Trying to get my head out of Cancerland

rachelvk

I finally get to go back to work tomorrow after my bmx almost 5 weeks ago. My recovery has gone amazingly well, and I'm now bracing for chemo, which starts in two weeks. It was a gorgeous day today...

... but I just can't pull my mind away from the fear of mets. My nodes (2 from SNB, 5 others that came out during the bmx) were clear, but I'm triple negative, grade three, and my tumor wound up at over 3 cm with vascular invasion after originally being estimated at 1.7 cm, and it took more than 3 months to get from finding my lump to having surgery.

I'm a strong woman who doesn't want to let this disease or fear take over my life, but deep down I'm just scared. I know none of us - even those without cancer - know how much time we have, but it's been really hard to start considering that at age 42, I really may not have 30-40 years to look forward to.

I just needed someplace to share this. My family and boyfriend have been great, but this is the type of thing that they just can't understand, and don't want me to think about. Thanks in advance - and to everyone on this board who's helped me along this path up until now.

jwilco

rachelvk - I feel for you.  I am having similar thoughts.  Very similar.  I go back to work next week.  Only three people there knew why I was out.  I'm blessed/lucky, I get to skip chemo.  But still the diagnosis, decisions, surgery and recovery were a lot.  I didn't tell anyone at work because I didn't want to have to deal with them.  Good idea?  Not sure yet.  Maybe I'm missing out on more support, maybe not.

 But I do feel very much like I can't let the thought take over my life, but deep down I'm also scared.  I'm 47 and have no children.  The other day I was letting my thoughts get the best of me and wondered..."who will go through my stuff when I'm gone?".  Not the best place to be letting my mind travel too.  My husband gets annoyed with me when I allow myself to "go there". 

So I will try to tell you what I tell myself.  You are braver than you feel, stronger than you know, and smarter than you think.  There are people that love you here and now.  Go out and be thankful and live life. 

I will try and do the same. 

mammalou

I totally hear you.  I am struggling with the same thoughts as you.  It is so wierd to think that I might not be here with my family in 10, 20, or 30 years.  You just never think it will be you and coming to terms with the thought that it might be, is very scary and unbelievable.  Then, you feel that you should be thinking "positive" and you feel that you don't want to share your thoughts with anyone.  This just makes you feel more alone and isolated.  I don't want to be so afraid of dying that I don't live, so I'm moving forward and trying to be positive. But, I still think about it every day.  I'm just hoping this gets better as time goes by.

rachelvk

Thanks. I'm trying to come up with some similar phrases to focus on. I have some interesting opportunities ahead at work that I'm eager to pursue, which is good, though it's always with the 'maybe this will be my purpose in life'.

I'm also childless and just basically closed the door on my option of freezing eggs for a variety of reasons. Aside from the idea of sending kids off to college at age 64 (if I were to get pregnant 2 years after chemo), there was the echo... will I even be here? So yes, those types of thoughts are hard to banish.

Thanks again for your thoughts, and I wish you strength going forward. 

fightinhrd123

You will find the farther out you get, the easier it is to live with.  My gf is over three years out, triple neg, pos nodes. and even though we both still talk about reccurance, its alot less than we used to.  There are sooo many people out there that survive breast cancer.  You will most likely be suprised how they pop out of the woodwork.  I didnt think I knew anyone that had it, and then when I got it I found out I was surrounded by survirvors!  A mom on my kids baseball team id known for a couple of years, three sets of older neighbors!!  To look at me now, you would never know I had breast cancer!  My hair is long again, and life does get back to a new normal  Hope this somewhat helps.

rachelvk

Thanks. I do have a number of friends who are 5 or 20 years out of it; but I also have a good friend who has had bone mets for four years. Still, even she is an inspiration because they gave her 1-4 years and she is so spunky and independent that she's not about ready to give up anytime soon.

dogeyed

Rachel, what I did with the facing death thing was I asked the Good Shepherd to take that particular concern away from me for a while.  A similar way to do this is to put it away in a cupboard, on a shelf, in a drawer, and leave it there.  So, when I prayed for this, within minutes the pressure came off me.  Then, as I went along with treatment, little by little, pieces were given back to me to consider, resolve, and remove from my thoughts.  This continued until the last of it came to me shortly after my last treatment.  I told myself a couple things, too, to add to your list of phrases to cling to.  Now, I was rather overweight before I had chemo, and afterwards I had lost 30 pounds, just like that.  So, I now tell myself whenever the idea of recurrence hits me in the face, "Hey, bring it on, I want chemo, I need to lose another 30 pounds."  Another thing I told myself that even with recurrence and mets, people do make it for years and years, so it's not an automatic death sentence.  In fact, the IDC breast cancer you have is the most common one to have, it's slow-growing and highly curable.  While cancer has to be respected, I say when they finish with treatments, they've done everything they can to make you well, so you may declare yourself cured when your treatments are over.  You will be healed.  GG

rachelvk

Thanks everyone. Dogeyed - that's a good approach. I'll find a way to put this away.

I'm better today. Being able to go back to work made a big difference.

jwilco

rachelvk - I'm happy you are feeling better today.  I'm hoping going back to work will do the same for me.  Getting out of the house and feeling productive might be what I need to take my mind off things for a moment or two.

I'm glad you started this topic.   It helps to know that we aren't alone and the only one having these types of thoughts.  For what it is, that helps a little.

brenda69

Hi there, just wanted to let you know that I am still here 6 years with no reoccurance and the same diagnosis as you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Enjoy life

janey47

Rachelvk,

I just wanted to add my two cents here -- I feel like you're holding yourself to expectations that aren't really realistic.  Five weeks after a bmx is WAY too soon to be "over it."  I had the world's easiest time of it with my cancer, but that didn't mean that I was ready to forget the whole thing.  Someone on here said that the course of cancer treatment goes:

1. Surgery;

2. Radiation/chemo

3. Meltdown

That's exactly how it went for me.  I tried to tough it out and be upbeat and brave and non-complaining during the actual treatment, and then when treatment ended and I wasn't juggling time slots and making sure that my regular life went on as usual as well as cancer treatment, and I also wasn't getting lots of attention and positive reinforcement from my doctors, I kind of fell apart because I didn't know what to do next.  "Just go on living" seemed really difficult.

What I learned was:  Don't push yourself so hard.  I think all of us have good days and bad days, and the bad days often outnumber the good days (or moments) especially in the beginning while there are still lots of unknowns and such a short time of actually living with it.  

For me, it was and is really really important to acknowledge what emotions are there.  I'm glad you have these message boards to vent to and acknowledge that you have fear, and if you're not by a computer, and you need support, you can practice supporting yourself by letting yourself see what is there.  Emotions are really transient and they usually exist side by side with other emotions, so you can (as you note in your original post) have fear and also have appreciation for the weather, and you can have gratitude for the support you've received and still have the need for support.  And there are cracks in between all of these things where there's just spaciousness.

I know how to look for the spaciousness because I've been practicing it for a long time, but don't use that as another way to pressure yourself into an idea of how you "should" be responding.  One of my old teachers used to say, "All our lives, we've been 'should' upon." 

I'm rambling, and I don't mean to.  I just mean that cancer is a roller coaster of emotions, just the way grief is, so of *course* you have fear.  If you didn't fear recurrence, it would probably just mean that you're in denial about your own emotions.  It's okay to be fearful, or angry, and it's okay to forget it all in a moment when something makes you happy, and it's okay and normal to be fearful and angry again later.  I'm sending you lots of hugs and lots of good thoughts.  :-)