I agree with everything that you have all said previously, plus I just wish I could go a day/hour without thinking about BC, sometimes I feel like I cannot think about anything else.
Eunice x
I think I am slower and not so good at multi tasking. I am more thoughtful and appreciative of my family, friends and life in general. Cant eat as much as I could without putting on weight and have to watch my necklines. Am about to start another phased return to work after more surgery. Don’t worry so much about work. I have started to think about things I enjoy and actually do them. I have become a bit bolder and more assertive. Would like the pace of the old me back but am happy with the rest even though chest is still work in progress. Would never have preferred having cancer but it did force me to get off the hamster wheel and re evaluate.
I was dx in Sep 10 and am back at work after mx, chemo and rads. I can’t get back to any normality though as I have to go back to the chemo ward every 3 weeks for herceptin. I’m 43 and always seemed younger. Now I feel old in body and mind. I heard a record on the radio recently which summed it up - the girl who used to be me. I you tuned it and it’s from Shirley Valentine.
Barb, I think you have summed up beautifully how so many of us feel. I was dx last October and everything before that seems like a dream now. I am still mourning the person I was before cancer and hoping that this will be better once I get all the first year anniversaries out of the way. It is so hard to convince ourselves that we do actually have any sort of future at all but I keep telling myself that *some* future is better than none at all and it does help.
Nymeria x
Barb,
I agree with the others - you have summed it up perfectly - and I am in total agreeance. It was one of the things that made me really sad when I was diagnosed. I knew I would be saying goodbye to that “me” and that life would never be the same - but I never had a chance to enjoy or say goodbye to the old “me” before being thrown straight into chemo with surgery, rads, Herceptin and Tamoxifen to follow.
I have been really down during treatment - despite not having particularly bad SEs - so do feel for many on the forum. I feel a shadow of my former self - no confidence or self esteem and have only been comfortable around others going through the same thing - and my closest friends and family. I keep making excuses not to go and see other friends or big groups of friends - and then get cross with myself for not going. However, I am just trying to focus on the fact that I have got to beat this horrific disease and, if I do, that I will need to use the experience to emerge as a stronger person. I already know that I need to have a change of job direction - something more fulfilling and enjoyable (if it exists!). One of the first things tht went through my mind when I was diagnosed was why I’d wasted so much time in a cr*ppy job that I didn’t enjoy and that kept me away from my friends, family and husband. That would definitely need to change. I’ve definitely reassessed what’s important to me in life - spending time with important people. Now, if only I could win the lottery…
My husband keeps pointing out that I am still the caring, loving person inside - and that I will be me again one day… I do hope so.
x
Hello.
It’s so comforting to read these posts. I sit at home and think I am the only person mourning for my previous life before I became a person with breast cancer. On the positive side, I have found friends who are always there for me. I’ve finally realized that school can exist without me.Have put my family first and we are so much closer. I am not going to be brought down by selfish people. Yes, I’m sick of those ads and storylines too.
I still feel like the same person, just that I have this sword hanging over me now and I’m mourning the fact that I know I’ll be so paranoid in future about my health and I’m worried about it coming back. That sobers one up doesn’t it? All the bad luck I’ve had throughout my life makes me even more scared that this will get me eventually, even if I do have an 84% chance of no recurrence after all my treatment!!
I’m also worried that I’ll never get my old energy back, I was always able to be on the go and now I’m not and I wonder if I’ll ever get that back.
I’m also worried about my brain - I can’t think straight, I can’t spell, I forget the names for things and people, I can’t multi task and my concentration levels are pants and I can’t seem to absorb new information easily.
So yes I guess I am mourning how I was - but I don’t feel that it’s taken away my spirit or broken me, thank god.
I’m sad for my body, the SLNB is massive and gone Keloid and looks horrible and my boobs don’t look nice anymore to me.
I also feel very envious of people going on with their lives and then have to go and sit on the guilty bench, because I feel awful for begrudging people.
A couple on our street seem to have the life I want. They’ve just had a complete renovation of their house including turning the cellars into a kitchen/diner which is what we’re going to do - we bought our house to do up but a catalogue of disasters means we’ve not been able to do that.
Then they’ve just gone and got married, then gone to the Maldives for 2 weeks on honeymoon, then a further week in Italy to stay with friends, then some more days away in UK with family.
They came home the other day, looking all tanned, talking to another neighbour, stood in an embrace.
You know I felt so sick with jealousy and then felt rotten to the core, because they are really lovely people.
I just could NOT bring myself to go out and say hello to them and ask them how it’s all gone. I thought I’d cry!!
That’s what I want you see, a completed house, to get married to have a nice honey moon, to come back then start trying for a baby.
I feel sooooooooo horrible for feeling so jealous.
I said to my OH “they’ve got OUR lives” and he went “Mmmmmmmm”
and then jokingly said “the b*stards”.
El K - hugs… you constantly amaze me with your courage and good humour on this site despite all that life throws you.
As others have said, I am getting used to the new me - still don’t always recognise my reflection as my re-grown hair gets increasingly wavy (I refuse the word curly!!). Sometimes I feel my brain is very slow and my memory is not what it was but overall, compared to so many I’ve got off lightly in terms of s.e.'s
Had a weird moment last week when I was at a conference… I am allergic to peppers/chillies and always send in dietary needs. One evening out came the starter which was prawn cocktail onto which they’d sprinkled paprika which meant I couldn’t eat it. As I sent it back - to be offered a glass of orange juice instead! - I felt disproprotionately sad; I think it was just a reminder that I’m not ‘like everyone else’ (whatever that means). To compound things, the veg accompanying the main was ‘mediteranean veg’ complete with peppers, so I ended up with just meat and spuds… My brain said ‘hey ho, if that’s all I need to worry about…’ So I landed on the ‘guilt bench’ for a while because it was all so stupid to be upset about this when I have friends with advancing secondaries and I’m NED… The old me didn’t get quite so guilty about her emotions or so upset over confernece centres that ignored my needs.
Revcat - plenty of training in the school of hard knocks 
I had a look over your blog a bit ago and it rang true with what I thought at the start of diagnosis, so many people saying “Not you of all people, why you after everything you’ve been through” and I said “Why not me?” and “Perhaps I’ll handle it better because I have had such a cr*p time of it and had some very tough times”
The one person I miss in all this is my Mum. I’ve really really wanted my Mum since she died. Before then I always felt very self sufficient and independent. But the 2 times I’ve REALLY wanted her around were when I first got pregnant, I wanted to share this with her - then the miscarriage, and now BC. It’s unfair that I have no parents since the age of 31.
One thing I’ve been amazed at is my lack of bitterness.
I thought I’d be really bitter about having cancer, I mean I’ve had a really really tough life so far, since the age of 6.
It felt like a big fat smack in the gob and it means i’ll never utter out loud “well it can’t get any worse” every again.
But no bitterness.
And I really should be and would be entitled to feel fairly bitter.
It amazes me how much the human spirit can endure when tested to the max.
I’m not religious BTW, never have been, far too heathen
LOL It’s OK El K I’m not trying to convert you!
Whatever it is that makes you so strong I admire it. I am lucky still to have my Mum (my dad died 21 years ago) though she is pretty ill and has been for years.
Thank you for being reading my blogland drivel, it’s always good to know it acheives something other than work evasion for me!
btw I am a ‘happy heretic’ if you ask me for a label… don’t think God minds that as much as people do.
Noone could convert me 
I didnt think you would.
Strength is a sink or swim thing for me and I swim. Having a sense of humour helps a LOT.
Your blog isn’t drivel - it’s always good to see and read other peoples perspective! By us all sharing our journeys we dont feel so alone and mental! It’s good to see that you’re not the only one feeling the way you do too. There’s strength in sharing.
x
I miss the spontaneous laughter, I used to laugh a lot, hopefully will come back soon! x
You need to have a sense of humour to deal with all it throws at you xxx
I totally sympathise with everything that has been said.
I’m over three and a half years from dx and still mourn the old ‘me’. BUT it does get easier and you do find the ‘new me’. You learn to appreciate life in general and whilst it’s not quite the same, it is just as enjoyable.
No, I still don’t recognise myself in the mirror but my kids and grandkids don’t seem to notice the difference. They still love me.
I just get on with enjoying life and you’ll find your way to do that too.
Mal x
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It’s 2:50am 4th September 2011. I can’t sleep, haven’t been able to sleep for the first 6 days of each EC chemo that I have had so far and I am 5 days in from the 4th one.
I mourn my pre bc diagnosis life. I feel like part of me has gone forever. I wanted to be like my Auntie Elsie who is 97 and still going strong. I still haven’t told her.
Being diagnosed with bc is similar to experiencing a death in the family. It is the end of a life I knew but the beginning of the life I have to continue with. Without doubt life will never be the same but it doesn’t mean to say that life cannot be enjoyed - which is what I fully intend to do.
Going to head up to bed now - hopefully to get a few hours sleep but if not then I will do some positive visualisations to boost the treatments.
Stay positive everyone - endings can become beginnings!
Hi all
I lost track of this thread until someone mentioned how to get back to ones you’ve posted on.
ElK - I really empathise about your mum. I am 54, and the first thing I thought when I got the diagnosis is “I want my mum”!!! and felt like that 6 year old at the dentist. Maybe its part of not having kids, somewhere in the back of your mind you still are the kid. And totally get the thing with the neighbours. I remember one evening near the beginning when my 2 sisters came round, being very supportive, and feeling jealousy like I’ve never felt before.
My mum is still in the land of the living, but with advanced dementia. But she would have been so good at this, and I really miss what she was. Oh hell, another tear, and I’m at work!
Norberte - really sorry about the nipples, but thanks for sharing. I only realised I had quite good boobs after watching the sex education show. I still have them but quite extensively scarred now, and just when I started to appreciate them!
S
Wow - came upon this thread by chance and you all sum up parts of how I feel. Still feels like it can’t be true and I could just step back into my old life. On good days I think that when we get through this, life will be better, the colours will be brighter and I will never take anything or one for granted again (bit corny). On bad days it feels this will never end and life will always be clouded. Sad to think this was always going to happen to that young girl in the past, no matter what else happened in her life.
I totally agree with everything that is being said.
I feel like someone has died.
The only joy I get is when I look at my 7 year old son and he gives me a cuddle.
I too have been through a lot. I have 2 brothers and all 3 of us have now been through life threatening medical situations.
I nearly died in 2002 of an ectopic pregnancy and I have only just got over loosing my Dad and now this!!!
Life is damm unfair and I certainly mourn my old life.
I wouldn’t wish this on anyone but I am angry that once again I am being tested.
I still can’t believe that words like cancer, chemo and mastectomy have come into my life.