Tired of hearing it's almost over!

Tiffany,

I felt exactly the same way that you do.  I'm sure a lot of us do.  One thing I have learned is that our friends and family want this to be over for us.  Of course they do.  BUT, as you stated, it will never be over.  We need to learn to adjust our lives to deak with the anxiety and frustration.  It can be done, it just takes time.  The best thing for me was to find this website and make the friends that I have.  These women unserstand everything that we have gone through.  You can laugh, cry, and vent any time!

I also have anxiety medication that I take as needed.  Some weeks I never use it.  But if I have a bad week (mams, mris etc) then I can take the med to help ease my mind.  Lots of women do that and it certainly helps.

Best of to you.  Please come back often and get the help that you need.

xoxoxo

Linda

Good posts here already.

The thing is, our loved ones do want it to "be over" for us, and for them too.They see all the treatment as the thing to get through, and now you are getting to the end of it, they think the worst is over. However, for those of us that have gone through it, we know the scary part is just beginning!!

I really think unless you have been through it, and are living it every day, you cannot possibly understand. I wouldn't, for example, have a clue what it would be like living with diabetes or something else. Most of my friends and family members talk about things for me now as in the past - I got several Christmas cards from extended family commenting on my "miraculous recovery".And, as everyminute said above, that is OK. It is my fear, not theirs.

I really don't talk about cancer anymore with any one other than my husband, and the women here. Nobody else really "gets" it.  I think what happens after treatment is you need some time to regroup, and find your life again. And it won't be your old life - it won't necessarily be a worse life, but it will be a different one. 

Hang in there, and don't put too much pressure on yourself to get everything back to "normal". You will find your way! And you may be pleasently surprised by where you find yourself.

Tiffany, I was just saying the same thing yesterday.  My DH keeps exclaiming how I just have "one more" (my last chemo tx is next week), it's "almost over", etc. etc.  I understand that one phase of my tx is over, and I know he's happy about it since it has been a nightmare for me, but it's not over and never will be.  He asked me if they do a scan when chemo is over to know if it worked.  I told him there is no scan that can tell them if I have no cancer cells in my body and that I'll never know.  I think he was humbled.  People just don't get it.  

I'm sorry you're feeling this way, but I wanted you to know that you're not the only one struggling with this!

Peace to you,

Shelby 

Tiffany

People mean well and its easier to track progress in concrete steps like the end of chemo, the day after surgery, the end of rads. I think its easier to wrap the head around smaller chunks of reality.

My sister finished rads yesterday and we "celebrated" with chinese food followed by pain meds, saline soaks and Aquaphor for her rather extensive burns. So technically her treatment is over for now except for continuing Tamoxifen after 5 months of preop chemo, a mastectomy with tissue expanders, radiation.....She will exchange in 6 months depending on how well her skin heals up.

So now our thoughts go to getting "back to normal", back to work etc - interacting with people on a daily basis who dont expect to see your chest or discuss your counts etc.

Will her cancer ever be over - of course not. We hope she will be NED forever but at Stage III we have to be realistic there is a chance that wont happen. But I do hope there will be a day when cancer isnt the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up or the last thing before bed and there will be more "normal" in between. I think we've both learned to take each day as it comes, dont put off for tomorrow what you can do today and pray a little. Its one day at a time and hopefully lots of days.

Best of luck to you. Be patient - your friends and family mean well but still say darn stupid things sometimes.

Tiffany,   We know so well the thoughts and emotions you are expressing as we have had them, too.  The people in our lives are guilty of wishful thinking to some extent; they want so badly to believe that there will be a time when "it's over" and everyone can "get back to normal".  We can't reassure them or ourselves of that.  So we come here and share with others who understand.

There are up days and down days.  I am in most ways very different than I was.

One thing that has happened, as years pass, is that I'm learning to allow more wonder into my life.  By that I mean, I am more open to just seeing what may come, and trying to control it less.  Sometimes I have been pleasantly surprised that good things have unexpectedly happened as a result of this openness. 

I know what you mean when you say you want your life back.  The life you are living now may be different, but it doesn't have to be totally worse.  Have faith that time will heal your body and your spirit. 

Dear Tiffany,

I hear your frustration.  When the treatments are over, we are still left with a changed life--every unusual and persistent pain will result in a scan of some type, for example, for many years to come.  So in a way you are almost at the end of a long dark tunnel, but you also need your friends and loved ones not to sweep your fears (and very real permanent changes under the rug).  Maybe you could try telling them that? Maybe say something like, "I appreciate your encouragement, and I will be glad to move on from the chemo, but I need you to understand that in many ways my life will never be the same.  Do you think that you can support me as I adapt emotionally to this?"

Now that I am 6.5 years out and have been reading these boards since 2003, I can say that for some of us, the mindset does indeed move on. We "get our lives back", so to speak.  I carry permanent physical discomforts and compromises every day (lymphedema, radiation fibrosis of the pectoral muscle, etc.) that I have to fight with a routine of treatments by occupational and massage therapists and chiropractic care.  But I feel at peace with my new normal, and I am often joyful on a daily basis.

Try to embrace the coming end of the treatment.  Treatment sucks WAY more than anything else I've been through so far, and that includes multiple reconstructive surgeries and the complications I listed above.  WOO HOO for hair and feeling better!!!

Good luck with radiation--

Hope M.