I’ve had 5 months of chemo, followed by surgery last week and waiting for a date for radiotherapy. I will continue with herceptin until next August and will be taking tamoxifen for 10 years. Is it normal to get irritated by people saying ‘only radiotherapy to go - job done’ … by people who haven’t had treatment! I’m so scared of the future but even my family are saying, you’ve done the hard bit (chemo) and that I’ll spring back to myself after radiotherapy! I don’t think I will and when I’ve said this people say ‘don’t be silly, of course you will’ What is normal now anyway, I can’t even remember!! And what is ‘new normal’ - increased anxiety and miserable. … will things ever improve!? will I ever get wake up looking forward to a day again or laugh at something on tv or do something spontaneous? ??? or is my life going to be spent staring aimlessly into space unable to concentrate or tell anyone how down I am … as treatment is successful … why do I feel so down?
Hi Emma,
You have been through a tough time, with treatment to come so please don’t be hard on yourself & it’s quite normal to have these feelings. It is a huge adjustment to come to terms with & won’t happen overnight. My treatment was more straightforward than yours & over within a few months, but I still had some of the the feelings you describe.
I’m stating the obvious, but if anxiety, negative mood & feelings are giving you more bad days than good, are you able to access counselling locally, your bcn will help with this or is it worth having a chat with your gp?
Do take care, it will get better.
ann xx
Hi Emma. Yes it is perfectly normal to feel how you do. I think people mean well but unless they’ve actually been through it then they will never understand. I promise you things will improve with time and meeting major milestones such as 2 year cancer free anniversary brings a new peace of mind. However being 2 1/2 years since diagnosis not a day goes by without me thinking of cancer but the anxiety has gone (unless I have a cough or a headache or bone pains that could be secondaries ?). X
Thank you, turns out it’s going to be an even longer road for me now. After all that chemo pathology results of axcillary node clearance showed 2 lymph nodes still showed disease and lumpectomy showed scattered disease in breast so now need a mascectomy of left breast. Petrified is an understatement! Did anyone else have positive nodes still doing ok? Petrified of pain of mascectomy x
Thank you x
I had 18 nodes removed three weeks ago…don’t I know it!..and fortunately only one was cancerous.I’m still waiting for the results back on my removed kidney
Oh Emma, it’s a really tough time, you do get through it as you have to, what’s the alternative? Made me cross when I finished treatment and was told, great you’re all better now!
I was dx in Sept 14, 2 large tumours (8cm and a 2cm) and 26 out of 27 lymph node positive. I had mx with immediate implant followed by chemo from Nov14 to Apr15. Implant got infected so was removed Christmas 14. In between chemo and rads we had a short window to have an expander implant inserted to my empty pocket of skin, this was fully filled only a couple of weeks later so I could have rads in July 15.
All over for a while - tried various hormones as er+ but they all made me grumpy, depressed, in interested in life, total exhausion (insomnia) and the most drenching-stuck-in-a-rainstorm type of sweats. I have come off all hormone therapy and just trying to wean myself off sleeping tablets and anti depressants. My feeling is that they’ve cut out the cancer, blasted my whole body with poison and then targetted the spot with rads - if the little buggers want to come back they have a fight on their hands! I;ve gone for quality of life and deal with whatever it throws at me in the future.
I had some good counselling throughout the summer, both over the phone and face to face. I also completed a MacMillan Moving Forward course, and found a local hospice with a drop in morning offering various activities, chats about what we are still going through, plus massage and reikii. It took nearly a year after diagnosis for me to get to the top of the counselling list, but also I think it took that long to process what happened to me in the year that fun forgot. The counselling and talking to people at the hospice really helped to put it into perspective but it’s not easy. Personally you have to confront it, be open and talk about it, there is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about - I started a new job in September having had 2 yeas off - I have to pace myself mentally and physically otherwise I won’t cope. And I’m open with my colleagues as I have nothing to hide (except a lumpy mound pretending to be a breast!)
You need to explore what works for you to help you accept what has happened and either embrace it or lock it away so that you can move on. The Moving Forward courses definitely help with this but you must be ready to talk and share with the group as that’s how everyone gets to most out of it, and it’s a relief to hear other people talking about similar feelings when you thought you were the only one who felt like that.
When I was talking to the counsellor about will I ever have the energy to return to work (which was 3 months away at the time) she encouraged me to look back 3 months and see how far I’d come from then, and look forward to 3 months and what I should be able to achieve as time goes on. It was very useful.
Right, enough rabbiting on at 2.30am - if I don’t get back to sleep now I am going to be a pretty useless mummy in the morning!!!
Please talk to someone, it’s great getting your thoughts down on here, but sometimes a 2 way chat is better. Lots of luck and hugs x