hey girls, i finished my chemo in July, two ops jan & feb, 4 weeks rads finished middle of sept. Hair starting to grow back, lost weight, should be feeling amazing?? split with oh which doesnt help matters i know, but just wanted to see if any other girls felt a bit of an anticlimax when it was all over? im finding it hard to put into words but i just feel so teary all the time and i should be rejoysing!!! lol
Ive been such a positive person throught out this year and now i feel pretty down most of the time, help!
Well, maybe it’s just the fact that you have been through it and this is the first time you have had to catch your breath, so to speak. I was the same, relentlessly cheeerful, positive to the point of denial all through treatment and sort of crashed somewhere near the end. i think people who try very hard to be super women through treatment are especially prone to this sort of feeling, though it can hit anyone any time.
Nearly eighteen months on i still do not feel like me, nor do i like ywho i am, or how i look, anything really. I have concluded that it can’t be avoided - we ride the old emotional rollercoster at some stage, some early some late.
There are posts on here from people who say it gets better with time but I notice that they often are people who have changed their lives in some big way eg early retirement, ditching toxic relationshipss. I think that time in itself is not a healer and I think that if the goal is getting back to how things were it is harder; much as i hate to admit it things will never be the same. Maybe you are one of those people who, when they thave grieved will be able to use the experience to enhance your life.I hope so.
Be patient with yourself; it is very, very normal to crash and feel sad most or all the time at some stage.Don’t tell yourself how you should be feeling because I daresay you have been pputting on a front for months.
Also, maybe when hair etc returns (please God) to it’s normal texture and you look a bit more like you you will start to feel more like you.
Hi Brienne. Just wanted to agree with all that Jane has said and to add in something my psychologist told me when I was really down after finishing treatment.
She said that the previous five months had been like a rollercoaster (which I understood - the highs and lows etc) but then she asked me how I felt when I got off a rollercoaster at a fair. I said a bit dizzy and not sure where I was going which was exactly the point she was trying to get across. I found this helped me deal with how I was feeling, so hoped it might help you and others too.
The other thing I still find hard is friends and colleagues saying “so that’s you got the all-clear then” and find I’m having to bite my tongue. I know they don’t intend to hurt though.
Now is a good time to have some ‘me-time’ especially as you have split with your OH. Plan nice relaxing things to do, have nice things to eat, watch some old Christmas movies - they will probably make you cry but the other good thing my psychologist told me is that tears are very healing.
Lots of love to you
Shenagh xx
P.S. I started back at work last week, only a couple of days a week to start with, but am really quite enjoying it (although it’s blooming tiring!) : )
Your psych sounds quite smart! I was referred to a psych but she was not much cop. Had nothing to say other than I needed to look at the mx in a mirror and tell myself how beautiful I was and that it was only one part of my body missing, strangely it did not work in healing me at all. I like the analogy of being dizzy after the ride. Also the tears thing. Any more tips gratefully received.
Thanks Jane, I’m glad you found them useful. She did say lots of stuff but those were the two things that I really ‘got’!
Just made an appointment to see her again in January, as I am considering a risk reducing bilateral MX (due to young diagnosis and family history) so been told it’s standard practice to speak to her before making up my mind. One day, all of this will be over eh?
Think that is part of it - the whole drama goes on so blooming long! I am nearly 18months since diagnosis but still under reconstructiona nd that is unlikely to complete before 2011. Starting to feel like it will go on nearly as long as the new Wembley stadium and that’s without any new problems.
its just such a crazy time! i think i honestly thought it was going to be very cut and dry so to speak,once it was over id be back to “normal” within weeks you know?
What with already feeling about twenty years older than i am ( im 27 ) i automatically thought, great! cause im young once its over theres nothing else to deal with and its all been zapped out of me but clearly now i realise thats not the case.
theres alot in my mind that feels as though it perhaps hasnt been released, sorry for depressing tone! i really am usually quite upbeat! lol
You may find the following article useful - it’s often quoted on this site. It’s by a clinical psychologist about the aftermath of cancer treatment and why you are not jumping for joy.
I feel much the same. Had last chemo 3 weeks ago and starting rads later this week. I thought I would feel good about getting the chemo out of the way but don’t. The side effects are still there (obviously they still will be I know) so I don’t feel like it’s over at all.
I have chronic epiphora, which isn’t caused by blocked tear ducts, blepharitis and conjunctivitis and the steroid drops aren’t doing much to help. I wipe my eyes every 2/3 mins outside and look like I am permantly crying. The rest, in comparison to this, are relatively minor…sore hands, sore feet, iffy nails, hot flushes, dry ‘bits’, anemia…
I’m high risk for getting lymphedema when the rads are done as I think they will blast every lymph gland in the area.
I think expecting to feel good when it’s over is too much and we should accept that this is something that will take time and that’s OK.
Your hormone levels could still be on the way down, I know mine are, and this doesn’t help. Teary days seem to correlate with sore boobs.
I think how you feel is perfectly understandable. It’s been such a huge journey that you have undertaken it is hardly surprising that where you find yourself now is an anticlimax.
Dear All, I think we all keep going through the treatment and then once the treatment it finished, the emotional side of it comes out. It has to, when you think what we go through, the shock and awfulness of the dx and all that follows.
I think it is really important not to beat ourselves up with’ why do I feel like this?’ Instead ‘it’s okay to feel like this and completely understandable’ and just stay with all that comes up. That way we can graadually heal ourselves
Best wishes
Leadie
Thank you roadrunner for posting the article from cancercare. It is brilliant and explains exactly how we/I feel after treatment finishes.
I finished rads 2 weeks ago after a WLE/SNB in August. Although my skin is pretty good and I do feel tired and find I cant go out and do the things I did before the rads. Going back to work tomorrow. Iam only part-time anyway and they are happy for me to have a phased return so just tues and thurs am this week. Still feel very nervous though as computor system changed and new manager.
Will have to see how it goes. Just getting up at 7.15 is going be a challenge!
My biggest fear is not being able to cope and having to go back on sick leave, I will feel like a total failure. I am one year from the offical retirement age so I shall see how things go.
I am 32 and finished treatment on 27th november and i have been a mess. I held my breath through the treatment, survived, smiled ,carried on but now i am freaking out!
My mum said i was too brave and in denial throughout and i now need to grieve and be angry about the last 8mths. God job as thats what i feel!
At the moment i dont want to see friends because their glib well meaning comments drive me insane and if i am honest i want to do a runner! I have a 2 and a 1 yr old and looking at them gives me the shivers as i cant bear even thinking about not being around.
Why this never occured to me before or during treatment i dont know but now, my celebration at the end is me crying till my little lashless eyes go even pinker!
I know this is a phase. I know that but when it will end i dont know and i am certainly too raw to do the whole counselling lark.
So i guess when will any of us feel like us again- i just dont know! I am pretty sure ive changed for ever but not in a negative way. Just a clarity about everything and i feel changing things is a healthy way of moving on.
It took me 4 years to freak out after seeming to ‘cope’ with the whole experience. I had been offered anti depressants at various times but always refused after all I was ‘fine’!
The best thing I ever did was join a ‘Living with Cancer’ group run by McMillan it was amazing & liberating to meet people who understood how scared I was every day, people who I could be honest with and best of all I could provide some support to others so for the first time since diagnosis I felt ‘in control’ I just wish I had found them earlier as my life has changed beyond recognition, it was like a door being unlocked and it has made me so much braver.
I am now much more like the old me although I suspect this is as good as it gets but I will gladly take it and long may it last.
Be kind to yourself and do whatever it takes but dont expect people to understand and know how cheated you feel
what amazing comments, they have really made me feel better. Knowing that its not just me, as we all know it can feel like that at times, is incredible to hear.
I think i may join a group or something to help me talk to an impartial person(s) about everything casue you start to feel like you may be doing peoples heads in! or you get the head tilt and the arm rub and thats not what i want! i just want someone, anyone to understand what ive been through, going through, facing in the future.
That article that was posted by road runner, was really helpful thank you
Have you thought about using BCC’s weekly live chat service? You can talk to others in a similar situation in ‘real’ time. The session you would need to join would the the Thursday evening one which runs between 9 and 10 p.m. The session is run by a trained facilitator and a nurse, anyone is welcome to join if it helps you.
Evie - I know what you mean, that’s where I am at, more or less. B -You are right about the head tilt/arm rub too - but we can not expect people to get it. It’s like that comedy sketch where the guy says that people get the last word when they say “Do you have kids?” meaning if you don’t have kids you can’t understand.
Anyway, like i say nearly 18 months on i realise there is no drive thru option - you have to go through the experience, in all it’s stages and hopefully come out the other side.
evie - you described very much how i am feeling also. its as though through our treatment i refuse to break because id see my wee mum upset and think no its not gonna break me down. then it all ends and you just sort of crumble. But im thinking of it as building blocks, build them up and up and up till your as near where you were before it all started.
Jane - it very much like the comedy sketch! haha and im never ungrateful for anyone asking how i am, but its hard not too feel sorry for yourself when there is so much arm patting and sympathy flying around for you, know what i mean?
ita all a bit of a jumble of emotions xxxxx
It’s a while since I’ve posted on here. I was just looking for a thread like this - and here it is! I’m feeling that post-treatment low, too. It’s almost a year since I started on this game - I finished my treatment at the end of September, and physically I guess I’m doing fine. Didn’t suffer too much from side-effects, and my hair is growing back - very slowly, like fur, but I quite like it.
I seemed to cope well while it was all happening (I also retired and moved 200 miles to South Devon!) I kinda held on until I got my first appointment with my new onc, but since then… well, I seem to be a ball of worry. One thing was that he said I was E- and only barely P+, so although I “might as well stay on the Arimedex” it probably isn’t doing much. So now I’m wondering if that means I’m “almost” triple-neg, or whether the little bit of P+ means it’s a different histology (I also read that it’s rare to be genuinely E- but P+, it’s usually a mistake!)
The other thing is that I never felt my lump - it was 1.2cm - the only way I knew it was there was when it hit my lymph glands, and the one infected swelled up like a tennis ball. Now I’ve lost confidence in my own ability to detect a lump by self-examination. “Is that a lump, or is it a rib? Oh b*gger, that one’s just a mole…” Made worse by the fact that I have a duct ectasia in the other breast, which is often a bit sore.
So what with one thing and another, I’m feeling less than my usual cheery self. But I knew I could come on here and moan, it being the one place people will understand how I feel!
Hello everybody,
I was pleased to find this thread because its what Ive been asking myself. It`s as if I got plenty of information during treatment, but was left to get on with it afterwards.I finished chemo and radiation in August 2009.I am currently living in the USA, where the treatment was more or less identical to what it would have been in the UK.During chemo I felt as if my emotions were constantly surpressed, I never felt completely happy, just sort of “zombieish”, and it is taking a while to come out of that.I couldnt think ahead, and it is taking a while to get the feeling back that good things can happen as well as bad.I also found the hair loss very traumatic on a very fundamental level, as if I was being punished for something, which is crazy thinking!It is now about an inch and a half, but I will be so glad when I can no longer identify it with the chemo.I like the suggestion of joining a support group to help with “moving on”, and may make it a New Year resolution.Love to you all and a Happ(ier) 2010!
