Who did everything right?

I don't post in here usually, but this caught my eye! 

Does your friend also have breast cancer? 

Hi wrsmith

I am amazed then, that a person who has never been through what you are going through, has the audacity to tell you what you should be doing?  Is she a breast cancer specialist? 

I wouldn't dare tell any woman, with a breast cancer diagnosis, how to run their life, diet, treatment, or in any way shape or form, tell them something that I have no experience of!  Am not surprised you're pissed at her and I would be telling her to piss off!  Reason it caught my eye, was because and this is a poor comparison, my brother deemed it appropiate to tell me how to treat my daughter when she was being bang out of order with me.  I showed him the door, given the fact that a mother - child relationship is very different from Uncle - Niece. 

 Your friend is well out of order. 

wrsmith---WOW Give her a pair of u'r shoes and tell her to walk in them. Maybe she did have good intentions, but it sure came out all wrong. Everone chooses how to live after this horrible disease and who know who's really right anyway--it's all a gamble and we all hope and pray for the best and do the best we can---but there are no guarantees for anyone so what would she even think like that for any reason. Anway giving everthing up is hard to do for anyone---Sorry she said such an insensitive remark to u.

Wrsmith, this woman is no "best friend". A "best friend" doesn't blame you for  getting an illness that doesn't have a known cause. A "best friend" doesn't set herself up as an expert in something that she obviously doesn't know anything about.

If you decide to talk to this person again, tell her that all the good nutrition, exercise, early-to-bed-early-to-rise in the world won't prevent cancer.

You can also hint that the stress her lecture caused you is not good for your health...

Leah

I like kayb's answer!

wrsmith2x Your post caught my eye. I believe that I did everything right before my BC diagnosis (exercise, healthy weight, no alcohol, no smoking, etc.) and ended up with it anyway. As a result, I realize that I am making different choices now. I believe in balance and moderation so I don't do anything to excess but I now have a drink when I get home if I feel like it and I eat the things I enjoy much more than I used to. I try to exercise but I also give myself permission to relax a lot more than I did in the past. I refuse to deny myself the things I want anymore because what good did that do anyway?

I also think that BC/treatment has taken a lot away from me. I now have sexual problems, menopausal symptoms, chronic joint pain and a struggle with my weight due to the antihormonal meds/menopause. That adds to my feeling that I deserve a break and a little fun. I'm high risk as a Triple Positive and although I'm hopeful, I won't be surprised if I deal with BC again at some point in the future. So, I think I would regret (and resent) it more now if I had the perfect, squeaky clean lifestyle and then recurred and felt like I spend all that time missing out on what I want.

Granted, I'm turning 43 on Monday and maybe part of my mentality is a mid-life crisis in addition to the BC mind bend:) I've been celebrating my birthday every year by skydiving since age 40 and my friends imply that I'm pushing my luck now when I engage in what they consider high risk activities (went whitewater rafting and ziplining several times since age 40 as well and I hope to take up scuba diving this summer). I don't see it that way. I feel like I want to enjoy life, try new things and cram in as much as I can in whatever time I have even moreso now because I am aware that the BC could come back. I don't believe I'm wreckless or irresponsible in the choices I'm making (some would disagree)-I just want to live a little. Again, I do my best to eat/drink in moderation and exercise when I can but I refuse to feel guilty and I care a lot less about what others think these days.

BC really changes you and I've only had it once- I'm so sorry you are dealing with it again. I don't think you only have 2 choices i.e. "enjoying all those things I can OR doing everything right and not enjoying myself so much". I think you can do a little of both to achieve some balance and be happy. Nothing you revealed in your posts changes the way I view you. No one can tell us the cause of BC so where do people get off telling us what our lifestyle should be to prevent it from coming back? I give people the benefit of the doubt but I take advice with a grain of salt if it comes from someone who has never lived with a BC diagnosis. Don't let anyone make you feel blame or guilt-feel secure in your choices and try not to waste any energy or time worrying about it-you've got much better things to do:) All the best to you...

Well there ARE studies saying that any amount of alcohol can raise our risk of not only getting breast cancer but also of having a recurrence. I don't know if these studies are true, I have to say that part. But....if they are and you are drinking 2-3 glasses of bourbon a day and more on the weekends, than you are drinking too much.  So your friend cares about you. I don't know you, but I care about you too! 

Still, it is not her place to blame you for having a recurrence.  My father in law is an alcoholic who has chewed since he was 30.  He is now 72.  So his horrible lifestyle of chewing and hanging out in smoke filled bars hasn't given him cancer.  I don't drink. Yes, I drank in my twenties, but I really have not gotten drunk for well over 20 years. I am overweight.  I think being overweight is not good for many reasons, I know this. But I also know weight gain is more of an issue for post-menopausal women with hormone positive cancer.  I am trying to loose weight (but I'm not giving up ice-cream), but I refuse to make any drastic changes to my life such as eating no sugar and eating only organic (just can't afford it, this irritates me, would like to only eat organic).  I am hoping to be the statistic of the woman who made no changes and still lived. Having said that, I do believe that exercise can help prevent a recurrence.  It just makes sense.  Heat up the body, burn up circulating cancer cells. 

From what I have read, every little thing on the planet Earth causes cancer from the carpets we walk on, to the plastic cups we drink from, to the air we breath, the water we drink, and the food we put in our mouths, from the hair dye we put in our hair, the lipstick we put on our lips and the cars we drive, to the stress we feel due to all the stress...they have even gone so far as to blame our mothers and what THEY ate or did while we were still in the womb....(this has not helped my mother's case when we were discussing CAT scans and she revealed that she knew all about CAT scans due to the one she had when she was pregnant with me...."I was having horrible headaches, turns out it wasn't a brain tumor it was you")

WE DID NOT CAUSE OUR CANCER. And yet every day someone somewhere is telling us that we caused our cancer. Sometimes, it's our own family or friends. 

Only you can decide if you want to cut back on your drinking.  It really is the only clear study that has been done that says it increases your risk of getting breast cancer or having a recurrence. I know its fun.  But it would be better for you if you cut back.  I wouldn't cut it out all together. Perhaps 3 drinks a week would be better?  Still, I don't even know if this is really true.  There will be another study out soon that states, it isn't the Alcohol in the drink that is causing cancer, but how the lips were puckered while drinking it that causes cancer. And then we can all switch to straws and be safe.....

wrsmith2x:  Your friend sounds concerned, but there are gentler ways of expressing that concern than lecturing.  As so many have pointed out, you did nothing to "get" this in the first place, and that itself became your highest risk factor for recurrence.  And even those who do everything "right" have recurrences.  There are no guarantees; it comes down to a QOL issue.

My DH and I were "wine-o-philes" before my diagnosis last year.  We live in Michigan which has an abundance of wine trails, and we often travelled and tasted and brought home bottles and cases of wine.  It wasn't atypical to have two or three bottles open at once, and I often had one (large) glass of wine every evening, and probably two on Saturdays.  I loved my wine, I loved the experience of going out and tasting and purchasing, and it was an activity my DH and I really enjoyed doing together. 

The night I was diagnosed was pretty much the last night I had a drink.  I've had a sip three times since then (and did have a small pina colada two nights ago).  For me, it was a personal choice about giving my liver a break.  I've had some damaging things happen to my liver over the years and I didn't want it to be doing more work than it needed to during this critical treatment period.  Plus, for me, I know I can use alcohol as a coping mechanism and suspected that I would have ended up drinking more than I should have - I don't have a lot of willpower, or rather "won'tpower" when it comes to things like that, so it's all-or-nothing for me. 

Surprisingly, many around me - including some of my BC sisters - chide me for not drinking, and I'm okay with that.  I know I'm doing what I feel is best for me.  As long as you're comfortable with what you're doing and how you're living, that's all that matters.  If you're not, then maybe this is the opportunity to craft the lifestyle you've wanted.  Sad to say, BC has been a pretty good motivator for me.

I think your friend is probably scared for you and, since she has never been in our position, handled this without much grace or understanding.  However, I think that her intentions were probably good, but she needs a lesson in how to support someone going through a tough time. 

On the note about the alcohol, 2-3 drinks per day is a lot for a BC patient.  I saw an oncologist in Miami who was very interested in the diet connection and she said that the first diet change she would recommend for any cancer patient would be to give up alcohol.  Not suger, not meat.  Alcohol.  She felt REALLY strongly about it. 

So maybe switch to a glass of red wine on the weekends  and save the Bourbon for special occasions?  (Then you can treat yourself to some REALLY expensive bourbon!) 

I just want to say, there is absolutely no judgement here.  I know that we are all doing the best we can with a really crappy situation.  I'm so sorry that you are dealing with this again and I wish you speedy healing and recovery.

wrsmith, my immediate thought is that from what I understand, alcohol is associated with breast cancer only because alcohol metabolises in the liver in a fashion that increases estrogen in the body.  I see in your profile that you are triple negative.  So in your case, perhaps alcohol is not a bad as for a woman whose tumor expressed a high amout of estrogen receptors?

So maybe it's not as bad for you as your friend fears?

I am speculating a bit here as I don't know the answer, but it seems logical to me.   

If drinking is so important to you as to qualify as something that 'makes you as happy as possible,' as you wrote in your original post, then perhaps it might be a little too central to your life/happiness and worth reconsidering. I don't know if your friend expressed it the best way, or what her motives were, but, while nobody says you need to be an ascetic and deny all earthly pleasures,... in my opinion (and that of most medical professionals, I think), carrying 50 extra pounds and drinking to the extend that you describe is too much on both counts.

A bc diagnosis can be a wake up call to different people in different ways. For me, I decided I never wanted to hear the words "you have cancer" again. I was willing to do (almost) anything to minimize (not eliminate) my risk of recurrance. I stopped drinking entirely (never drank much, so it was not a difficult choice), eat a mostly clean diet, take supplements, work out like a fiend, and have made changes to keep stress to an absolute minimum. Any guarantees? Nope, and I know that. BUT I am happier than I ever have been, and IF the beast returns, I will have no regrets about my lifestyle.

I think you have equated eating what you want and drinking what you want with being 'as happy as possible.' I do not agree with that equation. I think if you take charge of your life, make healthier eating choices, get more active and begin to get some of the extra weight off, and limit your drinking somewhat, you will be MORE happy, not less so.

Give it some thought. Everyone here only wants the best for you - and the feedback seems (to me) to be fairly consistent re the drinking.

wr, one thing that there is plenty of research to support is the benefit of exercise in reducing the risk of recurrence.  In fact, I recently read that exercise has been shown to be specifically beneficial for risk reduction with TNBC.  And carrying 50 extra pounds probably means you're not getting nearly enough exercise, which would also create endorphines to enhance your mood -- in place of at least some of the alcohol. 

Without knowing exactly what was said or how it was said, it probably took a lot of courage and love for your friend to confront you on what she feels is threatening your health.  No one likes to be the bad guy in a situation like this, but even if you didn't have bc, the amount of alcohol you're consuming just isn't healthy because of the toll it takes on your body -- from depleting much needed nutrients (they get all used up washing it out of your system), to overworking your kidneys and liver.

The changes you made prior to your re-dx sound so positive!  Unfortunately, TNBC can be super aggressive.  None of us has a crystal ball or knows for sure which combination of factors might prevent a recurrence.  All any of us can do is to work on building the most vibrant health we can, and hope that it's enough to keep any lingering bc cells at bay and new ones from starting. Some extra weight or what sounds to me like a lot of alcohol may or may not be factors in your specific dx.  But no one can argue that they're not impacting your overall health.    Sending you hugs & strength.  And being pissed is good.  I'd be more concerned if you weren't.     Deanna

(Looks like I was posting while you were.)