Had a meltdown..PLEASE help!!!

I have been feeling pretty good.Finally found some clothes that don't look bad on my concave chest,my hair is not perfect,but OK.I am planning my recon and feeling like I am taking control and will soon be able to put cancer behind me..looking over my shoulder,but behind me.This weekend is my 40th class reunion,events every day which started last night with a small get together of women from my class.It was so good to see them all and things were going great.Then cancer came into the conversation..and everyone they talked about had died,some very quickly..only two of the women knew about my cancer.One woman had lost her husband to cancer two years ago(I think liver) and she started into this clinical description of finding his cancer and PET scans and how maybe the flare up in his allergies was a symptom..I have been having a really hard time with my allergies,so you know where that took me,whether realistic or not....and how you can have a huge tumor and do a biopsy and not get cancer cells...and how if you have lung cancer you die,there is no hope,then pancreatic cancer came up....this continued on for at least 15 minutes,with others piping in about even more people they knew who had died,not a one mentioned a survivor....I think if someone had mentioned breast cancer,I might have gotten it together and said"hey,I am the expert on that" but I don't know,it was like I could not get my mind and mouth to connect.it was like a bad dream,everyone was listening to this woman so calmly talk about her husband's death and they would make comments and all I could hear was died,death,cancer..shouting at me,getting louder and louder...So I stood up and said"I can't listen to this anymore,I have to go out,I will be back" And literally stumbled out the door..I am grateful we were sitting right next to the door of the restaurant...This was totally out of character for me,I am adept at handling all kinds of difficult situations.I have never in my life had a panic attack,but I felt like I could not breathe and my heart was pounding.This was my home town,so I felt comfortable out walking and I started to feel better..I was gone about five minutes and one of the women came out to see if I was OK...we at once ran into another woman we both knew and chatted with her a bit,she walked with us to the restaurant,so we had no time alone for me to ask her what was said after I left,if anyone explained my situation.No one said a word when we came in, they all acted like I had just gone to the bathroom.I felt like an idiot.I am fine talking about my cancer,I guess it was just the way they all seemed to think if you had cancer,you died,so sad, too bad, move on to the next one....Almost like a contest to see how many cancer victims you knew...I honestly do not think that is what was happening,I blew it out of proportion..I kind of felt the one woman who knew about my cancer could have spoken up..she had asked me before if it was OK for her to tell people and I told her it was fine with me..It is not a deep dark shameful secret!!!!..I have another event tonight and tomorrow night,they will be easier as they are not sit down situations and I can easily pretend to see someone across the room I want to talk to,but I am dreading it.I feel like I should apologize to the woman who was talking about her husband,maybe that is her way of dealing with his death and I did not intend to detract from her.I have no idea what was said after I left,I am thinking I will ask the one woman if we get a minute alone.I don't want people to feel they have to worry about what they say in front of me,I have always been able to talk about my cancer openly if asked,but I don't introduce myself saying Hi, I have had cancer...Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any words of advice?I am thankful every day for this forum.