Hi there, yes this can feel like the wildest nightmare, there is no rhyme or reason at times, you can find yourselves examining various aspects of your life trying to figure out how you managed to get this, and finding you did all the stuff you were supposed to lower your risk or avoid getting cancer; yet here you are with a diagnosis and a whole journey of treatment to undergo , dealing with the mental, emotional and physical challenges the condition and the treatments bring.
It will be so individual and unique to you, so you will need to understand that whilst you can draw similarities from other people, often it won’t be quite the same, because this is your own personal journey with your own experience.
All you can do is try to steady yourself , breathe , and take each day as it comes. Understandably most people come at this with encouragement to try to help you and keep things positive even when you feel so lost and slammed in the face with the shock and with your own reality.
The anger and frustration is all part of the feeling of no control in this situation, it’s perfectly normal and understandable but all you can do is try to channel that into determination to do all you can into positive action mentally, emotionally and physically to help you get through this as best you can.
This probably sounds so generic and blasé but everything will do until you find something on a particular forum for your specific condition or treatments where someone else with a similar experience which will resonate with you and make you feel like you are not quite so alone or actually give you an answer that may help or explain something for you.
Go to a Maggies or support group centre and find personal contact of just speaking to other people, that can be very helpful too. The trick is to not feel so alone, because that’s very isolating and you need to feel supported for the good and not so good days of this experience.
it’s hard at whatever step in this journey you find yourself, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. Just take it a day at a time, step by step with an open mind and the best mental state you can, because whatever else you are, you’re here and dealing with this from today, so try to be both realistic and positive.
