I haven't posted for a while, as my mood and emotions have literally hit rock bottom. I have spent many a day lying in bed and crying, feeling totally rubbish and worthless. Didn't help when I managed to venture out, and someone said to me that she hadn't seen me for a while. I explained that I had been poorly, and her reply was "well you don't look ill". That is what really gets to me - no I don't look ill (I look awful with no make-up anyway!), but boy I have been ill. The other phrase I cannot abide, is "well you can manage quite well with one kidney". My mental health has really taken a tumble, and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm waiting a doctors appointment by phone at some time today, which is also making me anxious as I don't know what time I will get the call. I feel my day is on hold just for a phone call.
I hate feeling worthless, and just wish all these feelings would go away. I am normally a social butterfly - I have to go to another hospital next week for an appointment, and will have to get on a bus, a train, and another bus just to get to the hospital - fear of getting on public transport is filling me with absolute dread. Driving is out of the question, due to my fear of getting in a car and driving. I feel hopeless and I hate it.
Hiya Betsy. Firstly I am sending u a huge hug which is what u deserve.
As you can see by other comments depressive feelings are very common.
Unfortunately people who haven't been on the cancer journey say what they feel are positive comments like you look well, etc..and as u know it hurts, it puts u as just another person...
It made me very upset with these comments, especially from friends. But I think they meant well. But these platitudes were to me damaging.
U are and always will be unique. U are you and nowhere in the whole universe is there another you. Your cancer is unique to you, your feelings are unique to you.
Now dealing with those feeling are complex. One day u will be up another very low. So what to do?
i can give u ideas but you have to make your own choices.
From the very beginning I named my cancer. They were Rufus and Lydia. In naming my lesions made them part of me. They didn't belong to anyone but me. I could joke when people said u don't look ill...'oh I think Rufus and Lydia would disagree' I would say...now that would throw anyone with their silly platitudes.
The most important thing I learned was to own YOUR cancer. Silly as it may sound the internal anger came and my way of starting was to buy some tshirts advertising that I had kidney cancer And i was a warrior
Instead of it being in my head, there it was on a tshirt.
I also treated myself my cheer up clothes. Bright silly clothes I never wore before which I wear to cheer my day.
I realised there would be a time limit on my life but had no idea what that was. So what to do? Lie on the sofa or LIVE?
Yes, yes ,yes I have bad days, days when weak and need that sofa, days when my head battles with negative thoughts, but I also have days when I see the beauty of who I am, the beauty of nature, the beauty of the small things like the smell of my morning coffee.
Betsy. You are u an amazing unique person. This is YOUR journey but u are not alone. You have a good medical team, you have people on the forum who are here when u stumble and fall.
Lift your head high girl. Be you. Make each choice on a daily basis.
I have had to change my whole outlook on life. It hasn't been easy but if I'm honest I am more relaxed.
There is more I could say, but this about YOU my darling.
If u need a slap around ur head with a wet fish occasionally u can message me.
Remember here is another big hug from me
Dear Betsy, I cannot really add anything to what Fleabane, Doodlebug and Sandy have all so beautifully said. Some of Fleabane's comments especially made me smile! - so I hope they did you too, and have helped you feel a little brighter, at least for now.
Some people are insensitive with their remarks, but as Fleabane said, they don't mean to be - they just don't know what to say or how to say it, and are trying to be supportive in the only way they can. We all react differently to others' comments but I think nearly all of us would agree that there are comments made to us that are really not helpful and the only solution is to find ways to deflect or disregard these comments, that work for you.
I went through two cancers without even telling more people than those who absolutely had to know (Work; my live-out partner who came to look after my dogs; my next door neighbour and friend...and that's almost about it.) I had been completely healthy for 62 years and wasn't in the mindset to become un-healthy after all that time, so (and fortunately the fact that both cancers seem to have been caught in very early stage) I disassociated myself from the person who had had the diagnosis, and just got on with my life as the person I had been for those 62 years. I call the cancers a "blip" in my life. If in the future this becomes no longer possible - eg, a recurrence, or a cancer elsewhere - I will deal with that when it happens but at the moment I'm taking the view that that chapter in my life is in the past and in my future there is oodles of Hope.
Any illness can bring someone down to rock bottom either physically or emotionally or most often, both. It can shake confidence in those who have always had plenty of confidence. But each one of us has worth in the world. It might not feel so if you are unable for now to get out under your own steam, or to work, or on some days to even get out of bed. But this is YOU, working through a life-changing event and we each have different ways of working through this kind of thing. Little successes will gradually build themselves back into your life: for example, despite your anxiety, when you finally get to that hospital by train and by bus - and you will get there - this is your Achievement. A little - or big! - Plus in your cancer recovery journey. A worthwhile achievement. Try and embrace that achievement and see it as valuable. In time, you will find more and more little achievements similar to this.
Recovery, emotional as well as physical, takes time. Even if you start off by having, say, four bad days, if then you have a good half-day, that's a huge Plus. In time, the good days will start to outnumber the bad ones. But be kind to yourself meanwhile, and hold onto that Special Person that you are. 
