Can't eat, can't sleep, body sore all over

You're experiencing the feelings a lot of us endured in the beginning. Stress, anxiety, fear, grief, worry, sadness. These emotions are all piled up on you right now and taking an enormous toll on your body. Please consider asking your doctor for medication to get through these days. There are meds that can help, short-term, with anxiety, depressions, and insomnia. I'm not saying we should medicate our emotions into oblivion, or that it's appropriate to pop a pill for every blip of stress. This is different.

And I promise you there are better days ahead. Once you get a plan in place and things start firming up surrounding treatment, you'll feel better. Yes, it's a long fandango, but as I discovered--you'll be on the other side of it before you know it. Gentle hugs.

Hrv, so sorry you are going through this. Yup, it's stress. When you are having problems dealing with it, remind yourself that how you are feeling is perfectly normal. All the new aches and pains are perfectly normal. It's how our brains and bodies react to the shock of the diagnosis. But what's most important is to remind yourself that none of it means that there is actually anything wrong, other than the diagnosis that you know about.

As for HER2, the IHC test has a very wide equivocal (2+) range. So it's pretty common to initially get an equivocal result. Then the FISH test is done. If you look at signature lines, you'll see that lots say "HER2- (FISH)". This indicates that the IHC test was HER2 2+ equivocal but then the FISH test came out HER2-. I've seen studies with anywhere from 45% to 80% of IHC 2+ tumors testing HER2- on FISH. So even being 2+ equivocal, there's a good chance you might be HER2-.

Time + time + time.

It really sucks at the beginning but it gets better, it really does! Hang in there 🤗

What helped me the most was to do deliberately fun things. It's harder this year, but you can still go on picnics with family or close friends, take walks in the colorful parks, watch silly movies, dance alone in your house - whatever is appealing to you. Looking back, I remember the fun things I did more than the medical crap.

I'm right there with you HRV! So many aches and pains that I know must just be the stress. Especially with 3 kids I'm always just holding it all in and I know my body is permanently tense. I keep reminding myself this tension headache etc only started after this horrible process got started.

I had my appt with my surgeon on Thursday to get things rolling. I got lots of favorable info but still keep wondering what if. It's hard not to. Trying to hold onto the positives! Hang in there! They say the first steps are the hardest and I definitely know we'll Both feel better once things really get in motion.