Hi all,
I'm BRCA1 and have already had preventative breast surgery 4 years ago. I'm booked in for my ovaries and tubes to be removed next week and I'm getting ready for the menopause (as much as I can)
One thing that is really bothering at the moment though and this probably sounds really petty, but people keep telling me how brave I am. I'm only 36 so I know I'm relatively young to be having all this surgery, but to me it's a process of eliminating such a high risk from my life. I watched ovarian cancer take my mum and I don't want to put my own children through that.
To me, I'm not being brave, I'm being practical. A brave person to me, is someone who is fighting cancer, not preventing it.
I just don't know how to say this to people without upsetting them, but every time someone calls me brave, I want to punch them in the face (bit of a aggressive reaction I know, but it's got that bad now!)
Does anyone else feel like this? What can I do?
TIA x
Hi Hevski13 welcome to the forum.
You cant always account for what or how folks think about things but I imagine to the outside you will seem brave doing what you have had to do but as you see it it has a practical outcome and that's to prevent Cancer and eliminate risks. Unless these folks have been where you are they dont know how they will react or feel but maybe its just about saying "well I don't feel brave at all but I am doing this to eliminate a huge risk from my life and had I to have any choice then I would possibly choose not to do this but I don't have choice.........". Would that work? xxxx
gail
