Effects of cancer treatment 20 years on

My God i'm sorry to say this but its so nice to see other people like me on here, i really thought i was the only person in the world that felt like this.  I could cry to know other people are having it rough and i'm not alone, and especially to know i'm not the only one who is always being told, well your alive be grateful, or well you've had all your treatment ...your fine now....be grateful and get on with your life.  I would like to slap every person that says that  to me, i really would as they have no idea wha tlife is like do they.

In 2011 aged 46 i was told i had Triple Negative breast cancer, such a shock, i was working full time for my local police force, went out with friends for meals and drinks and i socialised. I loved my job. I had my lump removed and now have a deep hole in my breast, i had four lymp nodes removed, 3 months of really strong chemo, and 20 sessions of radiotherapy.  I had that horrilbe Docitaxel for chemo and i also had a second chemo beggining with a C but i can't remember it, i was overdosed numerous times with the chemo and they had to keep reducing my dose, i was so ill during all my treatment, but here i am 4 years on aged 51 and i no longer work, i can't work i'm just too unwell, i no longer see my friends, i no longer socialise, i don't do anything.  I'm always so tired it is unreal, i could sleep all day and all night and nothing helps to relieve this. My memory is so bad i can't be relied upon to do things anymore, this causes many arguments in my familiy and is causing a big rift....my hands and feet have nerve damage, i spend most of my day with my hands closed tight as it feels better, i can't clap or slap or knock my hands as the pain and feeling is awful, i  keep forgetting this and brushing my hands over my sofa to clean any crumbs etc off of it, oh my god does that feel bad, its best to  just curl my hands up and don't use them. My feet are affected and if i stand still they go dead, feel really horrible and i will fall over.

Right after finishing my radiotherapy i just started to feel so ill, i was rushed to hospital with heart failure grade 2,  was told it was the radiotherapy, had lots of treatment etc but now they say it has gone away? I feel they just treat me like an idiot and tell me that to keep me quiet.  My heart can't stop racing and it makes me feel terrible, some days its at 180bpm, like constantly running a marathon, how the hell am i meant to do anything with a heart that fast, my chest feels like i'm having a heart attack but still this dr tells me i'm fine, i went and bought myself one of thos little finger probes from ebay and it tells me my heart rate and oxygen levels,  they have put me on beta blockers to force my heart to slow down, but they havenasty  side effects.  Now i'm having trouble with my oxygen levels dropping very low, to the stage where i feel like i'm passing out, i have to go to sleep, i can't stay awake, i start to talk rubbish and its like im very drunk or drugged up but still the dr tells me my heart etc is fine, i don't think it is to be honest. 

I also have Fibromyalgia and suffer with really stiff sore joints, I have metal plates and pins in my lower left leg becuase my bone just snapped in half just before i was diagnosed, i live in daily pain from this, i feel its nerve damage and its agony, my foot is rigid and i am always falling over becuase of it.  I am also having a lot of trouble down below, i have a couple of really itchy patches and they are keeping an eye on me for Lichen Sclerosis, as this can lead to cancer, i keep getting the change of colour on the skin but then it dissapears and this keeps on happening.....i am so sore down below to the stage that i bleed, but now its gone to my back passage and im in so much pain with soreness and the itching is just unbearable.  II get really bad confusion and forget what day it is, or what i'm meant to be doing, i'm like an old lady.  I now have a degree of incontinence as well and i leak, this makes me sore but i hate the smell, theres nothing worse than smelling of wee.   I can't stop putting on weight, i'm struggling with how heavy i am at 16st, i'm only 5ft 2 so i struggle to do any walking or housework  as i am always breathless,  I also have a diastasis Recti, which is where my intestines are bulging out at the front of my body as the muscles have come apart, its like all my innards are being pulled forwards and are hanging down, it hurts, its uncomforable but they say they can't do anything for me.

Last year i was so ill, i just could not breathe and i thought i was going to die, this went on for 6 weeks and as per normal they would not listen to me at the hospital, i kept going to my g.., was on all sorts of medication and they kept telling me i now had asthma, i argued with them telling them it wasn't and they were wrong, i took myself to hospital and begged them to do something as i was suffocating, but they sent me away saying come back and see the dr in the asthma clinic in 6 weeks, in the end i collapsed and almost died, all that time i had a blood clot in my leg that had travelled to my lunp ( Pulmonary Embolism) and i was literally suffocating, it was just awful that no one would listen, and the consultant actually told me this often happens later on with cancer patients.   I have become depressed and very anxious, but that is my life now! I just wish these dr's would realise we are out here suffering, i never had any help at all during or after cancer, my Macmillan nurses really let me down and left me to it, my family seem to just ignore me as they say i'm always ill, but how would they feel if they could not breathe every day of their life. 

I'm sorry to rant on, and yes i thank God so much that i lived, i really really do.....but they have got to realise that we still suffer after cancer, i just wish there was some help put there.

They are now looking at giving me a gastric bypass to help me with my weight but i am classes as high risk because of my heart and blood clot

Honey Bea,

I know I don't know you, but reading your post leads me to say; Please go see a counsellor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, anyone. It is clear you feel very alone in this, and you are not, we here in the forum should not be the only people you feel you can talk to about this sort of thing, it needs to come out. They have asked me, too, if I want a gastric band, and I am considering it, but only with the help of a counsellor, because I know, that despite being really unwell, and not really being able to exercise, I eat unhealthy choices because of my mental state. I think that a lot of people in our position, who have health problems and depression turn to food for comfort, and we brush our weight problems under the rug, because we are overweight because of health problems, but I think that just gives us more of an excuse to turn to food. You mention that you were let down by your Macmillan Nurses, and that your family does not help out, but I have to ask, have you asked for help? I know that I often get upset that I get no help, but I never actually asked for help. It takes a lot to admit that you are struggling, but we cannot expect help if we cannot admit that we need help. I'm sorry you are going through this, and please know that you can rant on here as much as you need. We all need a good rant every once in a while. And I am happy that you know that you are not alone, and no one doubts that you are not thankful for still being here. 

Hugs xx Brittania

Sending all you survivors love and hugs, this post-treatment life is still a relatively new one, you are some of the pioneers who can break the boundaries and make people realise that, although life post-poison can be hard, painful, tough and dispiriting, life can continue. 

Our daughter is, in some respects, lucky (she's alive!) although she's had around 7 years of treatment for her cancer, and then a donor transplant, but she survived and has spent the last 3 years battling through the continuing problems that her transplant gave her, and is still in the early stages of building a new immune system. 

Seek out help with counselling, having a rant on here when you need, and maybe support groups for your varying cancers, as you feel the need. 

Never, ever, feel alone, this group is here for you, we are here for you, keep posting......

xxx

Hi Brittania and thank you for your reply......I don't know what to do or think to be honest. i did have some counselling sessions that i arranged myself and it did get a lot off of my chest, but it didnt resolve anything.  I don't know whats the matter with me but i feel sort of angry or bitter that i never got the help i so badly needed during my treatment, i was left in bed for days on end in the same clothes, wet knickers and i stank, my teeth had not been cleaned for abut 5 or 6 days and it felt like i had furry teeth.....my hair wasn't brushed, ( when i had some)  i was so badly dehydrated but i didn't know this, and i lay there for days not realising i had Sepsis/Nuetrapenia!  My hubby would make me a flask of cold drink before he went to work, come home at lunch time and make me a snack and a drink and then again in the evening, i never could eat the food so he would take it away, he would also throw away my old drink, not even thinking to himself well she hasn't drunk a thing in days, maybe i should get her some help. I did ring the BC nurses a few times and it would take them days to get back to me, i would tell them how ill i felt and they would explain that this is the chemo and i have to bear with it, so i did....they ever came out to see me or even tell me that i could have got some help with my personal cleaning etc.  I lay in bed for almost 3 months, i was so ill from the two chemo's i was having it scared the hell out of me.....the hallucinations were dreadful and terrified me,  most days i would sleep for up to 10 hours straight and i would wake and it was the middle of the night, everyone was in bed and i was all alone again, i was hungry but had no one to make me anything.  Most of the time i could barely hold my own head up, it was a really hard struggle just to sit up in the bed, i would need help to do just this simple task. I remember crawling on the floor to try and get to the toilet, but it took me so long to get there i would start to wet myself, or i would try to walk to the toilet, but the room would spin and i felt so faint i would hold onto the walls crying my eyes out begging for someone to come and help me, but there was no one home. 

I lay there day in day out praying for this to end,  i had the same clothes on, i was so sore and so itchy, i needed someone to help me sit up to try and sip my drink, but i had no one there.  I keep thinking to myself, why did my husband not do this, why did he not get me the help i needed, he never spoke to me apart from to ask what i wanted to eat and a quick, ' how are you'...he would just leave me up in the bedroom and he would go and sleep in another room.  I know many men can't cope with seeing their wives like this, but he could of got me some help surely.  After a few awful rounds of chemo i was in hospital again and i asked them to ask the BC nurses to come and see me as i needed to speak to her, when she came i told her how bad things were, how i just couldn't cope and she turned round to me and said ' i'm afraid thats they way things go'.and off she went?  Its only now that im much stronger and speaking to other people who have had cancer that many tell me they had daily help coming in, people to help them wash, bathe, brush their teeth, give them some clean clothes, no one ever told me you could get this help, why not!  I was begging for help, i rang my g.p. and hospital many times saying i feel so ill what can i do....i had nuetrapenia 2 or 3 times, i thought i was going to die.  I feel angry/bitter over this alone, but now, nearly four years on and i am not the person i was.   My heart started racing on the first chemo and it still is, i have meds to force it to slow down, i'm so breathless all the time, and i mean all the time when i move, i'm not breathless when i'm still.  I wasn't breathless at all before chemo!  I have low oxygen levels, to the stage i feel like i'm going to pass out, all i can do is sit still till it passes which can be a whole day, i get chest pains and a discomfort in my chest, this all affects my life and i had none of this before cancer.  I have Fibromyalgia and had this before cancer but it makes my joints hurt,  i also have sleep apnea where i stop breathing in my sleep so i have to where a cpap machine at night, i have painful hand and feet caused by the chemo, i have other things wrong as well which i only got since the chemo, so basically i find trying to live a normal life hard, i can't stand for long as its too painful, i fall over a lot, i have severe memory problems and i know a lot of other ladies are suffering with this as well, so i suppose i feel bitter or angry because i thought i was going to get  my old life back, but i havn't ....i loved my job, now i can't remember what i did a few hours ago so theres not way i can go back working for the police, i can't walk very far at all without a lot of pain, so for this yes i am probably very pee'd off and angry.  But the other thing is, its like my husband doesn't want to know, he's sick of me being ill, he denies this but i catch him making faces when i tell him i feel ill, he is sick of attending hospitals, he is sick of having to do more around the house because i can't,  he is one of these men that liked to be looked after, where he goes to work and he comes home and everything is done, housework, dinner etc and he can relax, he has always helped out with the washing or tumble drying, or filling the dishwasher but he wants a life where when he finishes work he can go home and relax, well don't we all.....what a lovely life that would be. 

I can wake up some morning and i feel very unwell,  i feel strange, so i check my heart and my oxygen level, one of them may be bad so i will struggle to get through the day, just dressing myself makes me so breathless, then i have to wash, do my hair and if i can manage it, put some makeup on....by now i feel worn out, i get down stairs and i can't breathe, i sit in the chair and my oxygen level is down to about 91%, well i can't manage this low, i'm normally 98%, i will wait a while and then go feed the animals as thats important, then i will empty and refill the dishwasher, now i feel exhausted and im gasping for air so i sit down again, if he comes home later that day and see's ive not done everything he gets the hump, he's clever as he won't say anything bu the will be bad tempered and cause an awful atmosphere in the house.  But what do i do, ican't help this, i can't breathe for Gods sake, i don't want sympathy i just want understanding......this happens many days week in week out and i hav ehad enough,.  Just before my cancer diagnosis i suddenly broke my ankles and had to have emergency surgery and metal plates and screws put in my leg, i now have a lot of damage and some kind of nerve damage and this leaves me in sheer agony, the pain is there in my foot and leg every single day of my life, i live on pain killers, but nothing ever stops the pain, it can reduce it but it never ever stops, it is much worse at night for some reason, and i spend many a night in bed rubbing my leg and popping pain killers, so strong sometimes they make me off my head, they also make me itch like mad and twitch a lot, so i spend most of the night awake, in agony.  But if i say i cant do much the next day i get laughed at, 'oh have we had a bad night again'  my hubby and daughter say, that is a permanent joke in my house now,  or is it your heart again......i'm sick of it, i didnt' ask for cancer and i didnt want to be living like this, but i'm stuck.....I have asked hubby to leave, ive even offered for him and my daughter to have the house and i will find a flat of my own, but he doesn't want to do this, he says he loves me too much!  But this is not a life, i am always worrying about how much work i can get done every day as i need to be doing more, but i feel so bloody ill all the time, the exhaustion feeling is one of the worst symptoms i have and the burning hot feeling every day of my life, i have had the menopause already but i burn up badly every day, .....so i don't know what to do with my life, move on, stay together, walk out, but i know i have had enough feeling like this, i know i have depression and my anxiety is out the window, and all my hubby can say is pull yourself together, that don't help.  i'm sorry ive gone on for far too long......xx

Hi Bea, 

I honestly think that getting cancer is much the same as a death in the family, and we go through the same stages of bereavement, we get angry, we feel sorry for ourselves, and eventually we accept it, and unfortunately our loved ones go through it as well, and everyone can deal with it in different ways. It's like when you hear about a couple who lose a child, and their marriage collapses because one of them wanted to remember the child everyday, and keep their bedroom a shrine, where as the other one wanted to accept it and move on. Your husbands way of dealing with it, may have been to act as normal as possible and carry on with what he had to carry on with, going on working, making money to pay the bills, this may not have been what you needed, but it may have been how he chose to deal with it. 

My husband and I also struggle with a lot of the same issues, he works full time, and I can't work, so the housework and cooking and childcare should be all down to me, and at first I felt very angry and resentful that he could not understand that I was sick and had no energy, but once I stopped feeling this way, I could understand where he was coming from. Fair that I have to be in pain to do the vacuuming, no, but is it also fair for him to work 40 hours a week and then do housework on top, no that's not fair either. I had to accept that this life we are in isn't fair, but you just have to get on with it, and do what you have to do, I can't let my child live in a pig stye because I have no energy and hurt everywhere. You need to find whatever it is that you need to help you accept things and move on. That may mean going to counselling with your husband, or start up your counselling again, or it may be that you need to make an official complaint over your lack of care. You clearly feel very let down, and it may be that the only way for you to move on, means that you need to say what you feel and do something about it. Right now you are feeling like a victim, which we all do at some point, and you need to figure out how to turn being a victim into being a survivor, what is it that would make you feel, hey, I survived a horrible ordeal, but, at least I survived, this is not going to break me, I am not going to be the victim. It might give you a sense of fulfilment to bring your complaints to people's attention, because you potentially could make a change. Think about it...

Okay, Bea, what I am going to say to you now, will probably have everyone tick tocking out of their boxes in outrage, but...  firstly, on here there is NO SUCH THING as going on far too long. Your situation both horrifies me and makes me want to wrap you up in cotton wool and bring you over to my house for some well deserved coddling. The trouble with being on here is that after we have all read your comments, all we seem to do is mouth a few platitudes at you and you probably come away thinking "well a fat lot of bloody good that did me". Just knowing that probably 70% of cancer survivors go through what you're going through is not going to make you feel better.

Secondly, congratulations on surviving the cancer, you are a VERY brave woman. Someone should have said that to you a long time ago and sadly, the someone who should have said it, is your husband, although to me being a husband or a wife is synonomous with being a partner and no real partner would have left you up shit creek without a paddle. When I was between chemos, because I had to be an in patient for weeks on end with the leukaemia, my youngest son suddenly turned to me and said "Mom, I just wanted to say that you are the bravest person I have ever met". Just hearing that gave me the strength to overcome things, but if your family aren't prepared to do that, then you are going to feel the way you do.

All of this counselling stuff and people warbling on about how counselling helped them...well actually it's crap really. Counselling can only help you if you work with the counsellor to find coping mechanisms which are fitting for you and that really depends on you and your needs. Not your husband's needs, or your daughter's or Uncle Tom Cobbley's need come to think of it. Fighnt cancer is NOT about your family, your family can do bugger all, but actually support you and it seems to me that you are getting precious little support.

My advice would be not counselling, perhaps you can think of that once you have set your family right about things. What I would do is stop allowing this husband of yours and your daughter turning you into a victim. Sit them both down and communicate with them. Tell them that the recovery period for the treatment of cancer is long and involved and that some days, you will NOT be able to do things and that since they are big enough and presumably idiotic enough to look after themselves for those days, they must suck it up, deal and get on with it and leave you alone to recharge your batteries.

The fatigue we can do nothing about. I have a fabulous team at the Royal Marsden and they tell me that the fatigue can last for years. In fact I am at the late effects clinic with people who have been in remission for 20 years and they tell me that the fatigue is still with them. My oncologist explains it like this:

You have been through a treatment that kills off MOST of your cells, not just the cancer cells, but the healthy cells as well. Some of the cells in your body may never regrow, cells such as your brain cells, which don't grow again. This is why we all are unable to completely do what we could before mentally. Our brains are slower, the fatigue makes the brain even slower.

Pace out your day. Decide how you feel when you get up. If you have had a bad night, then you tell your family and you ignore the snide remarks about you 'having a bad night again'. Turn around to them and say "Fuck yeah, I had a bad night and now I am going to look after myself, if you want something to eat, then cook the damn thing yourself." and then walk away, have a nice long bath or shower, make yourself a cup of tea and sit with a good book and just chill out. If your family are grumping and harrumphing around you, ignore them.

Don't just go to counselling to make you and your husband partners again, do it because it will help YOU. Get yourself well and feeling relatively okay first before you start fussing and worrying over a bunch of people who couldn't even be bothered to help you while you were going through this treatment. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that if either your husband or anybody who is being snide to you had to go through what you went through, they would be screaming and moaning in ten seconds flat. You did it, you got through that terrible time, without their help. Now is the time to cut yourself some slack.

Your husband says he loves you too much? Well, maybe he needs to prove that by stepping up to the plate and being the strong support and rock that you expected him to be and that he promised to be when he married you. Your daughter? Well kids are weird, they don't think stuff through. All she probably wants is her old Mum back, but you're not the old Mum, you're the new and not so improved Mum and she is just going to have to suck it up.

I know I sound harsh and probably everyone is girding up for battle in order to tell me that I am horrible and I shouldn't say this or that, but what I am telling you is what I do now. I look after me first. It's ALL about me, me, me and when I have the days that I feel okay, then I make it about them, but I never forget to put me first. Start as you mean to go on. You are a wonderful, unique, courageous and special human being and nobody should be telling you anything different.

If you want to talk away from here, you can PM me and I will give you my email address. Hell, I will even give you my phone number if you want. I personally cannot mouth platitudes at you and then walk away, especially not from someone who is literaly screaming for help.

The phrase for today and for all other days from now should be "Be Kind To Yourself."

If you want to berate me for anything I have said, or anyone wants to that's absolutely fine by me, just remember. I am a former soldier, I was a combat soldier in the military. I have been to hell and back  in a war and the same through leukaemia and I have come through it stronger I also have Teflon Coated shoulders.

Big hugs to you xxxxx

Hi Bea,

I just thought I'd add my tuppence worth into the discussion.  First of all I am so sorry to hear about your struggle and I too wish I could take it away for you.  Cancer truly sucks but what's important is to remember that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to seeking help. 

It's important to seek help if you need it and if you feel that includes counselling then that's what you should do and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  To say that counselling is a nonsense is simply not true for everyone and it's very counter productive.  You've mentioned your difficulties with your family and that I can certainly relate to.  Not only am I a stage 3 cancer patient, but I've also been on both sides of the fence when my husband needed a liver transplant prior to my diagnosis.  It sounds to me that hubby is frustrated but doesn't know how to channel his frustration.  Having been a carer there were days that I felt bitter at having to constantly be the strong one.  It wasn't because I didn't care but more than anything I was bloody tired.  I had two young children (one of which was only 3 months old at the time) and yet I was in full time work and having to care for my husband too.  It certainly didn't mean that I didn't care, or love him any less I just wanted the old hubby back, even though I knew that wasn't possible.

I agree that talking to hubby and laying your cards on the table may be a good idea.  You need to clear the air but more importantly you need the space to say how you feel.  As for your children, yep that's a tough one but they may just surprise you.  For a child to see their parent ill it's not easy, afterall we're supposed to be the strong ones right?  So expecting them to 'suck it up' is a little harsh and that certainly wouldn't have worked with my 9 and 13 year old children who are struggling just as much as me to process why mummy isn't the same anymore.   But, by keeping those lines of communication honest and open, you can come to a better understanding on both sides.  Believe me it's not the easiest conversation to have but its one worth having.  Its true that cancer is like a bereavement and yes we need the space to grieve.  But perhaps your family are grieving for the old you too.

My advice for what it's worth is to let people know how you feel and if you don't feel you're getting the support you need at home, then def think about counselling or other channels for support.  I've had counselling on and off for a while now.  I don't go because I'm looking for someone to give me the answers, that needs to come from within.  But it does help me to focus, to think of things differently and work out what's important to me.  No one likes to feel like a victim, and you've been (and are going through) so much already.  We all need someone to lean on now and then, whether it be a family member, friend or counsellor.  Do what's right for you and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.  Big hugs xx

P.S if you ever want to rant or a listening ear PM me xxx

Hi Annese, 

You set up your message telling us that we are going to rage against you for your opinion, then you belittle all our advice, if you truly did not want people to "berate" you, don't criticise their kind words or desire to help. Saying we "mouth a few platitudes" and expect people to feel better just because we say we've gone through similar? Saying that our suggestions of counselling are us "warbling" about how counselling helped us is just rude. You say you sound harsh and everyone will be "girding up for battle", well funnily enough when someone insults most people they won't just sit back and accept it. 

You seem very angry, and it seems like you are encouraging other people to be angry, telling Bea to swear at her family, how is that helpful? 

If you really just wanted to make a different point you could have easily just said that you did not find counselling helpful and you found just being honest and open was what helped you, there was no need to insult and belittle other people's advice, you clearly wanted some drama, so here you have it. 

Whatever, I speak as I find.  If you don't like what you read, then don't read it. I'm too tired to deal with the crap. I'm not going to justify anything I think to anyone else. This is how I feel and if someone can take some strength from it, even if they don't agree with everything I say, then my work is done. I know how Bea feels. My eldest son, who lives with me has Aspergers and he holds down a full time job. In the almost six months after my transplant, he shoveled the skin that was falling off me into carrier bags full, then he went to work doing shifts leaving me with a flask of tea and a bowl of cornflakes. He never knew what he was going to come home to. I had Graft Versus Host Disease of the skin and my skin was sloughing off me. I was so ill with the aftermath of the treatment I could barely stand and despite having a so called best friend and another son, I lay by myself, knowing that the GVHD was killing me plus the fact that my saliva glands had stopped working so I couldn't swallow any food. I would wait until my eldest came in and he sat with me while I cried with the pain. Eventually I stopped being able to pass urine. The GVHD has swollen up my private parts and the entrance to my bladder. One day, I called my youngest son and told them to take me to the nearest A&E. Up till the point that he came to fetch me, I hadn't see hide nor hair of him for almost six months, not even a phone call and the same with my 'best' friend. All I had was a very frightened man with high functioning autism to help me.

So I know what Bea is going/went through and I know what it takes to get better when you don't have anyone making you cups of tea and sitting with you. I sat like that for days on end. I had no strength, I couldn't bathe, so I sat in the bed unable to even get downstairs to get a drink. The pain from the rash was so bad I bit my lip to shreds trying not to scream.

So please, keep your outrage to yourself because I honestly don't need it. Bea needs to be kind to herself, if her family won't help her then she has to help herself. I agree you couldn't do that with small children, but that's what you have a partner for and Bea's partner is obviously not stepping up to the plate.

As I said before and I don't retract it, sometimes you have to be tough with the people you love and I don't mean Bea's husband and daughter being tough on her, I mean Bea being tough on them. Telling them how she feels, tell them that until she is able to turn her mind and her strength to looking after them, she MUST put herself first.

Counselling is rubbish, if you go into it with the wrong idea; i.e. that the counsellor has a magic wand, which she waves and somehow you are all full of sunshine and farting rainbows. It only works if you understand that the counsellor can only help you to help yourself.

Meh, I'm done, bored now. I would do what I could to help Bea, but all of the platitudes in the world are not going to help her situation in any concrete way.

Hi all. Just to offer my credentials - 6 years post stem cell transplant for stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma. 64 years old, retired, live alone, no children.

I read messages on here and sometimes I cringe and sometimes I cry. Everyone who posts here has had their own experience of cancer and its treatment and after effects.

We all seem to agree that each experience is very different, we have different psychologies, different family situations, different lifestyles . One thing we have in common is cancer. We offer suggestions as to what has/has not worked for us, however we cannot assume that our "fixes" will always be good for someone else, just as we cannot assume that "fixes" wont be good for someone else.

I, too, had some counselling sessions and I did not find them useful. Having said that, others I know from the clinics have found counselling of great comfort and help. We cannot poo poo it, that's just a sweeping statement and I think we are intelligent enough to know that there is no magic wand. A counselor helping someone to help him/herself is wonderful, isn't it?

It saddens me, Annese, that you put so much effort into your lengthy posts and then, when not everyone agrees with you, you are bored and sign out. I am also saddened that you have had such a rough time and if I lived closer to you, I would certainly pop round for a cup of tea and a natter.

Please also be aware that not everyone comes from a service background (my father and brother were RAF) and so they won't necessarily have the outlook on life that you have. Its a wonderful thing to listen to something with an open mind, and accept that you feel differently.

Whether you want them or not, I send you healing hugs and love. Sue x