Recovery party?

Diana_B

Did anyone have anything like a "recovery party" or get together?



When I was in treatment, I had this thought that I'd throw a big party when it was all over, partly to celebrate and partly to tell people what their support had meant to me.



Well, I finished my active treatment in February, and I still haven't felt like hosting a party.



I feel kind of embarrassed about this desire, but lately I've wished that my friends would organize a party or event for me.



I guess I thought I'd feel strong and happy. But I don't; I feel spooked, like I visited this scary land of hair and nails falling out, death, hospitals, having body parts cut off, blood and fear. I didn't wear a wig or hat, and I remember when I'd walk around I could tell that I represented death and fear to some people, just by the look in their eyes. All of this has shaken me to the core, more than I can possibly say.



For the first 10 months after my diagnosis, everything was very intense. My friends all got to know each other and also my family. I really felt like people were behind me. They were like a team and organized things between them.



Then I wanted less of people around me, to be more normal as radiation ended.



Now I think I need something else. I find it hard to be "normal" when I've been so spooked; in fact, I feel like I'm just pretending to be normal. Pardon the awful pun, but I want to do a sort of "post mortem", to know what it was like for the other people in my life, what it meant to them, to hear that they're glad I'm still alive and that I did all this treatment to save my life, to tell them how terrified I was.



A lot was kept from me at the time, for good reason: it would have been difficult for me to take on others' feelings as well as my own. But now I want to know what happened behind the scenes. I've found breast self exam pamphlets at all my sisters' houses, for example, so I think they became terrified and had some overlap thinking our bodies weren't separate. A close friend revealed by mistake that the word "mastectomy" induces a panic attack in her.



I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well, but I'm wondering if anyone else has felt this need, and if so what you did about it. To me the "normalcy" and optimism is starting to feel like silence and an obligation.



I told one of my friends about my longing, and she's setting up a kind of "reconnection" event. But now I feel intensely guilty that all this trouble is being made for me and that I'm not somehow "over it".



Can anyone else relate to what I'm saying? What have you done with your feelings? I feel that it's only now that I can acknowledge how frightened I was by everything that happened, so much after the fact.

Anonymous

Darya...You are trying to get a handle on what has happened to you and this is an important and necessary part of the moving on process. It takes alot of time for some of us to process the trauma and to integrate the horror of the experience with "normal" real life that seemed to be happening all around us, but from which we were clearly removed. Now is the time to arrive at a grasp of what your own, personal new normal will look like. You're changed forever and this isn't necessarily a bad thing....it just is. Think of it as not unlike a soldier's return to home. S/he has been through incredibly horrifying experiences and arrives home to see everyone acting normal and expecting her/him to slip right back into the routine. S/he can't but, eventually, in order to arrive at some normalcy, s/he'll find a way of perceiving the world, a new way that integrates the trauma with the routine.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)...that's what you can call how you're currently feeling. It's normal and it's okay. It doesn't feel good though, so stick around here and talk about it and, if you think it will help, see a therapist as so many of us do. Maybe a support group too. Whatever helps...it's a process and it will get better.

~Marin

Member_of_the_Club

My husband threw me a party and i was so spooked by the whole thing (it raised issues of whether or not I really was done with cancer and would all my friends be meeting again soon at my funeral) that I almost had a nervous breakdown in the days leading up to it. The party turned out to be great, but I am not so sure I would recommend such a thing, especially with all teh ambivalence and anxiety I read in your post.



Take care of yourself. Perhaps see a therapist. And when you are feeling on more solid ground throw yourself a party.

caaclark

Darya,

Yes, you are completely normal.  I don't really have an answer for you except that I feel the same way at times.  I also thought about having a party at the end of treatment but then once treatment ended I did not feel like I wanted one.  I think the struggle comes when we try to return to our former "normal".  I still have trouble with that.  As Marin pointed out-we are changed and we have to incorporate that into our new normal.  Sometimes that is easier said than done.  I just  had a series of dr. appt. along with knowing 2 other moms who just started chemo.  All of that has been hard for me.  My husband (great guy!) pointed out that I was in survival mode during treatment and just now I am really processing what I went through.  Some days I think about cancer a lot and other days just a little.  I have hope that it gets better.  I also feel many times like I am faking being normal.  I think if I told my friends that they really would not understand-only people who have had bc can really understand.  When people ask me how I am feeling I usually say, "really great", since that is how I feel physically but what I want to  say is, "Actually, I am terrified every single day that cancer will return."  But that would just freak everyone else out.

So, again, no real answers for you but I really think it gets better with time.  And of course, we all know what you are feeling. 

Bren-2007

Dear Darya,

I know exactly how you feel.  My radiation treatment ended 2 1/2 months ago.  I don't know what a "new" normal is.  I'm not so sure what an "old" normal was.  Your line "to me the "normalcy" and optimism is starting to feel like silence and an obligation" pretty much sums up what's going on in my life.  My family would rather not talk about my fears (or theirs) ... they are so relieved I'm alive, so I keep quiet. 

I've been invited to a survivors reception at the local regional hospital where I was treated.  I RSVP'd that I'd attend.  But, I'm so ambivalent.  Perhaps, anxious is a better word.  Maybe it's just too much right now.  I don't want a free gift for living/surviving the past few months.  I want to be able to cry about it and tell someone that at 2 1/2 months out, I'm still scared and don't have a clue what a "new" normal is.  But I do know that every day I get a little stronger and sometimes I even recognize a little spark of the old me before I was diagnosed with cancer.

Brenda

Diana_B

Thank you all for responding.



I'm crying as I read your responses. I hadn't realized how much I was holding in.



Sometimes I think the chemo ward will haunt me forever.



I am seeing a therapist. I guess these feelings just took this long to come to the forefront.

Bren-2007

And I'm wrapping my arms around you and having a good cry too.

Anonymous

I had one after my bilateral. I had everyone bring Victoria Secret catalogues and help me pick out new bras!

Diana_B

Thanks, Brenda. I'm so sorry you feel you have to "keep quiet" around your family. I'm glad you could at least say something of how you feel here.



Marin, I'm thinking about that PTSD thing, and it feels right. I was watching Ken Burns' war documentary on PBS last night and the phrase "visiting the valley of death" came to mind, and I could tell it was arousing my own feelings about bc.



Even though the survival rates are high nowadays, I read this pamphlet somewhere that talked about cancer as a "death insinuated" diagnosis. To me, that phrase expresses it so well.



I had thought I would be calm and optimistic after my treatment, but I'm not at all. Every time I go to the hospital, every MRI or test causes a kind of animal panic in me that I never expected.

Fitztwins

I too felt spooked over a party.  I did have an end of treatment event for my co-workers. 

When I hit 5 years, I might do a drunken bus-bar trip, Call it  NED for Now.