All finished - is this normal!
All finished - is this normal! Hi Everyone - hope you are all in good spirits. I finished my radio this week after a mastectomy & thought I should be getting out the champers but am like a leaky tap. I just can’t stop crying, it’s like I’ve held it all together for the last 8 months & now I’m a wreck.
Anyone else experienced this -
Thanks
Felicity
Your feelings are not unusual Hi Felicity
I just thought I would put a post to reassure you. Many people go through the same feelings as you when they have finished treatment.
If you feel you would like someone to talk through these feelings you can always phone the Breast Cancer Care helpline on 0808 800 6000.
Everyone on our helpline either has experience of breast cancer or is a breast care nurse and they will be able to talk about both technical and emotional issues surrounding breast cancer.
You may also be interested to know there are a number of Living with Breast Cancer courses in your area in the coming months.
The free two-day course is designed to give you a better understanding of the physical and emotional effects you are likely to face following treatment for breast cancer the link is below.
breastcancercare.org.uk/content.php?page_id=1943
Kind Regards
Forum Host
Breast Cancer care
Hello Felicity - it’s quite normal. You’ve just been through 8 months of physical and emotional stress, with a regular pattern and people around you, and that has suddenly stopped. You will need some time in which to recover, so cry as much as you like now, but also take it easy. You will find that you will begin to make a new pattern to life, and when that starts happening, start planning definite things to do, to look forward to. We’ve all had similar feelings, so you are not alone.
Hi Felicity
Radiotherapy can be very tiring and I remember feeling exactly the same when my treatment ended in December '04. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck and I know that there are others on this site who have felt the same. Family and friends seemed to think that because my treatment was over I was “fine” but I was far from it.
Suddenly, the endless hospital appointments finish and you have time to re-group and think about what has happened in the preceding months. I think the emotional side of a bc diagnosis is just as challenging, if not more so, than the physical one. So don’t be too harsh on yourself and expect to act and feel fine too soon. Time is a great healer and now, over 2.5 years down the line, there are days when I don’t even think about bc. But it takes a while to reach this stage and I didn’t believe it would ever happen back in '04.
Hang on in there, Felicity. I promise you it will get better…
Best wishes
Jo
its normal Hi Felicity
I feel the same way, I walked through the park the other day, just a week after rads. There was a beautiful rainbow and i started to cry and could not stop for a while.
It was just the realisation that treatment had finished but more importantlly how good it was to be alive.
You get it all off your chest, as I will. We all have been under great stress and you dont always have time to process all that happens to you with all the appointment, treatments and drugs.
Take care and after a while we will get to celebrate in our own time and special way, until then just be however you want and need to be.
Rosiexx
Ditto! Hi Felicity
Yes - entirely normal what you’re feeling - I felt the same after finishing rads end of December and still feeling fragile. You can follow my thread on similar theme - finished initial treatment but…
We just need time to process everything and I guess time will help.
Twinmummy
and me too! I posted on 13.1.07 ‘finished but feeling strange’ saying much the same thing. Isn’t it an odd feeling? Then I found twinmummy’s post from just a few days earlier which was along the same lines. I guess we’re pretty normal!
A friend last week described this stage as ‘building up stamina’, which I found really helpful. First I ‘did’ the op, then i ‘did’ chemo, then I ‘did’ radio… then I fell into this curious gap of not undergoing treatment (except Tamoxifen) but not being fit to go back to work. So to have the label ‘building up stamina’ has given me another project to ‘do’ and something to work on. It depends how your mind works, but it helps me!
Keep posting, and lets see how we get on.
And another one too. I finished all my treatment mid November. Had a stay in hospital after radiotherapy with an abscess. I was a wreck many times especially if someone upset me! It is only now that I am begining to feel able to cope with doing anything at all. This site has been great in making me realise that I am not the only one who feels this way. Its good to feel supported and understood and to learn to accept that normality will take time. I know I am not ready yet to return to work but am learning not to feel guilty about not having all my marbles or energy yet!
Thank you to everyone who posts here. Reading the posts over the last 10 months has helped me a lot. x