Hi everyone,
I have just laughed out loud ethlydsyl at your colleagues comment,some people just astound you, I mean who has the right to say that to anyone with a major disease?? I feel people are very blaise regarding breast cancer, there is sympathy on diagnosis then some more during treatment, then it’s up to you to get on with it.
I don’t mean that I want to keep talking about bc all the time but it’s never really far from my thoughts and some just don’t realise exactly what you have gone through! You can point certain things out to these people but I think you just give up after a while, they are not worth it?? x
When friends with localized bc heard that I had lymph involvement and I had to have chemo I found that they (only for a few days) didn’t know what to say and felt awkward/guilty. Luckily now they have all gathered round again, after all they had thought about wigs and chemo etc themselves whilst waiting for results. To be honest I think the hard part to come to terms with is what the future holds and any stage of breast cancer leaves you with that fear. So please don’t anyone think your cancer is less than others.
But the guilt thing is just so powerful, what it is doing to the family especially. I even come out of every appointment wondering if I said the “right thing” and not looked stupid as if it should matter.
We are all in this together and I have sometimes been overwhelmed by the kindness and care of friends and strangers. But people do say the strangest things possibly because they don’t know what to say so just start to garble.
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Hi everyone,
Norberte, thank you for your invitation I’m sitting right beside you!!! I’m the one with the red face (not because of the hot flushes) but because of the rage. x
Katytc I agree with you 100% i share your views to we are all in it together.no matter of size or grade etc. Jane x
One more for the furious bench!
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“i want to sit on the ****ing furious bench”
Me too!
Makes complete sense. Emotions are not logical. As someone once said to of though, when you feel guilty you have to decide whether it’s false guilt or real guilt. Do something about it if it’s real and put it down if it’s false.yeah. easy! My emotions are so much more fragile at the mo. No emotional elastic. Bit brittle. Think it’s allowed. At least on hear and with good friends
Jane, what a great description - “no emotional elastic”. How very true. I have had some rather emotional non-BC moments recently and you’ve summed it up perfectly.
Finding it very difficult to get off the guilty chair though (it’s got smaller, was a bench but shrank now you lot have all got off!) as any time I get as far as the ****ing furious bench, someone reacts to my fury and I feel guilty for making them feel bad! How ridiculous is that?!
Guilt is seriously overated!!! and yet even though I believe that I am the same!!! (When I here that someone has had less treatment for me I rejoice and if I ever hear anyone say ‘only’ with respect to anything related to BC or the treatment…then they are either ignorant or insensitive possibly even selfish???) I am feeling guilty that I had a clear bone scan, guilty I wasn’t hospitalised with se’s, even though I’ve earned my BC Badge having been there twice I still feel guilty that one of our cyber friends have passed away, guilty Lulu facing it again…agree with choccie about saying something… er curt…? to someone then feeling bad etc… on a personal level guilty my kids have been pinned at home all summer coz of my chemo, guilty about my up and coming holiday??? guilty it has worked out that I can go? I feel that I can’t say anything … I shouldnt be going, even though I fought tooth & nail for it as some may remember ( the ‘sit in’) I cant even explain it, I have even tried to make myself feel better about it, that I’ve earned it by telling myself I’m coming home to mx/rads and tamoxifen??? how mad is that!!!
I say let’s burn the guilty bench XXXX
JX
As you can tell I’m not at my best today…
Have just read this thread through - excellent. I have had a place on the guilty bench for a lot of years ( about many, many things!)but i had a comment a few days ago that took the biscuit - somone told me that cancer is caused by bad karma - often from things you have done in a previous life!! Not only guilt from this life then!Happily, I do NOT feel guilty about this. it just made me laugh and in a strange way put some of my guilt into perspective too. Love to everyone. Mo
This is a brilliant thread! Can I put my sad bench next to the furious bench and hop over as and when? I’ll bring chocolate…
I was diagnosed with primary and bone secs at the same time and had some very odd reactions, mainly ‘oh, you’re not having chemo, it can’t be that bad then.’ I also had a (now former) friend who was studying NLP at the time who asked if I’d ever wished myself dead as that had probably caused my cancer. And a colleague who said ‘but you must be feeling lucky that you’ve had all those holidays with your life insurance!’ Ehm…no…nor am I feeling lucky that I now have to retire due to meningeal and liver secs. She had the cheek to send me a friend request on FB.
There is no such thing as a hierarchy in bc, we have it and nobody knows how it will pan out in the long term - but the fear and upset it causes is there for everybody. I’m sending you all a big hug - regardless of what ops,treatments,etc you’ve had. xx
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Reckon I could beat you, J, your stuff is a lot worse than I’ve had, so I’ve got more to feel guilty about than you have.
Can we have copious quantities of tissues on our benches, please? And a massive great tissue bin. My car looks like a snowstorm from all the assorted tissues I’ve blubbed into, and I’m sure it’s unhygenic. (Can’t spell tonight.)
Brill…I have found a place to rant! Had my second FEC treatment today and had the first thoughts of guilt after chatting to other patients that my 4 day stay in hospital, after my nuetrafiles took a nose dive, was nothing in comparison to what they have been thru’. In fact I was feeling lucky!!!
But my major rant is about the NHS. So early in the treatment I have found that there is much to be done as far as communication from one department to the other is concerned. I began feeling paranoid as I felt I was being caught up in department warfare 
The latest being today. I arrive for my FEC treatment to find that after preparing me to receive the FEC the BC nurses discovered that the amount had not been reduced from the first treatment and had a 2 hour wait as a doctor had to recalculate the amounts, authorise, then for the pharmacy to prepare the new lot. I felt embarrassed for the nurses who were obviously annoyed about it. Now here is the paranoia bit. The nurse said to me that I didn’t turn up to see the oncologist on Monday did I? I had a feeling something was wrong as waiting to see the oncologist on that day people were coming and going and I was the last one to be seen. His bed side manners could do with a little attention. So, did he say that I never turned up to cover his back? Did he not update the new levels of chemo? He wrote in his notes while I was there. Is this a ploy for me to say that’s it I’ve had enough of this and save them some money?
It’s so unusual for me to feel this way. I am getting more and more angry with all these faux pars of which this is just one. Is this the chemo that’s effecting me I wonder??
Sorry to be such a drag. I am normally a laid back, forgiving person 
Rant over 
OMG. I have just read my post and for someone that doesn’t know me might think I was suffering from an acute attack of Paranoid Schyzophrenia!!
Honestly, I don’t…I still have insight…I think
“I still have insight, I think”
Course you do, Bobbin2, course you do!
Joking apart, you are fully entitled to rant after that lot,I don’t think that even the nicest chemo staff always recognise how wound up we are as we arrive for the next dose of poison, errors are rarely ANYTHING to do with us, and spending an extra few hours waiting gracefully is one thing, being blamed for it is quite another.
Take this as your excuse/reason for phoning them up a few days before FEC3 to ensure all is prescribed as should be!
And consider a letter to the ward manager to put on record that you did attend the oncology clinic.
May your newts stay healthy, and the next FEC be better organised
Lavender
with a hug
Bobbin2 don’t think you’re paranoid just bewildered by your treatment!!! Don’t whatever you do start feeling guilty! haha.
I just want to share this with you all, I went to the docs a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately I saw a grrrr locum. I explained to him that I was always cold now (apart from hot flushes) and that I had lost around 1 and 1/2 stone in weight in a very short period of time (no change in my diet). He said that he would take a blood test for thyroid (clear) but he didn’t think it was anything to do with bc. Now I’d started the coldness, tiredness and the weight loss just before diagnosis therefore I asked why the change in me if not to do with cancer? He said it was probably due to me losing fat cells??? I was not ever obese, I am just in the average range I would say I am still average even the after the weight loss. What was that all about??? I said thank you and left surgery. So do I gorge now so I can put weight back on so I feel warm??? Any advice is most welcome x
Katyc
sorry can’t help …you see I’m erm… alittle overweight, definitely not helped by this latest dx! Now comes the guilt again as you see I have a fab supportive GP??? mind you I can share ‘rants’ about local hospital!!! (see earlier posts on ranting!!! who remembers the stinkers and ranters threads of easter???) Thankfully my mx/recon in Oct being done by different hospital…phew!!!
Lavender… do you share ‘Lulu’s’ hospital…cant mention names??? WGH? that’s where I will be travelling for my mx , I am in N wales now but first time round lived in edinburgh.
Norberte…most definitely I could up the anti, he he but Tiaras never did suit me!!! So I’ll leave it for Choccie, I’m sure she has a much more ‘beautifully shaped head’ than me anyway!!
Iam definitely up for the suggestion long (very long by the sounds of it) bench, tissues and I do think chocolate is a must!!! now theres a thought the chocolate will help katytc put on more weight and give us all something more to feel guilty about …sobbing and eating much choc???XXX
JX