Hi all, this is my 1st post here. I've had follicular lymphoma for coming up to 3 years. It was originally described as stage 1, then amended to 1-2 after my pet scan, as it was in 2 lymph nodes in my neck. I've been on watch and wait all that time.
Is it natural to feel depressed for so long? I now suffer from anxiety, and worry about anything and everything. I have had depression in the past, but am fighting taking tablets for it as I feel they make me feel less sharp, and I struggle doing my job when on them. Sleepless nights are the norm, and when I do go to sleep, I wake up having had nightmares.
I know that prognosis is quite good in the grand scheme of things, but that means nothing when the biggest problem is what's going on between my ears.
Hi and welcome to this corner of the Community although always sorry to see folks joining us. I am Mike and I help out around our blood cancer groups.
I don’t have FL but was diagnosed way back in 1999 with a rare incurable but treatable type of low grade skin Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Stage 4a and although my Lymphoma ‘type’ is different I have experienced most types of treatments used but not necessarily the exact same drug mix.
The battle between the ears is firmly in our hands and it’s the one battle we have total control over as we let our medical teams deal with the other side of the battle.
Stress and anxiety can be so debilitating, to the point we can actually at times be more ill because of the stress and anxiety than we are living along with our low grade NHLs.
I was basically on Active Monitoring (Watch and Wait) for about 14 years although I was getting skin treatments…… it’s a long story so hit my community name to see the long story.
Once I ‘got’ I had an illness that was like other chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart and various others I started to understand that although I could not be cured, there were treatments available as and when required.
The main difference being that the treatments available to me would give me periods of remission unlike other chronic illnesses where you never get these ‘clear’ times to get on with life.
Happy to talk more as this will help you. When you were diagnosed with your HL you were given an invisible rucksack to put on your back and over these last years you have just been collecting ‘stuff’ like…..Google searches, old stories of others with cancer, the thought that you have cancer and they are doing ‘nothing’ about it…… and all these things are sitting in your rucksack and weighing you down resulting in the stress and anxiety.
Lets try and unpack this and see if we can lighten the load ((hugs))
