. But, she pointed out, I might be in the unlucky 2%. Hmm. Then she asked how I’d feel If I were told I had a 98% chance of it coming back. Obviously horrified. But I could be in the fortunate 2%. Hmmm.
Basically, her point was that we are wasting time and energy on worrying about what ifs that we can do nothing about. Breast cancer can come back, as many members here know, but it also does not come back for the many, most of whom have left the forums now they are better so we don’t hear so much of the good stuff. BC has a recovery rate of over 90%, even higher for early detection.
I pondered on those 2%s for weeks. Obviously they are exaggerations but they made an important point. It doesn’t matter what the odds are, what will be, will be. And we can spend the rest of our life waiting for the worst that never happens or just get on with life and hope or not even think about it till we have to. It didn’t have an immediate effect on me (I’d made a huge mistake and googled something and ended up terrified) but now, as I await my MRI results, my mind seems to have adopted another mindset, the one my breastcare nurse wanted for me - I will worry when I have to worry but otherwise assume all is ok as regards the actual cancer (I’m having a crap time with side effects lol).
I know everyone is different. But I hope my bc nurse’s outlook may set you thinking about your thinking (at least it’s not thinking about treatment or what ifs, which is pointless/damaging unless the oncologist tells you otherwise) and that future you do have. Take good care of yourself and good luck with the radiotherapy.
As the other ladies have said we are on a rollercoaster ride and will be for the forseeable future. To take my mind off things when I am alone in the day I do jigsaw puzzles, I get that obsessed with trying to finish them I don’t think of anything else … sad I know ??.
If you have any friends who don’t work go and have a coffee with them or for a walk, this may make you tired and help you to sleep better