Hi everyone, my closest friend is fighting secondaries in chest and back lymph nodes, one ovary, pleura, and IBC in her remaining breast. when mets were first found she was in a lot of pain and was given a morphine based painkiller which she took for a couple of months.Now she is on weekly taxol and avastin and has been off the painkillers for about three weeks but is very depressed. Her doc has given her anti depressants but she doesn’t want to take them, she feels she is still ‘coming down’ from the morphine, any advice???
best wishes to all,
Kim
What was the morphine-based pain-killer? I ask because I’m taking one (not neccessarily the same one) and know that ceasing or decreasing them is not difficult. It may be that the very fact that she is dealing with secondaries is getting her down.
Whatever its cause, she is lucky to have a caring friend around to support her through this difficult time.
AlexG
Thanks Alex,
I do feel that she should take the anti depressants, but she feels she wants to take as little meds as possible… she has good days and bad days but feels she has to always stay upbeat for her family and partner. thanks so much for your info, I will share it with Heather, so far I have been unable to persuade her to come onto the forum, but I keep trying, there is so much help and support to be had from amazing women.
kim x
Hi Kim
Your friend will probably come round to reading things on here when she is ready. I read posts but didn’t contribute when I had my primary diagnosis but I definitely needed to when I got my secondary diagnosis.
I have never been one for taking pills until this happened to me. I have been taking a low dose antidepressant now for 4 years and it helps. I now also take meds to reduce inflammation and relieve pain from my bone mets. Believe me it is worth it. I have tried to reduce drugs for the same reason as your friend, but if I am without pain/symptoms then I can carry on my life as ‘normally’ as possible. The ‘cancer’ and diagnosis go away from the front my mind for a time and that for me is good.
We are between a rock and a hard place, the treatment and meds may shorten our life but that has to be weighed against the extra time and quality of that time that the meds can give us. A horrible situation to be in but…we have little choice. So, my advice is to take the ‘happy’ pills, they work and they can be reduced or stopped if she needs/wants to later.
I hope she is feeling brighter soon. Best wishes and thank you for being such a good friend to her, I couldn’t manage without all the support of my friends and family. Sue x
Thanks Sue, I definitely will pass this advice on to Heather… the secondaries were diagnosed in March and I think we are all struggling to ‘come to terms’ with it still. I just hope I can persuade her to come on here soon, but it would need a level of acceptance of the situation that she does not have at the moment and who am I to say that she should? thanks again,
Kim