Diagnosed with cervical cancer

Hello Blonde78 I'm sorry to hear your news and to hear that you are, understandably, feeling so scared. You will see from my profile that I have not been in the exact same place as you. However I can recommend that you look on the Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust website if you have not already done so. There are lots of ladies on their forum who have been through similar experiences and they also have a useful helpline. The MacMillan helpline is also really good. Sending hugs and support

A

What an awful time to be diagnosed. My thoughts and best wishes are with you. Be brave! I think our minds are the worst enemy we have apart from the cancer. You have a supportive partner and now you have thousands of women to call friends who will go through your journey with you. Your not alone xxx

Hello, i was was diagonosed with cervical cancer in middle of December 2019. Hearing i had cancer scared me to the hills, but i have learned to not to let it worry or stress me out becasue i dont wan to make it worse. I also have a supportive family and a few close friends, fill your days with happy and positive things and keep busy. I am on chemotheareapy every 3 weeks in 3's, i got a scan in a week. 

I send my best to to you x

Hi, Blonde78

Welcome to the club no-one wants to belong to... ;-)

Scared is completely normal. I daresay (after almost one year in my case) that it does get better.

What works for me for scans (I had one today) and results (now the waiting game...) is to remind myself that "Whatever is in my body now is there before the scan and the results". The only difference is the words the doctor then tells me. Then I try to stick with decision-making and whatever action that needs to come from those words (treatment or a break until the next scan, then not letting that be ruined by what might come next...).

Dark thoughts are inevitable, and sometimes, a good cry and expressing one's fear is all that will do. Family and friends can help; but dealing with their feelings can make matters worse and for me, it's more often people who actually know how it feels to be in this situation who bring me some solace, so I tend to turn to this community. Or call Macmillan. Or visit Maggie's (when we're not under lockdown...)

The best self-care I can manage is to try to relax my body when I feel tension (breathing, sitting quietly, Qi Gong etc) and to ease my mind as soon as I feel stress coming by reminding myself that scanning makes no difference to the actual thing.

It's like an exercise that you get better and better at with practice, like pinging a ball back that's thrown at you.

Someone wrote on here recently that our minds are sometimes the worst thing in our situation. I couldn't agree more and from the beginning, I have focused on peace of mind. Otherwise, we can get tormented even when we are well or relatively well.

If well enough, going for a walk every day makes a massive difference to my mental state.

I hope it helps... :-)

Take care and best wishes,