This time last year I was at the hospital, after months of complaining about a lump in my neck finally they referred me for a scan. I ended up in ENT and they said it was just a jump which most "middle age women get", he assured me it wasnt cancer, but the needed to remove it and half my thyroid. Had my OP on jumy 30th, due to human error they forgot to make me an appointment, so when I finally got in and was told "Im Sorry but its cancer, you need another OP to remove the remaining thyroid" i laughed, and my response was "you're f***ing joking, I'm about to go back to work do you have any idea how inconvenient this is". When I left u had a bit of a panic attack. But that was it. I was told by so many medical professionals "it's a good cancer your lucky it's not something else" or "it's the best cancer to get" , or my favourite one..."its not proper cancer because it doesn't require chemo" . (Should mention this isn't personal to me, pretty much everyone with thyroid cancer I've spoken to online has had the same things said it seems)
Well, because of all comments like that I felt selfish getting frightened and upset about my cancer and have spent all this time bottling everything up, I've not spoken to anyone about my feelings. Yeah jve said things like I'm panicking about treatment or ouch i hurt. But have I spoken about how I feel. Nope. I've not even used the Macmillan services because I felt I didn't deserve too when there were so many more people out there in need of it because they have "propper cancer" .
Well kn December 19th they told me the cancer was gone but we need to keep my TSH levels low to prevent it coming back. They're really high so with that and other things I'm a tad concerned.
However, all the feelings I think j should have felt when u was diagnosed, having treatment ect....they've all hit me now. I was watching TV and someone was diagnosed with cancer, and that was it I burst out crying and was sick, and I've been hiding away and full of worry and anxiety. It's like all these feelings youd have expected me to have but I bottled them up, are leaking out. I ended up walking into the Macmillan office at hospital yesterday and broke down to the lady there. She was wonderful and she told me to come here.
I'm not really sure what my question is, I just want yo know that I'm normal, and if I have the right to be feeling like this. I'm angry, I've scared and I'm upset, I'm frightened. I had cancer! CANCER!!! And everyday for the rest of my life I'm taking pill upon pill to keep me alive, and to try to stop it from coming back.
Hi and welcome to the Online Community, although I am so sorry to see the circumstance that brought you here and so sorry to hear that you are having the late post treatment whirlwind.
I am Mike Thehighlander and I volunteer on the Community and I do get where you are coming from, in fact many folks on the site will understand. The post treatment journey can be as hard as treatment its self.
During diagnosis and treatment we tend to put on an invisible ruck sack on our backs and we store up lots of 'stuff' and it weighs us down. It is good to unpack the ruck sack from time to time. Talking with folks can help, this site can help but there is nothing beats one on one - face to face support.
Worth asking the Macmillan Office if there is face to face support available or even a local Maggie's Centre.
You may want to have a look through are various Cancer Experiences Group (LINK). In these groups we have Life after Cancer and Emotional Issues Forums. You could copy and paste your text from this post, join the group(s) and hit the 'Start a Discussion' tab and introduce yourself to the group and remember to go to the right on the group home page and select how you want to receive email notifications when someone answers your posts.
Make a cup of tea and have a look through this great paper Dr Peter Harvey - Life after Treatment
You may also find our various Macmillan Support Line Services on 0808 808 00 00 to be helpful as you can talk to a friendly person that can help in lots of ways.
We also have our ‘Ask an Expert’ section but please allow a few days to get an reply.
When you have time it would be helpful if you could put some information about yourself and the journey that brought you to the Community into your profile as it really does help the Community members to help you and get to know you.
Click on your username and that will take you to your homepage. Look for ‘Edit my Profile’ click on it and start to tell us as much or as little about yourself as you want then click on save before closing the page.
All the best.
