Treatment, depression and overeating

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Hey all.

I hope you're doing well as can be expected. My name is Emma from London. I'm 37, STAGE 2 TNBC grade 3. I am currently undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy for 6 months, with surgery possible rads and immunotherapy to follow around June time.

I have always struggled with my weight anyway and despite going to the gym I have had bouts of bad eating with lots of unhealthy higher sugar and fat content bits consumed. I blame this along with alcohol intake for my cancer.

I am on week 13 and I feel the lowest I've ever felt. I just sleep most of the day and eat junk. I don't know how to get out of this pattern. I feel like because I am eating all this junk my cancer will be learning to grow back and the chemo will not work and I will have reoccurrence. I keep seeing posts everywhere about reoccurrence and I just feel defeated. Why would I get to survive this?

I can't explain how low I feel but I really don't know how to get out of this cycle. I know some people say they find it hard to eat during chemo but I just haven't stopped stuffing my face and have put more weight on. I try to go for walks when I can.

Does anyone else feel like this? I hate myself.

Thanks x

Coddfish 57 minutes ago

Please try not to blame yourself. If you are having immunotherapy you have PD-L1 positive TNBC. Your cancer has grown because your immune system couldn’t “see” it. It couldn’t see it because it was mimicking the way your body naturally protects critical organs from the immune system. Like an invisibility cloak. Why does this happen? I don’t think anyone really knows but it’s unlikely to be anything to do with what you ate or drank. Those things might play a role with oestrogen driven cancers but that’s not your situation. It’s not your fault!

So what to do from here? Try to be kind to yourself. The exercise helps. Eating things you like, doing things you like. Trusting that the immunotherapy is doing its job of breaking the PD-1 / PD-L1 bind and allowing your immune system to work with the chemo to deal with the cancer. This treatment can work really well. I have metastatic grade 3 PD-L1 positive TNBC that had spread to my liver. Pembrolizumab has put me into what at the moment seems a stable complete remission. I was first diagnosed over 4 years ago.

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