i was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer last year aged 33, have successfully completed all of my treatments, chemo, surgery annd radiotherapy, this year and came through it relatively strong. Now 4 months after completing treatment i am really struggling to cope with what happened and that my life has changed.
People don’t seem to understand why i am not ‘just putting it behind me’ or ‘moving on’ or ‘not getting back to NORMAL’ what is normal now???
i feel like i am supposed to just snap back into the person i was before cancer, that people dont want to talk about it anymore. I have had family members call me an attention seeker for still talking about my cancer. This just makes things worse for me and i am really struggling to cope.
Has anyone else struggled after completing treatment?
Hi BandAx, you are totally normal to find it a bit of a struggle to move forward and get your head around the " new normal" once active treatment had finished .Lots of us struggle and need a bit of support to get through the next stage - you can’t just skip off into the sunset - it’s not as simple as that you need time to process what has happened to you .This is a very quiet part of the forum ,if you post in the moving forward after breast cancer section you will get lots of support and understanding - there are younger ladies who post in that part of the forum too.Best wishes Jill.x
Hi the first time I had cancer I too found it hard to get back to a normal life after being I’ll for eight months ,I went back to work and had great staff who help me back on my feet ,you are never the same but some how you manage to put feelings to the back of your mind,it does get easier but it takes time ,my cancer was xxx negative
Yes I have struggled a lot…I am two years on and it’s taken that long for me to calm down. I had a right side mastectomy to my two years ago…
My fear is it will come back. There is a book called
The Cancer Survivors Companion…it may be worth a read…
In time you will feel better…I used to get really upset when people assumed I was ok…it’s such a massive scary thing to deal with and you are not alone in how you feel.
Jane x