Have spent last few months in a state of fear supporting husband and family to come to terms with diagnosis. Realised that staying away from the real world outside is not helpful at all. The world does not stop if you carry on living your life, accommodating the situation naturally. Be cautious but do stuff that you did before and more. Cancer is here and we live with it. Diary full of appointments but spontaneous outings even to the end of the road are so helpful. Trust this will make sense to others. Take care everyone.
Hi NeoChorio , I think that many will have experienced the freezing fear that the word cancer can bring. I was diagnosed way back in 1999 with a very rare, incurable but treatable blood cancer.
As a family we agreed to live life to the full as we navigated all the many treatments with the many ups and downs….. but we have to strive to live life as long as we have it and not let our cancer define us but we have to choose to define how we live life along with the challenges of living with cancer.
Hi It is me its a challenging time for you both....... but when it comes to the practical and emotional challenges of supporting your husband you may benefit from joining and posting in our dedicated Carers only support group where you will connect with others navigating the exact same support challenges.
That's an interesting way at looking at things. It makes sense. I never suspected cancer after 22 years of being clear so when it was mentioned I'd need to come back for results I thought ...why? I 
ame to have ruptured implants, 22 years in age removed, not concerned about cancer. So it was a huge shock to be told I had just a quarter of an inch tumour found in the tissue surrounding the implats. Up until that point I'd been so happy and relieved these painful and uncomfortable things had at last been removed. My creativity returned, I got canvasses printed, brought beautiful crockery tohold cream teas to donate to charity. And then the bomb was dropped. I was told I was fine, it's gone, nothing to worry about but yes , ever since I've been frozen. It's like I got stuck at that poit. The creativity has gone, I'm anxious, unable to cope, turning family away from visiting, when in fact in reading this I can see it's the opposite to what I need. This never happened to me before.I carried on. Lived life to the fullest and had 22 free years. I think maybe I should get unfrozen and dive back in. It's got to be better than where I am now. Thank you so much for the inspiration.️️️
My pleasure to inspire you hon- 
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The journeys we take are so individual aren't they? So you've been through the mill after having the implants removed then receiving a cancer diagnosis to. And secondary spread too? Are you having/had any treatment?
It's really fine to freeze for a while, it protects us, cushioning us from reality while we adjust to our ' new normal' as I call it. Time wise it's different for all of us, no right or wrong way to do it. If you're ready to rejoin the current moment then do so with baby steps. No you will never be the same person you were before but you will have drawn on your reserves of strength and courage to get through the diagnosis and treatment. You may have changed your views on things, you may well have changed your priorities - I know I have. That's my main change I feel. I've more courage in myself, care less about others opinions and stop putting off things I've kept meaning to do.
So lovely, take tentative steps at first and congratulate yourself on getting this far and still be walking, thinking and talking. You sound like a creative person so indulge yourself in that. I'm using my love of growing food and flowers to raise money for Melanoma UK, just slowly selling seeds, dried herbs and plants.
Take care and well done on getting to this point xx
