Post treatment

Hi Simmie and welcome to the group!

You're very recently out of treatment so it’s going to take a bit of time to recover, but well done on getting through and coming out the other side! 

Many of us have been through the same treatment so we know exactly what it’s like and can completely identify with how tough it is. Some lucky ladies sail through with little to no side effects-I wasn’t one of them, and I did find it tough. 

We have a number of ladies in the group who are not long out of treatment and are waiting for their post treatment scan or results from that scan. I hope they’ll be along to say hello and share their experiences.

My story is on my profile if you click on my name, and isn’t a perfect, trouble free story but I’m still here and doing well. I see from your profile you didn’t  manage all the chemos-snap, I was the same. 

How are you feeling in yourself now? I found the fatigue quite overwhelming, but my bladder and bowel side effects did go quite quickly.

Take care of yourself and I hope we’ll see you back posting and be able to chat again. You’re very welcome to be with us and we have a lovely group of supportive ladies here, so I hope you’ll find it really helpful to be part of our community.

Sarah xx

Hi Simmie and welcome.  Well done for getting through the treatment. It took it's toll on my bowels quite badly but soon after treatment they have recovered somewhat but still can be very unpredictable.  I think when the treatment finishes we begin to get a little control back and I took that opportunity to make sure I did everything I could to look after my health and build myself back up again.  I recently had a very good result from my three month scan so am holding on to that and have just gone back to work for a few hours each day.  I wish you such good luck in your recovery.  Take plenty of time for you and be good to yourself.  You have earned it! xxx

Thank u so much for the encouragement - my poor bowel doesn’t no if it’s arther or martha but worst for me atm is the nausea and not being able to eat. 

Thank u so much for responding. My goodness u have really been through a torrid time. U are very brave. I certainly don’t feel brave. My mental n physical health are at their lowest and it’s a real struggle 

Hi Simmie

I did go off a lot of foods during and after treatment. I couldn't face many foods that I'd previously loved.  This and the nausea took a little longer to resolve but I think most of that was back to normal after about a month - six weeks.  I hope it improves more every day for you xxx

It’s ok not to feel brave-I was petrified! But I just had to do what I had to do and keep putting one foot in front of the other because I wanted to live. 

Your physical health will take time, but you will get there-your body has a lot of recovering to do and has been through trauma, so it just needs time.

Your mental health can be tougher to get a handle on in my experience and I did find it very helpful to have counselling for that when it go too hard for me to manage. I wonder if you’d find that useful? I felt it was such a relief to talk to someone who wasn’t emotionally involved with me, and where I was able to say exactly what I wanted, even though I was always crying!

My counselling was arranged through MacMillan, and was free to access. If you think this could help, you could call the helpline number in my signature and have a chat with them to see if something could be set up for you? Don’t suffer alone, as it can make you feel even worse, and there is help out there.

Sarah xx

I finished my treatment 3 weeks ago had 5 chemo, 28 radiotherapy and bracytherapy

I'm feeling very tearful the last few days, bowel and bladder problems at the moment

I'm awaiting my mri which they said could be in 2 months, I'm so anxious as the treatment wasn't the best.

Struggling with  sleeping. 

How does everyone else cope 

Hi again Optometrylass.  I have just been through the waiting for the scan results and it is so nerve wracking and worrying.  I think recovery wise you are maybe expecting a little too much too soon.  Everyone is different and you are still in very early days.  Please talk to your cancer nurse about anything that you are anxious about.  Two months is a long time to be anxious and I tried to make the most of my downtime and allow myself to fret in the week before the scan and no longer.  I know it's not as easy as that but that was my goal.  Be good to yourself and do whatever you can to help you return to good health, whether it be diet, exercise or whatever.  I really hope you start to feel better soon.  These wretched scans now become a part of our life but they don't have to take over our life completely all the time.  Sending hugs xxx

Thankyou so much for your reply, yes it's early days, ill try and relax a little bit more xxxx

Hi optometrylass2003

Good to see you post again, but sorry to hear you’ve got a few issues still. You haven’t been out of treatment for very long, so try just not to expect too much too soon. The bladder and bowel issues will hopefully settle in time, but remember your body has been through a lot and the radiotherapy is continuing to work in your body after treatment ends. This is one of the reasons you need to wait for your post treatment scan- they don’t want to do it too early in case the results aren’t conclusive. 

I think it’s quite natural to feel tearful-when treatment ends after such an intense period we can feel a bit lost and worried because we’re suddenly on our own after all those hospital appointments. The anxiety about scans doesn’t ever go away, but it’s best not to overthink this or make any assumptions about how the treatment has worked.

Just look after yourself, and don’t try to do too much-focus on your recovery. Take care anD let us know how you’re doing..

Sarah xx