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“Surviving” Life After Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer | Last Active: Sep 18, 2021 | Replies (60)Comment receiving replies
Elizm, I am one of those who “only needed a round of radiation”... and no, I’m not ‘clueless about hormone receptors or HER2’. I likely am not as informed as you are because my cancer was different than yours. But please don’t refer to me as ‘clueless’. I regret you have had to endure a very difficult treatment for your situation; and that your friends ‘didn’t understand’. It is truly very unfortunate that you found your friends to be belittling. I’m truly sorry they have made you feel that way. But please don’t follow in their footsteps and ‘belittle’ those of us who are here to support one another regardless of our diagnosed ‘stage’ of cancer, or what the treatment plan is/was for each of us. We are not in competition here to see who has the ‘worst case’ of breast cancer, or the most difficult recovery. Best wishes to all on this forum.
Replies to "Elizm, I am one of those who “only needed a round of radiation”... and no, I’m..."
@lisman1408- Since Colleen already addressed your discussions with @elizm I will let it be. I will however attest to the fact that many, many people are "clueless" when it comes to knowing anything about their own bodies. Having lung cancer opened up a new vocabulary and "job" for me. By job I mean learning all about my lung cancer, bio of my lungs and the cancer that invaded me. I feel that it is every cancer patient's responsibility and job to learn as much as they can about their cancer. Knowledge is power and there is a huge sense of loss of power when it comes to having cancer. I mean, we turn our whole life over to the insurance and medical fields- how scaryl is that?
But even so many people chose to hide from knowing everything that there is so that they can separate themselves from reality, that of having cancer. I found that the more I learned the less tension that I found during my doctor's appointments because I was a better patient and he was a better doctor.
Any ideas how we can open up other people's minds to learning more?
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@lisman1408
I fear that you have misunderstood my post. You may notice that I was responding to a post by @merpreb who was wondering if her self-imposed isolation was a rational reaction. I was explaining to her why, I, too, eventually chose isolation. Your unfounded reaction is another example of why I likely will pull further back.