Morning All, really hope everyone is starting to improve.
Just feel really on edge of crying today, back in the office and usually I feel better for it as feel “normal” but just feels harder recovering mentally after each chemo now. Feels like its just never going to end, and such a long tunnel i can usually be positive but just really struggling at the moment. And everyone around me is living normally while I have fucking cancer. Just really struggling mentally more than I have the whole time since finding the lump.
I feel like people know I am on edge and trying to avoid eye contact, just need a hug, liveon my own and first time around people since Sunday just too much!
Just so hard isn’t it, I just want it all to be over already!
Are you about halfway through @tessie86? I am, and wonder if it’s that? I just feel like I’ve got the same again to go through, rather than feeling yay! half done!
Of course now I’m stressing because I was due chemo next Wednesday. Which would hopefully have meant I started to turn a corner and feel better just before Christmas….
Now I’m worried they will delay it and it’ll mean I’m rough over Christmas
But tbh who knows as so far I’ve landed up with an infection during 2 of my 3 cycles so far
Sending a big hug to you all. This week has just been a rough week. Hope everyone is feeling a little better if you have posted a message, was just catching up.
I was allowed my nab-paclitaxol C#3 today. Took bloody ages today for chemo, I should be done in 1-1.5 hours, but I had a new nurse and was there for 3hours in the end. Going to have to put arnica on my hand as she went through the vein on the first go with the cannula.
Been told I’m going to be given the injection to medically induce menopause after my ridiculously heavy period- has anyone else had this?
C#4 at 2pm on 24th December.
Asked today about the herceptin injection, and if I have to keep having blood tests every 3 weeks before each injection once chemo is finished… Yes you do.
@tigress42 yes I have it every 30 days, Zoladex to freeze my ovaries and medically induces menopause. Have had 2 now, they will do it in your tummy, you can put numbing cream on an hour before to make it more comfortable. Its about 4/5 inches to the side of your belly button.
I had one bad period at the start but since then nothing and a few hot flushes.
@sbee my colleagues have been great tbh, it is very male heavy, and I have been extremely open from the point of being diagnosed and we have joked about possible hair loss and we joke about different wigs i could wear at team meetings now that ive had the loss, but we also have honest conversations about how hard it can be sometimes. So Thursday when I was in and messaged on here I was very emotional (defo partly hormones from the implant) and the guys did keep their distance. But went in Friday and we could talk about it. I think having been open with them has really helped me to be “normal” at work.
I also post on socials about my journey through this and the guys can read that and understand where I am at without asking questions if they feel worried about asking me.
I am actually speaking with the PR team at Walk the Walk as have entered as a large group in May and they have been following my journey, trying to spread as much awareness as possible about early discovery through checking yourself. I am 39 which is “young” for Breast Cancer, although becoming so much more aware that there are more people in that age group than I realised, scary to think that if I hadn’t found this lump in August at 39 I wouldn’t be due a manogram until I am 50, where would I have been in a few years!?! Scary!
@tessie86 that sounds such a good way to channel your energies really positively. I first went to my GP when I was 38/39 (I can’t really remember) but GP didn’t refer me and I was just told to monitor. Even when I was referred in March 2025, it was with cancer not suspected. I’m very lucky my tumour was slow growing, as I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 41.
I’m so happy to hear about how supportive your colleagues are at work, and because I’ve not felt able to share with many people, to me it is brave you have shared your journey on your socials. Gives me some confidence about when I pluck up the courage to share more.
With me having a new job from September, and not being able to start I have put the whole “going back to work” on the back burner as will be working with people I don’t know at all other than my Head and deputy head teacher - both have been incredibly supportive.
Just wanted to say thank you for sharing Hope you are feeling a little better and are able to do something nice today and over the weekend.
Thank you so much for checking in. Sadly I’m still in hospital…
Had really persistent fever, tachycardia and slightly low oxygen saturations so they haven’t been happy to let me go home. I’m still on IV antibiotics and starting to feel better today. Temperature has stabilised last 12 hours so they’ve said this morning that I can maybe go home tomorrow is stays all ok today
The sad part is I had a visit from the acute oncology nurse yesterday who said it would be very dangerous to give chemo on Wednesday so am definitely deferred , which I completely understand - it’s just hard to know the end of it all has moved further away ..
@tigress42 its the only way I can process this, it can’t be for nothing so I need to share and encourage people to check themselves, raise money for more awareness and treatment possibilities, it just cant be for nothing.
Also congrates on a new job being able to do that during this is amazing strength!
Just shocking that you were dismissed two years ago and thank goodness it was slow growing. I was luckily never dismissed, but scary that women and men are.
@rbf I am so sorry you are having such a tough time of it, fingers crossed you can get home tomorrow to your comforts and fully recover. It must be so hard mentally for it to be delayed, its so tough with the dates in place already and looking that far ahead, but better that you have chemo when it is safe for you than it being delayed even further or you being even sicker. And when you come out of all of this you will be even stronger in all ways!
Thank you… I was offered the job in January so diagnosed shortly afterwards. The recruitment in teaching is weird and I ended up working 2 terms notice.
Interestingly one of the reasons I went back to the GP, aside from it bothering me slightly, is that I had to deliver a PHSE lesson to year 10 girls in January. It was about cancer and the importance of self checking for breast cancer. With silicone boobs for the girls to practice the different self checking techniques and tasked to find the lumps in the silicone breasts!
I thought if I’ve just told half of year 10, 120 girls, to check their boobs for changes and go to their GP if they notice any changes… I should follow my own advise!
I’m going to ensure that this is on the PHSE programme at my new school, so that awareness is being spread at a different school. The children that attend that school are aware and hopefully speak at home too about it to spread the message even further incase a mum or dad has symptoms too.
Sounds like you are being well cared for, and good communication across the different teams to get you safely through show.
I know it’s not what you want hear, but they want to get you to the end with feeling the side effects as little as possible one day at a time… the end will come eventually
This was the advice I was given the other day…Be gentle with yourself, one small step at a time. You’re doing so incredibly well, even when it doesn’t feel like it
@tigress42 wow!! Thats amazing, all schools should have that in place! You sound like an amazing teacher and so pleased you took your own advice!
Are you @tigress42 and @rbf signed up to go to the Younger Women Together on the 31st January its in London, not sure if you are close to there. I did the Zoom one in September, really great things that Breast Cancer Now put on.
i can usually be positive but just really struggling at the moment. And everyone around me is living normally while I have fucking cancer. Just really struggling mentally more than I have the whole time since finding the lump.
Glad you are in the safest place, and hoping you start to improve under their care x
Hope you are feeling a little better and are able to do something nice today and over the weekend.
show.