I had a lymphatic drainage massage yday (checked with the team that it was ok etc & i had last radiotherapy session in november) & found it really helpful / calming.
Since the day of diagnosis - i haven’t stopped asking myself why. It is inflammatory bc too which is a rare an aggressive beast. The team were on the fence if it was a bc as I was ‘young’ and had none of the risk factors.
In the waiting room for the massage - i read this & to be frank… it resonates deeply with me. I feel breathtakingly sad and broken a lot of the time since all this & have had a lot of emotional trauma / stress in the past.
I just wondered what others thoughts were on this? I just don’t know. . .
I spend hours asking myself why.
At my diagnosis appointment my breast care nurse said to me, “If you ask yourself why you have breast cancer, the answer is because you have breasts”
It’s a hard one to get your head around! And it just doesn’t feel good enough. I thought id done enough in my life, especially recent years to not get breast cancer. I dont smoke, I stopped drinking alcohol, I came off of hormonal contraceptives years ago, I keep active, I eat really well. What else could I have done? Every doctor I ask tells me there was nothing I could have done.
I suppose this should comfort me but it doesn’t. I hope that one day in the near future we are all given some more answers. Until then I just keep trying to do the right things.
I understand - i thought i had done enough too. Especially pre 40. I too, have never taken the pill, don’t smoke, was fit, have been vegi pretty much my whole life. Scanned the hell out of all beauty products and food - I do worry for me though that it could be stress / alcohol / hormones. I wish oncologists would discuss this.
I find that the holistic world is full of ‘reasons’ which stresses me out but i find the medical world rather ‘cold’. Friends mean well but just aren’t that helpful so I don’t know where to find solace.
I have also noticed how many of my friends are changing their lifestyles etc which is hard to see x
Hi @sbee I don’t know if this might help, but when I was diagnosed I googled any link between stress and cancer: the answer seemed to be that it might be linked but only indirectly, e.g. if stress caused you to smoke, drink to excess and eat a poor diet, etc. I’ve also had a great deal of stress and trauma over my lifetime, but I’m happy to accept this explanation. I honestly do feel I got breast cancer just because I’ve got breasts, and for me because of my age.
Also, looking at the article above, it looks like the writer is promoting a specific treatment so I would be a little bit wary of individuals or companies who have something to sell to people when they are vulnerable?
I’m so sorry you are feeling very low, and hope you can soon feel even a little bit brighter xx
@sbee I know exactly what you mean about the awful shock: I found a recall letter from my routine mammogram waiting for me when we got back from a wonderful holiday. I think it was the BCN at my very first appointment, when I was told it was cancer even before my biopsies were back, who said I’d got it because of my age (59) and because I had breasts. I think I may have been lucky because I was able to take that and accept it, and apart from that one Google about any link with stress, I haven’t questioned it since. I really hope you can find more peace about the whys and what ifs xx
Also @sbee it must be horrible to have people kindly telling you why they think you got breast cancer! How utterly crass, bollox to anyone who does that!!
Honestly, i am always lost for words. I braved seeing a personal trainer recently … he told me ‘stress’. 3/4 of my friends have also said this too. The uber driver once told me his thoughts too…
I blamed mine on the oat caramel lattes that I started having quite a lot after I stopped drinking alcohol haha. Most of me knows this isnt true but I haven’t drunk one since!
The worst part for me, and its awful today in particular is that mine was hormone positive. Both ER and PR. And today my boobs are so sore and lumpy because of my hormones. I’m faced again with “is that lump normal. Is that lump new?”
It is so hard to accept that my cancer loves hormones but I need those hormones to be healthy. How am I supposed to juggle that? They wont put me on hormone therapy until after chemotherapy so the best I can hope for is I’m kicked into menopause by the chemo. But from my 1st operation on 11th Dec… ive had all the normal hormones that kick started this. What have they been feeding? I have to put all my faith in the chemo and then the hormone therapy after I guess.
It’s awful though.
We could torment ourselves all day and still get nowhere
I understand. I even questioned eggs one day…. Hadn’t eaten them for years. Did and then bam. Oat milk. My work. I even read chipped teeth once. Endless.
I am er & pr+ too. Didn’t have a period for about a year with chemo. It recently returned!
I don’t think any of us will ever get told a reason why. I believe my cancer was caused by alcohol. Sure, other factors will have been at play, but this was the main cause I’m certain. None of my medical team would agree with this because they didn’t want me to blame myself (I don’t, but was looking for answers). Even when the person with cancer themselves identify what seems an obvious cause (as in my case) nobody will commit to one particular reason…
I just find it so hard when the medical teams are so driven by data and statistics etc to hear a ‘bad luck’ or ‘we don’t know’ as a response. How am i meant to manage reducing it returning if I don’t know what caused it in the first place?
I feel alcohol played a part for me too. Along with hormonal and other chaos. X
I think, frustrating as it may be, some of this is maybe also due to kindness. To say “yes, the level you were drinking a known carcinogen has almost certainly contributed to you developing cancer” would have been fair in my case and I would have appreciated this kind of response. I do understand, however, that giving reasons also has potential to create all kinds of feelings of guilt and blame which for some could be soul destroying when they are already dealing with the shock of a diagnosis and all that comes along with it. Of course, it could also be that I don’t know enough about the mechanics of cancer, my thinking is too simplistic and there really isn’t ever a specific identifiable reason. x
@sbee I just can’t!! How really horrendous for you…and if you’re anything like me I only think of a great reply about 2 days later. I’ve had a few thoughtless things said to me, but why anyone would feel the need to tell you why they think you got cancer is completely beyond me!
I have questioned my wonderful surgeon and breast care nurse about what caused this and they quite honestly told me that they don’t know. I asked if it was alcohol, diet, stress etc. and they’ve said that it’s impossible to say. I explained that what I was trying to do what figure out what it was I did, so I could then do the opposite of that in order to fix it. My surgeon agreed that the logic was sound, but the lack of definite explanation just made those efforts futile. And it really just made me more stressed!
So I stopped trying to figure it out.
Instead I’m focusing on living my life the way I want to. There’s a very long way to go for me to be able to make certain changes on a practical level and I’m not even 100% on what I want for a lot of it! But, as someone who has pretty much people pleased her way through her entire life, I’ve now fully committed to living as much in alignment with my own values, wants and needs as I can and honestly, I feel like a big chunk of the battle has already been won just by doing that.
How really horrendous for you…and if you’re anything like me I only think of a great reply about 2 days later. I’ve had a few thoughtless things said to me, but why anyone would feel the need to tell you why they think you got cancer is completely beyond me!