Haven’t posted here for a while but today I desperately need a lift. Life healthwise has been pretty rubbish for a while and today I feel utterly weighed down by the immensity of it all. I thought I was coping with everything and the outside observer would probably think so.Dx in June 2005, mastectomy in July. As this time of year comes round I start to feel so down and constantly relive it all. Several scares and problems since, all seem to be adding to this intolerable feeling.I have no family support so just had to connect with someone who would understand.
Hi serendipity,
I was dx in jan., 04, I still find ‘‘anniversary’’ times very difficult…thing is most people have forgotten ‘‘that date’’ so you seem to end up reliving it by your-self.
I had a scare a few weeks back…and to be quite honest, even though everything turned out ok it has mentally knocked me for six…I only realised this today…on top of this work is quite stressful at the moment too, I have a wonderful family and husband but even they don’t always understand I think unless you’ve ‘‘been there’’ you can’t comprehend all the anxieties, fears etc.,…so can understand how difficult it must be for you at this time, especially with no form of family
support.
I’m always around if you want to chat.
Take care
karen x
Hi Karen
Thanks for being a helping hand. Everyone seems to expect me to have moved on and I probably give the impression that life is better. Lets face it, no one really wants to know how bad you feel when they see you in the street -so I smile and then crumble inside when I’m on my own. Not having extended family who care and friends who melted away as soon as I was dx has been a tremendous source of hurt.Feel that I am in danger of never being able to shake off this feeling - you know summer was always my favourite time of year and now I feel it will always bring despair.
Seren x
Hi Seren,
I was dx 3 years ago, and that anniversary, always with a check-up, still gives me the shudders. Yep, we all tell ourselves we’re fine, etc etc, and then it sneaks back up on us while we’re not looking!
Don’t feel bad about feeling bad, it’s normal. After all, if you had been injured in an accident or war, you would/could be diagnosed with post traumatic stress, so be nice to yourself for a while. To quote that ghastly advert, “You’re worth it!”
And you’re always welcome here for a shout and a rant, feel free.
Silversue.
hi serendipity. know just how you feel it never goes away does it .everyone does expect you to get on with it your ok now is a favourite at them moment ,and i just want to scream at them no its not ok im still worried like hell as having liver problems at the moment ,or hey your looking really well it siuts you !!!what the hell does that mean!!! i know people dont mean to forget or even say stupid things but it still gets to me and my aniverasy went by with only me remebering the date . i think its a thing that will never go away but will get easier in time .if you need a chat come on here there will always be someone who will give you advice or just a cyber hug to help you though . where do you live ? its a pity we dont all live nearer to each other as it would be great to meet up and give each other support . anyway sending you that cyber HUGGGGGGGGGG love lynn xxx
Hi lynn
So sorry to hear of your liver problems - is there any respite from this horird disease! You said exactly what I feel when people say the same stupid things to me. When I had a bone scan to look for secondaries last year and when I had a recurrence scare last month - people just say oh! but you’re alright now aren’t you? Well actually not!! Just because it wasn’t bad news this time they seem to shrug it off as unimportant.
Will PM you with my town etc - you are so right that it’s a pity we all don’t live close to one another - as this disease is so isolating. Thanks for the sorely needed ‘hugs’
Seren xx
Thanks Silversue
I reckon maybe I’ve forgotten how to make allowances for myself - thanks for reminding me that it’s not only me that feels an emotional mess around the ‘anniversary’. I’m in the club that nobody wants to be in, but so very thankful that I find the other members so caring.Don’t think I could do this on my own without you all.
Seren xx
Hi all
I think Sue has made a really good point. Post traumatic stress is a real and recognisable psychological problem. So if you had been in a crash, victim of crime etc you would expect some sort of emotional rebound. I truly believe that being diagnosed with BC is the same. It is a bolt from the blue - one minute you are trucking along nicely with your life, making plans for the future etc and the next moment, you have the rug pulled from under you. No longer are you sure about mortality, many of us are very disfigured and I know we all make light of it on here, ,but lets be honest, it is mutilating surgery. Then on top of that you get chemo, radiotherapy which makes you feel like shit and with the added bonus of getting to see lots and lots of very ill people at the hospital who stand out at a constant reminder that you are dealing with something serious and that maybe one day be like them. No wonder we all feel horribly depressed from time to time!! And the GP’s and well meaning (?) people say, “oh put it behind you now and move on”! Seren, you are normal!!! be kind to yourself and dont expect yourself to be a ray of sunshine all the time.
Cathy
x
Hi Seren
i’m a newbie compared to you, still doing chemo.
but…
I know the importance of anniversaries and it is a time of remembering and moving on a little more? My partner died on 29 January 2000 after an RTA… an ordinary rover is hit by a v large artic. Not many chances for him there. He was 38, a big bloke with dark floppy hair, silvery blue eyes and a smile that lit up my world. why is is the same? because each time we have an anniversary to remember it is importntn and tho it hurts it means we are stepping forward. For Richard i remember the day we met, the day we admitted how we felt, his birthday… and so on. There are other things that have happened in my life too.
Sorry if i am not making sense… what i am trying to say is that i think cancer is the same. While i am a chirpy bunny i will never be the same and i miss just living. I don’t think i mind that much having had the mastectomy but i do so very hate having to look after myself… eating at the right times, taking the pills, doing the appointments, answering questions about my bowels… having to be examined and so on. I probably hate it most because it now feels like other people say what i will do.
Actually… no way will they ever manage that.
I am so sorry - not explaining this well - but reliving things is about becoming comfortable with it. 2 or 3 years - it’s not long. Most days i’d guess you know it is better but as anniversaries come round it is bound to be hard. We can’t forget diagnosis/op/aftermath anymore than i can forget Richard. But we get used to it - i no longer think of him every hour or even everyday. Yes i can think of him and smile. breast cancer won’t ever make us smile except in the sense we came through it and we are still here.
i’m sorry if this is a useless post
take care Seren
Jennifer xx
Hi Jennifer
Your post was beautiful, thankyou for sharing such precious memories of your partner with me. You must miss him tremendously, as your love for him shone from your post.
I understand what you are saying about each anniversary being a step forward, when I examine how I cope with the anniversaries of my lost loved ones and many other sad ones.
Maybe I feel so sad about the cancer anniversary is because that in some ways I feel that there is no comfort in remembering
Hi Jennifer
Sorry , pressed something and accidently posted before finishing.
I find no comfort in remembering, as there can never be a tangible presence in my memory of anything such as the memories of a wonderful person to cushion the loss of both my breast and the future as I perceived it could be. The only tangible feeling is of unresolved sadness that maybe only the first round of the battle has been won.
Sorry - now I am certainly probably making no sense!
What I am trying to say is that breast cancer has underlined the fact that the only certainty in life is it’s uncertainty. With that has come a sense of sad loss as I look at my young son and what losses my breast cancer dx. have caused him.
You sound like a wonderfully brave woman. I hope you are surrounded by people who care about you and can see you through treatment and back to living the life you choose, not the one we all endure that takes away control of our own bodies.
Love
Seren xx
Cathy
Thanks for your post,- it really helps when you are feeling very alone. wondering how to muster the energy to see past the total despair that sometimes descends, to read that maybe this is normal. Memories come,unbidden, when for the rest of the year you manage to bury them. It is almost like reliving a nightmare that you didn’t wake up from. Or rather you did, and everything was forever spoiled by that ‘new knowledge’.
I sometimes wonder if the medics ever realise what it’s like to live after dx and treatment - because if they did,maybe there would be emotional support offered automatically to every breast cancer patient. Not everyone has family or friends to turn to at moments like these when a helping hand is needed.
Guess that’s why this site is so very important.
Seren xx
hello serendipity, and all
what has been said here is so true - it is terribly sad, and there is no point trying to pretend it isn’t (not to ourselves) because if we can’t be sad and afraid about this, then what could possibly qualify?
I can only say that I think the grief goes in waves, it goes two steps forward and one back, or three back - I can’t tell you how it goes on because I haven’t got there, but I can look back at my ‘journey’ and say it changes, and I have gone from pure blank shock to anger to sadness but not in a straight line; and the best bit was the shock, it is somehow insulating - the rest is horrible; but I have also had moments when it seemed bearable, and then out of the blue I seem to regress, and I can’t tell you how long it takes because I don’t know, but I am thinking that possibly, maybe, what happens is the times between regressions get a bit longer, and the regressions maybe get a bit shorter…
you mentioned the medics and I have a particular rage about them - part of my anger is about them, the way they prod and poke insensitively and take over your life and you have to fight for control; and they have the nerve, the nerve, to tell you to go away and forget all about it…they are supposed to have had training! - so I certainly share that with you - also your sadness sounds very real, and very appropriate, and I too am very short of family and friends (well, I have friends but none close enough that I could say what I say on here) so I do feel for you in that - and so I do think the aftercare after bc treatment is woefully lacking.
So please don’t feel bad about feeling bad, as was said, because you are totally normal, and also - it will change, it will improve; and some days you just have to remind yourself that this will pass and better days will come - and we truly feel for you, and just want to send the biggest hugs and to hold your hand and wipe away your tears…
Dear Snowwhite
It was so comforting to read your post as I still can’t seem to shake this overwhelming sadness. I need to go to the breast unit next week and it’s so hard to contemplate sitting in that waiting room yet again. How is it that the confident woman I used to be is now all churned up inside everytime I have an appointment? I used to be so enthusiastic about everything. All that seems to have been stripped away by this disease that came out of nowhere and changed not only my body and long term health but also my relationships. I will try to hang on to the comfort your words convey - thankyou for being there
Seren x
Hi Seren
Could be the anniversary time blues, at least partly - a lot of us on here seem to get it (everyone I should think), and it isn’t just on the day, it is weeks, months, as the time approaches - I remember every appointment I had over the whole period, I start to get blue as it approaches and then plumb the depths; what happens after that, well I am 3 years on and I think I can say one gradually climbs out of the hole onto a slightly higher plateau - no-one would know, either, that all this happens inside you - I think another part of our struggle is the putting a brave face on it for the world, I think most people would say I am a cheery soul though look at my posts on here and I sound like the grim reaper.
Yet another aspect of the struggle is the feeling - other people’s, and probably our own too - that we should have ‘moved on’, ‘got over it’ - minister of my church where I don’t go (lol) came to me about 6 months after my op and asked me - kind of him really - if I had got over it, and I heard myself saying yes - well, what else can you say when you’re selling jam for jerusalem. But this journey is a long one, a terrible bereavement, and I can’t tell you where it leads - but I think, for myself anyway, I am giving up the idea of getting over it, and maybe starting to think in terms of arriving at a stage where I can live with it maybe. Personally, to see myself say that is quite an advance: I have been, am, so angry I was never going to accept this outrage. I mention it in the hope of sort of sharing your bad feelings, it always helps me when others do that but I am always afraid of saying something that might make people feel worse - but too far that way makes you say nothing at all and that can’t help, can it.
Also as you have said, you are very much on your own - and that is probably the worst thing of all, having to keep your spirits up by your own bootstraps, if you’ll pardon the strange imagery, how hard is that. I have longed for my mum and dad back; we are supposed to be big strong adults aren’t we, but I feel I regress to a child at moments, and a helping hand and a hug would be worth a million words sometimes; at least I know how hurt they would’ve been for me, and how they would have helped me through. What has helped me more than I can ever say is this lifeline of kind people on here, so keep posting, pour your heart out and don’t ever think you are the only one who feels bad, we have all had and still have the same stuff, and we are all muddling through trying to work it all out and they are all here to give a bit of a boost when you feel it is all so rotten. And I do believe it will get better.
Counselling can help - again it is someone to hold your hand for a part of the journey, and helps to sort through your feelings - just a thought.
Just to agree with the eloquent postings on here. I cannot talk to my elderly mum as she is too frightened, I cannot really talk to my daughter as she too is frightened - no other family -and my friends have had enough I think.
Summer is a nightmare, just leading up to the dx anniversary in August and then the dreaded mammo and the unbearable wait. I wish I had money so that I could go private and at least cut out some of the waiting time…really 3 months of each year is totally BC driven and the other 9 months its still there so how can we “get over it”?
Love to all
Hi Snowhite
I love your comment of “giving up the idea of getting over it” and striving to live with it more easily - what words of wisdom from someone who is sharing my path.
If only the people I meet day to day knew how lonely the experience of having breastcancer is, plus the psychological impact of having ‘mutilating surgery’ as someone described it, affects us, maybe they wouldn’t erode my dwindling self esteem everytime they make comments that more or less imply that as it hasn’t killed me, I must be over it.
They cannot seem to understand that we live with fear of recurrence, to one degree or another whilst trying to get through the stuff of living, caring for our children, working and yes, trying to smile and be enthusiastic about things, that no longer seem important to me if they ever were.
Far from making me feel worse, your post makes me so much less alone with my feelings because I see you understand.
Feel in a pit of despair at the moment but knowing there are people here for me who have been here and will listen, helps so much when you have no-one close you can talk to honestly ,without being judged as weak because you haven’t ‘moved on’.
Thankyou
Seren x
Hi Seren
How are you today? - just come on to say hi, and still here, and hoping your mood may have lightened a bit, if only temporarily, but if not - still here for you, and sending kind thoughts. That pit of despair, maybe it is really a nice softly feathered nest, all warm and dark, a place of safety, a sanctuary, for a time, while you go to earth and lick your wounds, and sort of emotionally hibernate a bit till you feel stronger?
You have every right to feel like you do - odd if you didn’t considering what you have been through - other people don’t know, but we do know, and while we all hate to winge, it must not be understated what we have gone through, nor what it takes to - I don’t even know what to say here - start living again, maybe?..because I feel what happens to us ‘stops all the clocks’…and you have to take all the time you need to get going again.
I too have been really really down this week; well today I had a minor success, decided to clean the kitchen sink! Very therapeutic, it led to starting on altering the net curtains that have been there for about a year, have been so busy and so overworked that I couldn’t undertake anything quite so demanding but have been off this week, taken the whole week to even begin to recover enough to tackle that, and now it’s back to work tomorrow! But have made progress, and I’m pleased.
Sending big cyber hugs
snowwhite
Hi Snowwhite
Thought this morning the cloud had lifted a little - maybe something to do with getting more than the usual four hours sleep and finding the sun was shining and I actually noticed!
I was in the car going about my business with what was a lighter heart than of late, when out of the blue I was crying and remembering that other sunny summer day when I was told I had breast cancer. Don’t know why, but I seem to come across ‘triggers’ to these memories which I then just can’t shake off. I try distraction etc. but the overwhelming feeling of sadness pervades everything.
I am gearing myself up to phoning BCN about some results and my visit to the unit next week - will life ever stop revolving around these things? Stomach churning at the thought.
Like the idea of settling into a soft comforting cocoon and hibernating until I feel stronger.Trouble is I am always running around after family needs and work needs and don’t think I ever find time to recoup my energies, emotional or physical.
Sorry your week has been rough too - even more touching that you take the time to offer support.
You describe so well how much of an effort it can be to do tasks which used to be done so easily - glad I’m somewhere near normal in finding that it takes me as long to organise myself as to do the job. I still have three pairs of trousers to shorten for my teenager and I’ve been ‘contemplating’ the task for two months now! They’ll be out of fashion soon no doubt!
I apologise if I have poured my heart out, but writing to those who can understand and respond makes me feel so very much more normal than I have been feeling of late. Thankyou, I need those cyber- hugs big time. Sending you and anyone else who reads this hugs too.
Seren x
dear serenity and snowwhite
I’m nearly 3 and 1/2 years since diagnosis and have been feeling low these last few weeks. Your postings made me cry - but THANK YOU- they echo just how I feel. It really does help knowing we’re not alone.
Love to you both
fantan