I am on a cliff.. need some help!

sunnyhou

I am on a cliff.. need some help!

sunnyhou

I was diagnosed with DCIS a year ago. I had a double mastectomy bc of my age and family history in september 09. I was told pure DCIS and no more treatment. I went ahead and went to an oncologist just to make sure. He basically said get a breast exam every 6 months for two years. you do not have to come here it is over kill. you can have your gyn do it or your General pract.  I have always had back and neck problems. I have been in a major car accident. I hurt but I go on. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and have to carry the two year old around a lot and his is 35 pounds. About a month ago I started having sciatica symptoms. Deep nerve like pain in the buttocks and hip area and it travels around the legs and foot. I looked up some stretches and did them and got some relief but not enough. I went to my GP and he did an xray. He said spinal stenosis. I have been diagnosed with this before but have never had this kind of pain. I am now going to physical therapy and some days the pain is minimal and some days it is bad. I have only had one therapy session so who knows if it will help. My problem is I am going to that place.. The bone mets place. I am really, really anxiety ridden about it. I have this fear and I look at my kids and how young they are and envision their lives without me. My dr told me in 6 weeks of therapy if I am not improved he will do an MRI. I am scared. I know technically this is not possible if I had pure DCIS as they said. But sometimes you read about women that this happens to. Please thank you for reading and if you can offer me some sort of reasoning and talk me off this cliff. I would appreciate it. My husband is so tired of hearing about the anxiety. He did not even know BC could go to the bones so he looks at me with such confusion. I hate what this did to me. I really do.

Beesie

Of course you are going to that place.  I think we all do.  After I was diagnosed, whenever I had a headache that wouldn't go away quickly, I'd think brain mets.  Whenever I'd had rib pain (and I had a lot of rib pain for a while after my reconstruction), I'd think bone mets.  Those fears are completely normal.

Those fears are normal, but it doesn't mean that they are realistic!  With a diagnosis of DCIS and a clear SNB, I suppose that there is a fraction of a percent risk that you were misdiagnosed and that you not only had invasive cancer, but you had invasive cancer that had already moved outside of the breast to become mets.  On the other hand, having had a car accident and having been told that you have spinal stenosis, there is probably a 99% chance that your pain is caused by this. 

My advice is to accept that your feelings of fear are real and are going to be around for a while, but remind yourself constantly that these fears are not based on real possibilities of what might happen in the future, but are caused by what happened in the past.  Remind yourself that it's just your mind playing games with you.  I would always tell myself that whenever my fears started to get to me.  I wouldn't be mad at myself for having the fears but by the same token, I wouldn't let those fear overtake me because I knew that they were not based in fact and I constantly reminded myself of that.  The good news is that for most of us, these fears do fade over time.  So the way you are feeling now is not how it will be forever.  In time, you will hopefully be right back where you were before you were diagnosed.  That's my experience anyway.

sunnyhou

thank you Beesie.. so glad I did not log off and could read this before I went to bed. You know how much I appreciate you and your way of making things so reasonable and easy.. I am going to move forward and try to not dwell on the what if's. They are stealing y joy and a they are a real time sucker.