Twelve months ago I was celebrating kicking the butt out of breast cancer. I had the feeling I expected of feeling like one of the lucky ones to have finished treatment but my breast has changed, each time the fear has returned whilst they've checked it out and confirmed it's just from the radio therapy.
Then came the collapses, no warning, no dizziness, just standing one moment and on the floor the next, they think it is my heart stopping for a few seconds and I now have a heart rhythm monitor in and am waiting for my heart to stop, so they can treat it. But they're not sure, so I feel like a human time bomb. During this time they've found a nodule on my lung and damage they described as folding but I don't have any further info yet and am waiting for results. They've said it's only 5% chance of it being cancer but my head is just multiplying that as I no longer feel invincible .
Right now I can't drive, I am waiting to find out why I collapse, to see if the lung nodule and grown or shrunk, I can't go into the office to work, I'm dependent on other people. Just when I thought the cancer was over all of this has happened and I'm a nervous wreck.
I know I had to get through all of the waiting with the cancer, how do I cope with the waiting again?
Hi Nora H and welcome across to this little corner of the community.
Sorry to hear about your post treatment 'leftovers'...... getting 'life' often comes at a cost post treatment with new health conditions coming along.
My type of cancer is incurable by I have been on my journey for over 23 years now so we must be doing something right. I also developed heart problems back in Oct 2015 during my final chemo........ and indeed ended up having a heart attack back in April this year. But a few stents later and I am doing great.
I am 50% deaf in my Left ear and 90% in my Right, hearing aids are helping..... the info on the drug that caused this said 1 in 100000 chance..... should have done the lottery then.
During one of my yearly CTs they found that I had Asbestosis........ but that one is behaving itself at the moment.
You can see my story through the link below but simply put it took 17 years before I had remission that lasted longer than 9 months..... at times it only lasted 5 months before treatment had to start again. So I completely know how it feels to be waiting for results.... but developed the mind set that said ".....well all the stress and worry in the world will not change what I am told".......... so I enjoyed each day as though it was my last......... and it worked for me.
Always about to chat ((hugs))
Hi Nora H
Well done on kicking cancer's butt hon, you did do that so hold on to a bit of that feeling if you can for now. Illnesses and our organs misbehaving don't care about you kicking cancer's butt before they got there. They've their own agenda for sure. As for post treatment glitches like "folding" or "nodule" or " scarring" etc sadly they are par for the course for many of us. I'm just waiting on mine appearing so I can start that awful time again.
How to cope? Well we take a deep breath and do it again, we showed all that courage and strength before waiting for test results, getting through treatments which made us sicker than the cancer did so we know that the power is inside of us to do it again. It's not the slippery road down Nora but just some turbulence on our journey for now so deep breath, head up, get those distractions going on in your life again and keep on going.
You've got this hon xxx
Lucy
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