Depression Over Good Prognosis?

Hugs to all of you.

It has been almost 3 years for me since my radiation treatment ended.

I did better during treatment...the 3 years after have kinda been "h*ll."

I have to admit that I have to really work at being normal.  I think about cancer in the morning..and before I go to bed at night..and it follows me during the day like a black cloud.

If I hear of anyone getting cancer, breast or not,,it just weighs sooo heavily on me.

Apparently my prognosis is good...however...just living through it once is bad enough.

I have been for counselling and he says this is all normal. Called Post Traumatic Stress!

So this week...by choice,,I book my annual breast mri (I am in Canada..and choose a breast mri as extra screening)...anyway...I haven't even booked the appointment yet...already i have pains in my stomache..and this morning I woke up in panic mode...the phone rang and I just about had a heart attack!  I am like - what the heck are you doing...you haven't even had the breast mri...and not even booked it and already jumping at the phone!!

This is the kinda madness that a cancer diagnosis causes

I do have good days though...and think positive..and look on the bright side.  I try to go out and have fun with my friends and have a normal life.  I work, I exercise.

It is however,,,a constant battle.  I wonder if it will get easier or even worse as time goes on.

I envy those women that can just move on from this.

Hugs to all!!   Kosh

I'm a little late to the party here but I am glad I found this thread! I couldn't agree more with what everyone is saying. The problem with getting seriously ill (and even though I don't "feel" seriously ill, how much more serious can it get than hearing a cancer diagnosis?) is that we want to maintain a semblance of normalcy for ourselves (so we don't go insane) and the people around us. And those people don't like change. As women, we are the glue that holds the family together. But then "The Big C" creeps in and dissolves our glue, leaving us unhinged and unable to fully care for those who depend on us.

I have found the process of having cancer is very similar to grief. When my father died, I was confounded by how little support I received from many of the people closest to me. Some people never even acknowledged my loss (including my stepchildren!). I tried not to judge; I know people don't know how to deal with death, they don't know what to say, and it's the same thing with cancer. It forces people to face not just your mortality but theirs as well.

The good news: Guilt is good. For me I feel guilty when I begin to mother myself instead of everyone else — I somehow feel I don't deserve it. But ladies, we DO. So the next time you feel a twinge of guilt about taking care of YOU, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself! We can't wait for someone else to do it.

I believe that is the lesson that cancer is here to teach me: To care for myself as much as I care for everyone else. (Gotta find some silver lining, right?) Happy weekend to all!

This is a great forum. I feel exactly like you guys do. I just had a lumpectomy last Monday and the Path report came back Thursday. My BS told me the cancer was smaller but a small deposit was in one of the nodes. I went from a Stage 1 to Stage 2. The node biopsy was really painful for me and the scarring is horrible. My BS told me the positive node would get me chemo. They did not think there was cancer in any of the other nodes. And they have to go back and take out more tissue as well. My initial reaction was anger. The doctor was so optimistic after the surgery and while I know I dont have the death sentence and he cant know for sure, he still was so matter of fact about it. You know kind of like a hit and run. I see him on Tuesday and hopefully get my appt scheduled for the oncologist next week. I will yield to her take on this whole thing but I am bummed out. I also get tired of putting on my game face for others. We all have the right to be mad about our medical situation and to not have to pretend we arent scared. It seems we are more about convincing our friends and family we are okay than ourselves. This is truly a disease you have to go through yourself to understand. So grateful for this forum. Praying for all of us.

you are entitled to be sad and worried and depressed. I am 3.5 years out, and I still worry. My prognosis was good, no node involvement, low oncotype but we all know that cancer is a very unpredictable disease and sometimes will defy the statistics. that is always in the back of my mind.  And i also feel that if my body produced cancer cells once, it can certainly do it again.

I try NOT to worry about every ache and pain - the Tamoxifen makes me very achy. I struggle with what I should worry about, when I should call the doctor, what are menopause symptoms, and what are side effects from the medication???  It is never ending in the minds of BC patients. I know!  I try to keep my mind busy so that I don't spiral downward into the worry zone.

Good luck to you......I pray that you can deal with this diagnosis and move on with your life. 

I agree with everyone saying that even though the prognosis is good, it is still hard to go through!  I know that not needing chemo or radiation makes this comparatively a cakewalk for me.  My IDC looks so uninteresting to my surg onc that she says I don't need the oncotype test... BUT, since 12/13/10:

12/15/10 - met "my oncologist" - I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE AN ONCOLOGIST! Had to miss a work Christmas party for my appt, but didn't tell anyone why...

12/17/10 - should be at a holiday party or watching Christmas movies the the kids, but I'm driving downtown at 9pm for a breast MRI

Nevermind the distraction of trying to keep Christmas normal for my kids...not telling dd11 and dd16 that I got cancer for Christmas...

12/28/10 MRI guided biopsy when I would rather be playing with Christmas toys!

2/28/11 after 2 long months of waiting for my DIEP and uniMx it's time, but have to miss Lady Gaga with my 16 year old daughter, AND put everything important at work on hold for 6 weeks, have to ask everyone around me for help with kids, pets, meals, etc... not used to needing help OR asking for it!

April 2011 - wanted to go visit best friend in Germany with the family over Spring Break.  The minute I got the dx in December, we knew not to bother booking tickets.  So much for that idea.

I'm seriously not trying to whine or complain (yeah right??) BUT I know we all had similar lists of things we were doing before cancer knocked on our door.  Hell, it didn't even bother to knock!  It just sauntered on in, insisting that we now work our entire lives around it.  Did I expect to spend 3 solid months with my head buried in cancer books and on this website?  Ever?  In my life?  

Even the "mildest" cancer puts our lives on complete perma-hold until it is dealt with.  And we're busy people leading busy lives.  I remember saying "If they ever told me I had cancer, I would just look at the doctor and say 'I don't have time for THAT!'"

Now I know for real, she would just look back and say "Honey, you're gonna MAKE time!"

Rennasus - Just now responding to your post...thank you for caring...fast forwarding to today...Saw the BS and he irritated me again...he is so clinical sometimes. Good grief he is a very well known and respected BS but he is severely lacking in the bedside manner dept. Anyway it turns out the oncologist recommended the oncotype test. She was undecided whether I should have chemo or rads because even though there was cancer in the SN it was a micromet. So, I had the test done and thankfully the score came back at 11. They also said the cancer was non-aggressive. I cried for the first time since I was dx. I told the BS office I thought my score was going to be 80...she said she had never seen an 80 but she has seen a 64 score. My BS was so confident I was going to have to have chemo because of the cancer in the SN but my oncologist told me it was no longer a slam dunk. She said doctors have discovered they have overtreated some women so the oncotype test is a barometer they use to help determine what treatment is best. So I will be having rads in a month and on Arimedex. Had the second surgery last Monday to even up the margins. Should get the Path report back tomorrow. Sore today but otherwise okay. Thanks again for asking. Hope things are going well for you.   diane

Hi Ladies............was just browsing and found this thread............I agree completely with all of you..........I said on other threads I had some of the dumbest things said to me when I got my diagnosis and tried very hard not to rip the lips off the people who were saying them like for instance "oh you got the good cancer"........."well if you had to get cancer BC is the one to get".............."you should be glad it wasn't one of the "bad" cancers..................I thought, ok you idiot........is there a good cancer................Then once I had my surgery, and all the pathology was back in I heard.........."Wow, you really are lucky"................."aren't you glad its just a small tumor"................."Hey, a little bit of radiation, and you will be fine".............So the crap never stops and neither do the assinine comments............Like I told my children "I will be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop, until that final day when they close the lid".......

Am I happy my tumor is 1.1 cm, of course I am..............happy that I had no node involvement, absolutely....................thrilled I don't have to take Chemo, I prayed for that, but do I feel lucky that I got the good cancer......................Hell no, I don't want any type of cancer...............When I had my (mild) heart attack back in 2007 I thought I grabbed the brass ring...........I said to my destraught children.............Hey guys, cheer up, at least its not cancer..............Well I guess it never pays to brag...............I will deal with this disease, and I will also deal with the  "idiots", and their stupid comments, and I will also have my days when I won't want to get out of bed in the morning...........................but I will survive, cause I had cancer, it did not have me............hugs ladies, your the best.

Edwards750, glad you are doing well and your path report contained no surprises! Can't ask for more than that! Crying is good. Sometimes it's hard to cry. We stay strong for so long that tears don't always flow. So congrats for letting the river run through you. Also, staying ahead of your pain keeps you out of the cranky club and helps you heal so have at it!

Yes I too read on here somewhere that one woman's oncotype score was a 1. And you bet I was jealous!! ;-) Take care.

He Eliz............I am the same diagnosis as you..........only difference I am going on a hormone of some torture..................yes your right..........in the beginning everyone was devastated that I was diagnosed with BC............once the pathology came back I got all the "happy thoughts" from the idiots who don't think before the talk.............telling me how lucky I was.........thank God my Dr. didn't make that comment..............all he said to me was "yes you do have a malignant tumor, but you are going to die of old age, not cancer"......................at least that was a nicer way of saying "your lucky"..................I told one woman, after hearing it for more times then I wanted to about "how lucky I was".................How would you like to change places with me".......She isn't talking to me anymore......................I know my news was good news, but don't dare tell me I'm lucky to have cancer.....................I don't care if its basal cell carcinoma on  my friggin nose........................Its cancer you ASS................Well glad I got that off my chest Eliz, so don't feel guilty................there are idiots born everyday..............just a shame that we have to run into them............good luck with your Rads...........I will be starting that soon too.  Hugs

I am happy to see this thread active again - thanks, auntienance.
I had what I knew was a false sense of euphoria when I heard I was Stage 1 with clear margins last week.  I only missed 4 days of work so when I went back people asked me how I am and I was smiling and telling them I had good news.
Then I went home and felt sooooooooooooo depressed and I kept searching my soul for the trigger.
Three things came to me:
1 - I have shared something very personal in my life with colleagues (3/4 are males).  I think I felt that they are not intimately connected to me and that I shouldn't be sharing with those who are unaffected by my journey. 
2 -  I gave up my overtime for the fall and someone has to cover classes for me.  Trouble is, I am at work, looking fine, feeling great, clothes fit, energy's up...only 2.5 weeks after surgery.  So it looks like I am a slacker, I suppose.  But when I gave up my night classes, it was because I didn't know what may lie ahead - whether I could do 14 hour days and rads; or if I could be very public if  I shed hair.  So, I have this ominous feeling about the coming months but am "fine" right now.  My emotions are in conflict.
3 - Probably the biggest cause of depression at this time is the most superficial.  I do not want my identity to be a sick person or a cancer victim in others' eyes.  I cannot control that; but some days I want my boring normal identity back.
Thanks, ladies, for being so honest and helping me so much.
Joan811

Speaking of asanine comments to cancer patient:

Did anyone ever watch "Rescue Me" on FX?  It was about NYC firefighters.  Maura Tierney was on the show and she really was treated for BC a few years ago.

 She was telling Tommy (firefighter on the show) about stupid remarks made to cancer patients, because, on the show, she was playing a character who was being treated for BC. Something like this - you tell a friend ....

"I have cancer."

Friend says..."is it serious?"

You say - IT'S CANCER!

 This did happen to me more than once!  Amazing!

This sounds  very familiar.  I was told my nodes were clean, no lymph invasion, etc.

I went for a second opinion at Memorial Sloan Kettering and they found both!

How did your diagnosis keep changing?  

Sloan suggested chemo for me.  My local dr does not think it will help.

what does that mean?  I have to decide soon or i'll lose my mind.

I've read reports on line that it is good to treat micromatasteses.

If the cancer doesn't get me the blood pressure will!

Wow so happy to find this post - even though it's old.  I've been struggling with these feelings since right after diagnosis.  I was made to feel it was "nothing" by a family member and it's still been eating away at me.  So much that the amazing news I got today - my margins are clear, no node involvement - was so difficult to process.  I had such a sense of relief and joy but at the same time I felt like I was going to hear I told you so from this family member - see your cancer was nothing compared to others.  I know it could be worse, but it's been pretty bad for me - had surgery will have to have radiation for 6 1/2wks not sure on chemo yet.  I let everyone around me think I'm good and I stay positive but the thoughts of guilt of having caught this in time eat me up.  I know sounds crazy to have Guilt over a good prognosis - and I think thats more how I feel than depressed - I'm not depressed, I'm beyond thrilled but I have this pang of guilt that just won't go away.

Grannydukes, one of the nice things my surgeon did for me was to tell me, early on in this whole ordeal, that the time of treatment and surgery should be MY time, that I should do what I want and enjoy, put myself first and leave others to fend for themselves. I have tried to take his advice, and it does help, in my opinion.

When others, like my mother, try to load their grief on me, I simply tell them that I do not have room and they will have to process their grief on their own. Sorry!