I'm 3 and half years down the line from initial diagnosis. Mastectomy, node clearance, radiotherapy, chemo, targeted treatment, hormone treatment, bisphosphonates, etc etc. Lymphoedema, blood clots etc etc. Never ending. YET..all the nice leaflets and web sites say... Ask your health care team about coping with side effects... You know the ones, the never ending pain from letrozole, now trying anastrazole, the fatigue, the neuropathy etc etc. So every time you have an appt you mention them... And every time it's the same.. Pain management year long wait, try exercise, try mindfulness, drugs can't help. Well if this is all in thousands, potentially millions of women's heads across the world then pity help us. I go swimming and have done for a while.. Pain increases and I am not worth a button with the fatigue so that's rest of day ruined but hey I can do my mindfulness and focus on my body at that moment to "ground me" and then listen to waves crashing...yep I'm still in pain but never mind..it's "helping", not. Why are health professionals so dismissive? They are so desperate to give us these drugs and we are desperate to have them. They reel off the side effects and that's it. Deal with it. I felt so well despite finding a tumour. I completely accept six feet above is better than six feet under but more needs to be done to actually help us rather than give advice which for a lot of women does absolutely nothing. Please don't anyone take this the wrong way but there's so much emphasis on having the perfect death, it seems that those who are very fortunately not at a terminal stage have been forgotten about.
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