3am musings I’m afraid - my brain won’t sleep!
I’m 48 and 4 months before I found the lump that has led to me being here, my husband of 24 years left me for someone else. I have never had BC before but I have had benign breast conditions several times, each one shortly after a major stressful event : my degree finals, my marriage, a traumatic birth experience and a very significant job change. I did ask one of the surgical team who said the evidence is not conclusive but some experts do believe there could be a link with stress.
I’m wondering how many people on this board could (or could not) link their situation with stress. (I am aware that it could be like reading horoscopes - easy to make a link fit because you’re looking for one…)
Going to try to sleep again now.
Sorry to hear you can’t sleep - (think that’s a common by-product of all of this)…
You sound like you’re having a rubbish time - so sorry.
I think that most women on here will have had highs and lows too but then I think around my close girlfriends who obvo haven’t got BC and they have too. Think it just goes with the turf, as we all go through life…
It’s pretty impossible to figure out “why” for most of us. I know its really hard and we are all intelligent and like answers - But I don’t think the science is quiet there yet to provide that, but nearly…
I was given a sheet at a Breast clinic which listed all the things you could do to reduce chances of BC:
Avoid red meat (I’ve been a strict vegetarian since early childhood 6years)
Breast feed (done that forall 3 - for about 5 years in total)
Exercise(yes, quite a bit well alot)
Vitamin D (3 kids so always outside)
you get the idea!! but I completely understand your need to know…
Too much stress is proven to be a factor in some diseases I think…
See you GP for some short-term help re the sleep maybe? It will really really help you do the days…
Take good care
Interesting one this. I discovered my lump a week after I moved to Devon. I had endured a really, really stressful couple of years trying to sell our previous house and got to exchange 3 times for the buyer to pull out for some ridiculous reason. I was permanentl stressed and running on adrenalin for all that time and I have often wondered if that was the straw that broke the camels back. I have heard many women say they developed bc after a very stressful time but of course it may all be coincidence. Will never know I suppose.
Hi mac66,
I still put my first bc down to being in a bad car accident and having bruising across my chest exactly one year before finding a lump. I must have been ER- as I wasn’t on any hormone treatment after surgery, radio and chemo. HER2 testing didn’t exist back then.
Other than age and being a year or 2 post menopause I have nothing to blame my new bc on. No physical, mental or emotional trauma which is a bit scary as I can’t blame anything and have to accept my body just did it for no reason (and therefore might do it again!)
Saw onc for first time yesterday and radio days applied for and been put on tamoxifen which I guess will be my crutch/safety blanket for 5 years.
Did you get any sleep?
Thanks for the replies.
Only awake for a few hours - could have been worse. Ironic too, cos I had relatively good news at the clinic yesterday so was expecting to sleep well.
I’m not really desperate to have a reason for all of this, and I definitely have not put this post on as a ‘woe is me’ kind of thing. I am just really interested. ALthough, as you said Nolton, I think that if you took 100 48 year old women without cancer, a high proporortion of them would probably have been throuh some kind of emotional stress in the past few months so it is probably pointless musings!
Good luck to you all with whatever comes next on the journey
x