Unique (weird?) reaction to waiting. Am I the only one?

You’re not totally alone there. I kept telling myself I have no family history, I take good care of myself, I’m young, eat healthy...nothing to worry about. Until it was. Weirdly, I was pretty sure what it was, and I was trying to convince myself otherwise. So no crying, no freaking out, just waiting. It’s not the worst way to cope. For me I think it was more acceptance than denial.

DeepWaters - I get what you’re saying, very much so. My timing is different though. I cope with waiting out tests through humour, but i quake big time on the inside. Once I got to treatment I hit the off button and decided that all the chemo/rads/meds were just a pain in the behind (necessary, but a pain) that I couldn’t wait to finish....like doing laundry. I often said “I had cancer, I’m not going to do that again”, not unlike going to a restaurant and not being pleased with a dish, never to order it again. Sure it’s a coping method/sheer denial. Meh, it gets me through the day. As you said it could very well be my type of acceptance.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I have my moments, days of resenting the disease, but those are few and far between. I prefer to laugh at my experiences, sometimes making some pretty dark but funny observations to myself. Some might call it cocky, or tempting fate, but it works forme. I just don’t sweat the whole issue anymore, and on a conscious level, pretty much unphased by it all. Betcha’ a psychiatrist could have a field day with me lol!

I am very sorry about your Aunt, so sad. That had to be very hard on you. I will be sending positives your way for good results, crossing fingers and toes that you continue to have a smooth ride through to diagnosis. Keep us posted!

Ladies, 30 years ago I worked at Macys in the China & glass section. If we checked a crystal flute/any item and it had a burr or flaw, it would go into the back room to be destroyed. Once a week or so we'd smash the stuff in a tall bin. At my dx I would have LOVED to go into that room and just break some glass! Just saying. HUGS.

deepwaters - I am another that did no crying - not my style, and didn’t even tell my husband that I had a biopsy until after I had a definitive breast cancer diagnosis. I went to work the next day, business as usual, until the day before surgery, which was not until five weeks later. I never asked why me - I figured why not me - who am I that I deserve to not be that one in eight? I tried to learn during that time, knowledge helped me be calm, and if I was calm I felt proactive rather than reactive. You are right, this is likely not how most probably deal with what is ultimately a life changing event, but we all do what feels right to us in a situation with no user’s manual. I too am one who used humor - sometimes pretty dark - to get through the slog of treatment, and for me, a long road of complications. I don’t know if you meant the pink hoopla that surrounds the disease when you said “industry” - there is a commercialized element that is part of this. I was diagnosed the last week of September, right as Breast Cancer Awareness month kicked off on the 1st of October. I had to tune it out then for my own sanity, but have since taken a more jaded view - grateful for the progress, but impatient that there isn’t more, andthat money and attention is focused on the wrong things, especially as I have watched friends fall to this heartbreaking disease. You have experienced loss to breast cancer too and I’m so sorry. I feel very fortunate to have been treated by stellar physicians that welcomed my questions and explained their various recommendations patiently, it seemed as if I was their only patient, and they ultimately saved my life. I know I was lucky in that regard. I hope your thought that this is nothing serious turns out to be true - we love it when that happens! Keep doing what you are, feeling what you are - it’s right for you and that’s all that matters. Wishing you the best!

Ladies, seems like we are all unique together! I see a lot of similarities that may be contributing factors- I was also a military spouse, I have also been by the bedside as someone I loved passed from cancer. Very coincidentally, it was my aunt who was also my godmother, and I was living there at the time. (Although my mother is still living). I was cracking jokes during one of my biopsies, and while waiting to go in for my surgery. I Never asked “why me” because I assumed I would get cancer someday, just never thought it would be breast cancer. Cancer runs strong in my family, to the point I warned my husband about it before we got married. Besides, I’ve got strong shoulders and everyone gets some dose of suffering to bear.

Although, I will admit, when they told me they had to take my then six year old daughter into the OR, I asked for a chair, sat down and passed out in the ER! And that was just so they could reset two broken bones! I’d be a wreck for major surgery. Funny how it’s ok if it’s me, just not my child

Time for another confession of sorts....at my recent mammogram recall I sat in the waiting room for what felt like hours. I did a head count...there were exactly 8 women waiting along with me, all with that ‘I want to chew my nails off’ look on their faces while coolly flipping through magazines. I have to admit I mentally played the numbers game...thought ‘one in 8 if us is in for bad news’...and then thought ‘well that lady across from me doesn’t look well at all, it’s gotta be her’ WHAT THE HELL was I thinking?!? I don’t want cancer again and I sure as heck don’t want her or any other woman getting it!! I think it comes down to what Mo-Beth so aptly said...”why me?” A form of bargaining and self preservation that’s wired into us humans. When I was going through diagnosis my good friend also had a lump being checked. Hers turned out benign. While she was very sad for me, I could see the ‘glad it was you, not me’ on her face...I don’t blame her a bit as I would’ve have felt the same way! All very normal in my books.

So good to get that out

Ingerp - from your reply to god’s ear, although I’m convinced the devil has had a podium constructed with my name on it LOL! I’ll probaby be condemned to telling the same joke over and over again.

Cpeachymom - So very true! I have all the resilience in the world for myself...as for my kiddo, I meltdown faster than white on rice when he’s ill. At 6 weeks he went into a breathing problem out of the blue. I drive 453 mph in a blizzard to get to emerg. It took 2 nurses to convince me he wasn’t going to die. Maternal instinct....anxiously serving the human race since the beginning of time!

SpecialK - your all inclusive is missing a handsome, scantily clad pool boy named Raoul to serve those drinks! We can alwaysdream.

I'm the grandchild of a physician & an R.N. I grew up with parents who continually told us to "not be silly." I see all these women who think they are going to die because they have a zit or a heat/fungal rash or dermatitis. I see all these women who have almost certainly benign things going on who literally make themselves ill for a month or more while having hysterics, despite the FACTS being given to them on the statistics on how low the odds are that there is anything seriously going on. I am appalled at how ignorant people are of their basic biology or the most basic medical information. I am especially appalled at the encouragement of others here who encourage them to continue to believe there is something dire going on when it has been pretty definitively proven to not be the case. I had ovarian cancer and almost died. I have LCIS and if it happens I get breast cancer I'll deal with it when it happens.

I, too, love this thread. I'm having a biopsy on my “good" breast Monday. I haven't shared this new situation with many people. I'd rather wait and see what I'm actually dealing with, if anything, before I get too many people involved. Last year when I was diagnosed I had some friends say that I was “so strong" and the other one I loved was “you're amazing". Really? I don't think so. Just trying to keep it together the best way I know how. My mother was very stoic. She went through cancer treatment twice, once in her 40's and then when she was 76. She died last year at the age of 92. She always managed to keep her sense of humor throughout.

Emotions and the way we deal with difficult situations/times are fascinating. We are all different. No one's responses are better or more appropriate than another's. Just different. One of my most favorite TV Episodes (showing my age here) was the Mary Tyler Moore show, Chuckles Bites the Dust. MTM's character is appalled by the joking and laughter of her co-workers after they learned that Chuckles was killed in a freak accident (He was dressed as a peanut and shelled by a rogue elephant). She is horrified at their lack of compassion. However, at the funeral, all of them are appropriately sad and compassionate and it's Mary who tries desperately to keep from laughing during the eulogy. I guess the lesson here was never judge another person's reactions. We all handle life's challenges in our ownunique way!

Egads007- When I saw your Gilda Radner quote, I laughed out loud. That’s me!! Ever since I could walk and talk I would fight like hell to wear things that didn’t itch. Almost didn’t get first communion cause I couldn’t stand the way the veil felt on my skin. It drove my mom nuts. She couldn’t dress her little girl in anything but cotton. I didn’t grow out of it either - Sitting here in blue jeans and a T-shirt.