Hello everyone, new here, hoping to find some support as no one has offered me any mental health support resources from the hospital, and I also have a practical question.
I am 37, so it was tough to receive the skin cancer diagnosis. Had anyone also slightly younger experienced this? How have you dealt with it psychologically? Any advice is much appreciated.
Also wondering whether anyone knows the answer to this - it says I should spread my Aldara just outside of the ‘treatment area’ of the BCC. However this area keeps getting bigger and bigger - should I keep spreading the cream outside of the now bigger ‘area’? I was also wondering whether anyone has experienced the scab falling off before the 6 weeks are up? And anything I can do to encourage it to fall off. I am 3 weeks into treatment (on my nose).
thanks everyone.
Hi Luckyladywithskincancer and a very warm welcome to the Macmillan Community but sorry to hear about your diagnosis.
Navigating a cancer journey can be such a stressful and challenging time but getting support from people who have walked or are walking the ‘exact same' journey can help a lot. (I have a completely different cancer).
This New to Community area is like our reception desk where we look to try and direct you to the best part of the Community for you to get support.
The Community is actually divided into dedicated Support Groups (Discussion Rooms) so can I recommend that you look to join and put up your own post in our dedicated Skin Cancer Support Group.
This group is a safe place to talk to others with a similar diagnosis, treatment experience, to ask questions and get support. To connect in with the group please click on the link below…….
……. and once the group page opens you will see a [Black - Click to Join - Banner] at the bottom of the page, click in this box and this will then confirm that you have joined the group.
You can then introduce yourself to the group by putting up your very own post by clicking [+ Create new post] or [+] in the top right of the group page.
You can copy and paste the text from this post into your new post.
The Macmillan Support Line is open between 8am-8pm (timings may differ across services) 7 days a week on 0808 808 00 00…… this service provides cancer information, practical information, emotional support, benefits/financial guidance or just a listening ear.
Talking to people ‘face to face’ can be very helpful so do check to see if you have any Local Macmillan Support in your area, do also check for a local Maggie's Centre as these folks are amazing and provide one to one support.
Macmillan have also teamed up with BUPA to offer up to 6 free counselling sessions for people struggling emotionally because they are living with cancer. Clicking on the link will give you more information about this.
Do get back to me if you need further help navigating the community.
