Guilt

Hi,

I was/am a smoker. For anyone who was/is a smoker at the time of diagnosis, how did you deal with the "I told you so", "You knew this could happen"?

I'm struggling with the feeling that I did this to myself.

Any insight?

I was a former smoker. I drink wine and alcohol also causes us to blame ourselves. Unfortunately, noone "knows" it will happen. 21st century and we are just learning new things about genetics, epigenetics and cancers.

My dad was a smoker since he was in his teens; finally quit in his late 60s. LIved to 87-1/2 and never had cancer. Does that mean smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. It means he had better genes than he passed on to me, sadly.

And if you want to go to the dark side, imagine your best friend doing something that she "knew" would cause her a bad outcome...would you go on a rant with her and blame her? No, you pick up the pieces where they are and move forward to get quality of life. Hopefully a long life.

My breast surgeon told me smoking had nothing to do with breast cancer. She said it's one of the cancers with no connection to it. Now my kidney cancer, possibly, but my non-smoking father also had that. The blame game is useless and you'll just make yourself crazy for no reason.

I was a non smoker and non drinker normal bmi when I was diagnosed. I don't think any one of us did something to cause our breast cancer. It is an excuse for people who think they can control whether they get it or not.

Of course it is always good to take care of yourself for good health, but good health doesn't mean you won't get cancer.

Please don’t feel too bad about it. While we all know smoking isn’t a healthy option, it is not a direct cause/effect link like with lung cancer. In fact, in my own research, I’ve found the relative risk very low as a factor. Here’s some info from the CDC and the screenshot below is from a nih article (Sorry the text isn’t more clear). Honestly, most of them are beyond our control, this is the hand we were dealt.

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/basic_info/risk_factors.him

I smoked at the time of DX too. I thought it was a contributor too but like others have said it wasn’t why I got BC. My sister never smoked and drank very little and she got BC too. Our common denominator is our mother who had BC although statistics say otherwise. 70% of BC cases are not genetically connected. Go figure.

I also echo what others have said about beating yourself over it when the fact of the matter is we just all drew the unlucky card.

Of course try and live healthy just because. I believe in everything in moderation. I’m not abstaining from sugar or a beer every now and then. Doctors are a actually at a loss to explain why certain women get BC and others do not. I didn’t fit their so called criteria except family history.

Btw I’m 8 years out this August. My sister has not been so fortunate. She has had a recurrence 4 years after she was DX. She was a year behind me being DX. Mine was IDC, her’s is ILC. I had a lumpectomy and radiation. She had a MX and took Arimidex. I had a low Oncotype score. Her’s was intermediate. You just never know. My sister is going through 4 rounds of chemo.

BC is such an insidious disease but they are making progress in research and treatments.

So hang in there, ditch the blame game and move on. You can do it. We are all proof of that.

Diane