I should know better, being a nurse, but I have not managed to give up smoking. I was also diagnosed with depression before the BC diagnosis and feel I have been drinking too much wine in the evening. I am going for WLE on Monday. Has anyone else been in this position? Everyday I think I’m going to get fit and stop all this, think I’m too frightened and also very ashamed
Hi JillyH
I dont usually read this thread as i was diagnosed Oct 2005 but i was just looking at it now.
I do not smoke gave that up about 18yrs before diagnosis however the drinking wine bit i can sympathise with.
I dont think its the right time to start questioning your lifestyle and habits just now. Can i suggest you have the WLE, and get the results and treatment plan then think about your lifestyle. I would be willing to PM you let me know.
also let me know how you get on.
Love Rx
Thank you Liverbird, thought I would get messages saying “serves you right” My BCN agrees with you but I am frightend about the anaesthetic. I will go in feeling positive and will keep in touch. Thank you so much for the offer of PM. May take you up on that. xxxxxxxx
JillyH,
Sorry that you have had to join us.
It’s so difficult waiting and being the other side of the fence!
Try not to worry about the op, just let them get the b… out! Then you can sort the other things once you have the treatment plan. One step at a time.
You will stop smoking when it is right for you. As for wine, well it has helped me through the last 8wks but only in the evening and all kids safely in! I have a glass as needed between 7-11pm only!! So don’t be hard on yourself.
Good luck for tomorrow and keep in touch
Hi Jilly
I too am a smoker. I was dx in Nov 2007 - on the day I was dx I had been a non-smoker for almost 8 wks (having sought help from the Smoking Matters service) - when I received the news that I had BC I promptly went out to the front of the hospital, asked the first person I saw for a cigarette and have smoked since. If I’m honest, following dx I smoked more than I ever did before. Some of that was down to the fact that I’m not working - when I’m at work I don’t smoke between 9 - 5 - no idea why I can’t adopt this philosophy at home.
Following my mastectomy, when I saw the onc for path reports etc I told her how concerned I was that I was smoking again. Her advice was the same as Liverbirds and your BCN - this was not the time to start questioning my lifestyle.
I am still trying to quit smoking (again with the help of the Smoking Matters service) - if my GP wasn’t taking so long in re-referring me to them I’d be a lot further on! I have finished all my chemo and rads and waiting to start herceptin. I have a lower than average heart function, which obviously smoking is affecting - this is the one time my onc has advised me that I need to cut down, if not stop.
As for the drinking - well I still have the odd vodka & coke on a regular-ish basis - and I’m afraid nothing will be stopping that!
I was never the healthiest person before dx - not sickly, just a tad overweight and generally didn’t get enough exercise. Nothing about my dx has affected that either (other than that I have lost weight through loss of appetite) - unfortunately (so people keep telling me…) I am a firm believer that lifestyle has a minimal effect on your chances of developing cancer - I believe we all have it - in some people it decides to play, in others it stays dormant. I don’t believe that eating/drinking/smoking/exercising etc etc are necessarily the triggers that deiced whether it ‘plays’ or not - but that’s just my opinion lol - I know there are many who would disagree with me…
Good luck with the WLE on Monday - let us know how you get on
Best wishes
Margaret x
Thank you Margaret. I have spent years caring for terminally ill people which I think led to my depression. I remember a really stupid comment I made to a lady dying of pancreatic cancer. She was my age, 51. I remarked that I was so impressed about her healthy lifestyle, ie eating lots of fruit and muesli for breakfast while I was preparing her drugs for her pump. We both managed to keep a sense of humour about it though, thank goodness because we had become friends. I am determined to get through this and then try and get a bit fitter. Don’t think I’ll be running any marathons though. Thanks again, I will keep in touch. Good luck with the Herceptin my new friend, and sleep well xxxx
Hi Jilly
Iam a smoker and since dx i have been smoking 40 a day twice what is normally is ive tried to stop even had those pills Champix but docs reckon I have to much stress just now so deal with it after treatment it does worry my though and like you I have health problems due to it ie emphisema and liver probs. I was diagnosed 5 years ago with bi polar depression but for last few years it has been controllable but since dx its creeping back slowly but surely to the point where I dont want to go out. So I can sympathise with you all the way
Joanne
Hi,
I don’t smoke but I understand the drinking…in fact, here’s confession time. I am a recovering alcoholic.
My drinking started way before breast cancer and gave it up in 2002, 4 years before dx…often wonder if it was a factor. I haven’t had a drink in over 6 years.
Anyway, if you want to chat about it, I’m here for you. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying you are an alcoholic but if drinking is any kind of worry to you then maybe I can help.
Sheana x
Hi Jilly
Yes I can raise my hand too, I am a smoker. I did go to the doctors surgery about help with stopping and was told the same as others have said that this was the wrong time to try and give up. I was also told that during rads I wouldn’t be able to use a nicotine substitute.
Actually the doctor’s nurse was very lovely and said to help me stop smoking she would have to nag and nag me. Now she felt all she wanted to do was cuddle me. So she suggested we both wait.
I too, when I worked, had dealings with many terminal ill patients and became aware that a significant number of my clients had actually given up smoking befor their dx. Now I may be shot down in flames over this but it was truly my opinion. This was at a time when I didn’t smoke [I gave up for 17 years] and so I had no axe to grind. Was you aware of anything like this?
Thank you for starting this thread, smoking can be a real guilt trip and it is so good to be able to share about it.
Joanne,
I do hope that you are able to ask for help if you feel that controlling your bi polar depression is getting harder. You must have gone through so much and it is wonderful that you gained control. Please be careful that it doesn’t intrude into your life again.
Margaret
Within an hour of being told I had bc in Oct 2006, I asked to go out outside and ring my mum, as I had gone to appt on my own,(thinking i didnt have a problem), I stood outside in the street in my gown, and lit two fags, one after another! From that point onwards, I smoked more and more throughout my treatment. I was on 40 a day.
however, my oncologist said that although she appreciated the stress I was going through, I should give up as soon as possible.
I didnt manage to stop until this March, and I did it because I wanted to! Not because anyone told me to do it, I wanted to lose weight and take up running, and couldnt breathe.
Cant help on the drinking side, as I dont drink, never have, but when youre good and ready, you will pack it up
Take each day as it comes, all of you.
Annie
.
Just a practical thing: please be honest with your aneasthetist before surgery…particularly about your smoking.
Hope the op. goes well…the drinking and smoking you can deal with alter .
Jane
JillyH,
I have been an evening wine drinker (half a bottle to occasionally a bottle) for years, and feel this may have contributed to the dx. I have been going to AA since Feb and was sober until I had my biopsy. Then I’ve gone back to the drink, but I know AA wuill be there for me afterwards. At the moment I’m concentrating on BC. However, I had stopped smoking for 12 years before I got my dx 8 days ago (I’m 36) and have now started again - a roll up or 2 in the evening - I know it’s stupid but to be honest, anything that gets me through this waiting period (surgery scheduled for 14th) be it wine, Golden Virginia, valium, chamomile tea or whatever, I’m doing it and I will look at my habits again after the operation. One thing I have done is cut out dairy products and stopped using aspartame (sweetener) and got lots of organic carrot juice, apple juice etc and salads, houmous, organic stuff - just so I feel I’m doing something positive to offset the fact that I’ve started drinking and smoking again. Won’t be running, bought a book called “Running Made Easy” once, it came, I was dead excited, opened it, realised running didn’t look that easy, never opened it again. Good luck and don’t feel guilty. Try to eat and get some chamomile tea, it does calm you (I use 2 teabags at once). Love, Fiona x
PS My sister went on a vegan diet in solidarity with me after the dx. She cracked after about 2 days and ate nearly all a box of chocolates a well-wisher had given me.
Interesting thread, i feel terrible about all the bad lifestyle choices I made pre primary diagnosis, particularly after any publications on the alchohol/breast cancer link was made obvious… I struggle alot with feelings of guilt and shame about my situation,
In my head I know that it is clearly not as simple as all that as I know quite a few women who drank far far more than me and are absolutely fine at an older age, for exaple my own mother and grandmother (!!!). So it clearly isnt as simple as you do this bad thing and you will get breast cancer, I know by any rational calculation I have been very unlucky. My own belief is we all carry a complex mix of genetic inheritance plus lifestyle, and maybe in 20 years they will be able to show you your personal risk of cancer and your personal risk of secondaries and those who are in this position can make more informed choices at a younger age. Unfortunately this doesn’t make me feel that much better…even though after my primary diagnosis I became super fit,
Have mentioned this all in counselling but I really feel that counsellors dont understand this as they are more prepped to deal with the why me - I have done nothing to deserve this line of distress and they seem to be suprised by real feeling of guilt. Has anyone had any success in dealing with these feelings ?
catherine
Hi Jilly
So glad you started this thread! I was dx recently and due to have WLE on the 15th, I also smoke like a trooper. I am so fed-up with people asking me ‘so have you given up smoking now?’. Are they bloody mad? I tried a couple of years ago (oddly at the time my sister was dx) and I ended up on beta blockers and anti depressents, (bad timing I know) so my reply to them is ‘I struggled before now so theres no chance I’m trying when I’m this stressed’. I think I would be bald before the chemo starts!!
I don’t really drink very much nowadays but one of the first things I said to my close friends after dx was…we need to go out and get p****d!
I think its advisable to concentrate on getting through this and then address your lifestyle, thats my plan anyway!
Don’t feel guilty, do whats best for you. You will do it when your ready!
One day at a time!
xxx
Another smoker here…and still smoking :(( I’m 58 and have been puffing away since my teens. Since diagnosis I haven’t been able to pack it in, but I still smoke the same amount (approx 17 of the low tar/nicotine fags a day). Fortunately I have had no problems with breathing etc., and although I have heart scans due to Herceptin my scores have been consistently fine so far at 70%.
The hospital know I smoke, I’ve always been honest about it, but my (mastectomy and lymph) operations went fine, and I was home from both in a couple of days with no ensuing problems.
I do feel a little guilty about the cigs and the couple of glasses of red I consume most evenings with dinner, but surely there have to be some pleasures in life? Like others, I don’t believe my lifestyle choices have led to breast cancer as I know so many other women who have had it (both neighbours either side of me, one a lady minister at our local church, and when she moved on, the new minister’s Japanese wife) and the lady whose house backs on to mine. None of them drinkers or smokers.
I do try to stay as healthy as possible in other areas, though I am no athlete! We eat home cooked fresh meals and don’t exclude anything from our diet, and I walk a lot as I don’t drive.
Like many of you, I think stress has a big part to play in the development of cancer, perhaps lowering the immune system which would normally overcome the growth of malignant cells?
Anyway, girls, good luck to you all, the only thing we can do is to enjoy our lives, try and moderate the bad things we eat, drink and smoke, and not let anyone (even ourselves) blame us for something over which we have had no control.
xxx
I was a smoker until about a week before my op. Smoked for 15 years and never tried to quit, assumed I’d fail. My neighbour was rushed in to hospital areound the same time as me for heart problem and told she really had to quit now or prepare for imminent serious life threatening problems (she was really ill). I only found out about this a month ago but here’s why I mention it.
The NHS programme put her on nicotine replacement and she’s really struggling.
I read a book, changed my thinking and went cold turkey. I was through the craving the day before the op having stopped smoking 4 days before. I’m not saying go out and buy this book but I will say my library had a copy and my OH borrowed a copy and quit at the same time. It doesn’t tell you to stop smoking at the start, in fact it tell you to carry on while you’re reading it as desperately wanting a ciggy doesn’t help you read a book nice and calmly does it 
Anyway it’s called Alan Carrs Easy way to quit smoking.
And it was. And I feel like a real twit for dismissing books like that all my life as just some so called expert trying to make a fast buck. I reckon it’s actually Neuro lingustic programming.
But my BCN etc also said that wasn’t the time. I just felt it really was, if not then, then when.
I still drink though, and that did get heavier after diagnosis but the FEC has slowed me up again a bit (too damn tired to drink)
Angie
Oh and I don’t believe my smoking lead to the cancer. I think the cancerous cells lead to the cancer and the cause of that isn’t 1 thing like some blunt statistic.
I do believe I feel a lot better not smoking and that did happen very quickly, I quit because I suddenly felt that I didn’t want to be dying for a fag when stuck in a ward and seeing people out there in the cumbrian winter in gowns for a quickie made it stick I think.
Hi JillyH
I gave up smoking about 10/11 years ago - so thankully haven’t got that issue - but I do have the ‘drinking habit’ - I usually drink a bottle most nights - and have done since a bout of depression 6 months ago - I used to enjoy a drink before the depression - but not as often and not as much. I have started trying to have a couple of nights a weeks without a drink - and can manage that! I start my chemo 23rd July (we are very lucky to be able to go on hol from 8th to 22nd of July) so will not be having a drink on 22nd I can tell you - and who knows how we will react to the chemo - no-one - they can just tell you what the side effects are and give you further drugs to counteract things like sickness etc.
You can see how many people have responded to your thread - and therefore how many of us want to support you - as you will be supporting others throughout your ‘journey’ in the coming weeks/months. I agree with the general concensus - you have an awful lot going on in your life at the moment - and the journey is just starting - DON’T be too hard on yourself - get through this lot - and THEN astart to address your situation - you have at least admitted it publically - so you know what you are doing isn’t too good for your ongoing health - listen to me - a bottle a night woman! - Kettle and black seems to rattle in my head somewhere!
Take good care - and if you need a drink to get you through - then have one - but once you gone through the next few months and are ‘out the other side’ - THEN address it.
Good luck for Monday and best wishes
Pammy
xxxxxxx
Actually Pammy, the night before my chemo turned out to be the night I most needed a drink… nerves.
So I did, and followed with 1 litre of water before bed and another on getting up… worked a treat. No Nausea (although I think that was more the pills than me, but water certainly does help).
I’m just saying if you do feel the need to relax with 1 small glass of wine the night before don’t beat yourself up. I wouldn’t do a bottle of jack D though LOL
Ok - another smoker here. I’m 40 and have smoked on and off since I was abut 15… more on than off if I’m honest.
I gave up a few years back and was off them for 18 months - went back for no apparent reason. I had major lung surgery about 17 years ago and I was determined at the time to quit … but then some clever doctor told me the lung condition was not smoking related so I thought well what the hell and carried on.
I was on the new ‘wonder pill’ champix when I was dx with bc in Jan and all was going fairly well until the dx. The nursing staff etc did say that they thought it was a bad time to try to quit with all the stress. I have to say that I do feel guilty about continuing to smoke - I’m not sure if smoking was a contributory factor in this cancer but I sort of think if I’ve got away with this one and I continue to smoke then am I just asking for trouble. I’ve kept making promises to myself about when I will stop smoking and I have actually started nicotine patches a couple of times since my op but it seems that I get to week 2 and something pops up to give me grief - my friend’s husband was told he was terminally ill, then he passed away, then I was referred for bone scan … perhaps it’s just me making excuses.
I don’t think anyone has any right to say ‘serves you right’ - we all do silly things and we all suffer one way or another.
I’m sure one day when the time is right we will all be non-smokers.
Good luck with your op