How do you handle it?

Mantra

On July 10, 2009 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Sitting in my office, at exactly 3:45, I received the phone call.

I was doing great up until this week, when I realized I will be back  in my office 1 year later. It is giving me stomach cramps. I can barely breath just thinking about July 10th. I will likely fall apart at exactly 3:45. I truly wish I could stay home that day, but I can't.

Anyone else had these feelings? I originally thought I would just bring in a cake and celebrate the day. But in the past week it's been nothing but bad news. My son-in-laws mother has mets, my co-workers husband has prostate cancer and my sister is getting a lump in her breast checked out. I thought I could put this year behind me but one year later, cancer still seems to be the focus.  The anxiety is very difficult to deal with. I'm having a colonoscopy next week. Obviously not the highlight of my life, but now I keep thinking. . . . what if they find cancer? I also had two skin biopsies (results a month away). As each minute ticks away and I find myself closer to July 10, I feel so sick and don't know how I'm going to make it through this day with all the added stress that has recently come into my life.

Cancer sucks!

karen1956

I dreaded my one year cancerversary and being in the same place as i was when I was Dx.....I changed my schedule for the morning and took the afternoon off as I was having CTS surgery....actually, I scheduled the CTS surgery for that day, to have a diversion.  The day seemed to come and go without much fanfare or stress.

Wishing you many, many more years of cancerversaries.....

cookiegal

I don't know, the whole cancerversary thing confuses me. Was it the day my mammo came back suspicious, the day of the biopsy, or the day I got the results?(I had to wait through Labor Day weekend.) I kind of feel like it should be the date of my surgery, since that was the day the cancer was gone.

Sorry if that is not so helpful....good luck. I was thinking of this on the 4th, that last year I had no idea!

Susie123

 Mantra,   I've thought about that too..I received the call at work, 3 days before Christmas. I've always loved the holidays but wonder if I still will. Sometimes though, I know I'm crazy, but I look back at it as a gift at the holidays. I am early stage, I see you are too, and I'm grateful that the digital software on the mamo machine picked mine up. The radiologist didn't see it. I can't help but wonder how much worse it would have been, prognosis wise, if it weren't caught early. Oh well, food for thought.

Susie

NatsFan

I mark my cancerversary on the day I got the news.  And I celebrate the fact that I'm here to celebrate, so DH and I break out a bottle of good champagne and splurge on a nice rib eye and toast the fact that we're still alive and together.  DH has had his own life threatening health issues - 12 years ago he was told he had a max of 4 years to live, which was an interesting time to say the least, and last Christmas Eve (my birthday) he had to have a rib and muscles removed to treat a life-threatening clotting condition.  Yet he's still alive and kicking and enjoying life. 

Mantra, I know it's hard with other things going on, and yes, cancer sucks.  But you are here and thriving - celebrate that fact.  If there's bad things in the future, there are bad things in the future, but worrying won't change that.  Don't go there till you get there.  Celebrate your day - have a piece of cake or a really evil chocolate chip cookie or a glass of champagne or treat yourself to a new pair of ridiculously stylish shoes - something to celebrate the fact that you are HERE!

Good luck tomorrow - let us know how it goes.  I hope to hear that you gave yourself something special to treat yourself and perk yourself up.  We all deserve it.  

Mary 

Bren-2007

I use the date of my lumpectomy as my cancerversay .. the date the cancer was removed.

But I actually consider my survivorship from the date my treatment ended in July.  That's how I count my years as well.  My doc counts them from my dx, which was a week before surgery.

Bren

nancyluvspink

Yeah, I also refer to the date that I got the phone call (the first time).  I was at work and I nearly passed out.  Six years later, I got it again.  I wasn't nearly as shocked as the first time, I knew it was cancer again.  I just knew it.  Unfortunately, I just look at it and talk about it that I am Breast Cancer Survivor - Twice.  Once in May 2000 and then in May 2006.  From the year 2000 when I found out, my world changed and will never be the same.  Good luck and Hugs to you.   Nancy