I’m having a hard time with uncertainty

Hello Frida ,n welcome to the community. It's a place no one joins willingly but u will find support here. 

Waiting really is the pits- unfortunately it's very much a part of having cancer.You get used to  it, but I still get tetchy, waiting for my routine scan results, 14'years on from my op for kidney csncer

Hi buttercup01

Thank you. This is helpful because I was thinking this morning that I needed to accept that this is what my cancer will be like: uncertainty, changes, and the god awful waiting. So you reinforce that purpose. There are few things to make this an easier experience, but patience will do that, won’t it?

Hi Frida, and Buttercup, you’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s waiting for diagnosis, waiting for a treatment plan, waiting to see if the plan works, and waiting to see if there’s and changes to cope with, and coping with the uncertainty and the changes, and any new mindset that’s required. 

I’m only 4 years in from my diagnosis, and I think learning how to cope is the best plan plan. Philosophically it’s like life has become one big version of a hospital waiting area. At my hospital the waiting area is often packed and running up to 90 mins late, and on a bad day lots of people moaning because of the wait and setting off other people to join in a communal moan. Other days there’s still the 90 minute wait but people just look at the screen that tells them there’s a wait, acknowledge that they can’t do anything about it and get on with reading their books, or doing crosswords or striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to them. Some notice there’s other helpful info on the screen about courses or free sessions, and there’s the a Macmillan information centre near by with lots of booklets and a voluntary services bit for drinks and snacks and papers. 

So being here is a another bit in your tool kit for coping where you can find all sorts of information from the info and support pages, reading people’s personal experience, talking to people on the site to ask questions, have a rant when necessary, get some support, talking things through, or a much needed distraction or comradeship from people in the same boat, or creating a blog that you think might help others. 

I can see you’ve done your profile joined lots of useful groups, and you seem well on the way to making the experience easier, I was a reader for quiet some time before posting and very grateful to the people who did post who made life easier for me before I was ready to post.

I wish you luck for your coping and waiting, and if you need any help finding things on the site or a bit of a chat just give a press on the reply button.