Will I ever feel like me again

Hi MAT1979,I’m so sorry you are feeling like this.It’s such a lot to go through it’s no wonder you are feeling life is heavy.You are not crazy and things do get better.I only had surgery ( bladder cancer) but really struggled through the recovery process.I wasn’t expecting to feel so depressed,not helped by recovering alone during the pandemic.It’s so hard to pick yourself up when you feel physically exhausted.You have to process all you have endured and find a way to put the worry of recurrence to the back of the mind.Have you seen the Dr Harvey paper ? If not I hope someone will put a link up as it’s helpful to read.Do you have much support ? Jane x

Hi MAT1979 and welcome across to this corner of the community….. there will be many people on the community who will be nodding their heads when reading through your post.

At times, living the post cancer journey is like living in a parallel universe - you can see your old life but regardless what you do you can’t get back on that same path.

Following my 16 years of treatments and now being 9 years 9 months into my post treatment life, a situation I was unwillingly put into back in 1999. It did actually make me review life and everything that we once thought important.

So some things from our old life are still in our lives but various aspects of our old life that were once seen as important were put in the bin and we don’t miss them.

One of the many lessons I have learned over my 25+ years living with and being treated for my 2 type of very rare T-Cell Lymphoma is encapsulated in this thought….

The road we navigate on our journey has two directions to follow.

There are two signs along this road, one sign is pointing to Pessimism, a mindset that always sees the worst will happen, not appreciating that the many treatments available can do the job, where stress and worry controls every aspect of life and as a result the journey is made extremely hard and draining.

The other sign points to Optimism, a mindset that is full of hopefulness, determination, confidence about the future and appreciates that the treatments available can turn the cancer tide….. even in the most challenging storms. It’s important to continually seek to choose the optimistic direction as this simple thing can define how you walk out your cancer journey.

Taking control of the noise between our ears is important as it helps up define the way forward….. not allowing our cancer journey to define us.

I have found this tool helpful over my years both during my good times and not so good times…….. so make a cuppa and have a look at this great paper…..

  After Treatment Finishes - Then What?

by Dr Peter Harvey as it highlights the post treatment milestones……. Once you have read through it…… read it again.

Then identify the areas that you need to work on…… and do come back and tells us what you thought about the information in the paper ((hugs))

Thanks for posting a link to the paper Mike.Jane x

It’s a great tool Jane  ((hugs))

Not crazy at all. It's a huge thing to go through. I'm not the same person after my diagnosis for sure.I'm trying to find my way  to whatever my new ordinary is going to be. 

I have found the HOPE programme helpful. https://macmillan.fuseuniversal.com/communities/3463/contents/359132. I use the online version and find it helpful that I can dip in and out, I can skip sections if I want to and go back to them later. Some people do the whole course in one go but I'm more off/on with it. 

I hope that's the right link. 

My hospital has a cancer wellbeing coordinator who sent me info about some local things happening too. I haven't done any of them yet but I like the idea of the option. 

Macmillan helpline can also point you to things in your area.

I'm not sharing this because I'm some jolly joiner-in type, I've just felt a bit better knowing what help is out there.