Facing Cancer Recurrence, PTSD & Acknowledging Mental Health
It's extremely difficult to face the fact of recurring cancers. After treatments we try and get away from it all and live our life. Then along comes another CT scan or PET scan and POW, you have to face another cancer. My reaction was developing PTSD.
You can read what I wrote in my blog: https://my20yearscancer.com/blog/
How do we cope? How do we react? What do we do?
How have you all reacted to another cancer? Or the possibility of another one? Has your "already compromised" mental health been able to deal with it? How? Or not?
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Cancer: Managing Symptoms Support Group.
Prayers to all...may God bless you.
Yes, love and prayers to all. Right now I am doing well and its been over a year since surgery and diagnosis. I feel very blessed. My tumor is trying to grow back but we are keeping it a bay with Avastin and tramamolizide.
You hang in there. Glad you are doing well. Keep it up
Hi @merry, Just curious if any of you presented with a solitary solid peripheral nodule and I also have three 3mm nodule bilaterally subsolid but Dr said to small to know if they represent multifocal.The Solitary nodule is 1cm and need to have surgury .Thanks,Sunny6, I'm new on here.
Very real experience and a fabulous post. Thank you for bringing you to the conversation!
What could be the life expectancy of a 74 y/o man with Adenocarcinoma, moderately differentiated?
Hello- It's nice to meet you.
You said in one of your previous statements that on May 2nd it's possible to get a consult. Have you done this?
Life expectancy differs with each cancer and each person. You began posting about this in Mid April. Your friend was correct about this type of cancer being aggressive. The sooner you are treated for your cancer the better your chances for survival will be.
Have you decided on what you will do?
Just a note: I like the approach my oncologists has...
1. get things in order
2. Live rather than worrying about when you will die
3. Do what you can with treatments
4. Think positively as it does impact your care
This is great advice!
I was the point person, in a sense, when a friend was recovering from a broken neck that made surgery impossible. Meaning, his neck and head were stabilized by a carbon fiber 'halo and healing helped immensely by local ultrasound. He had a CT scan and appointment with an (amazing) neurosurgeon every six weeks while living in a post-hospital rehabilitation facility.
One of my jobs was to pick up the CD of the scan as soon as it was available and take it to the neurosurgeon's office. He explained that, while he referred to the radiologist's written report, he was sometimes looking for very subtle signs of healing that can be different from what the radiologist might look for. And looking at the digital file copy transmitted by the hospital digital archive wasn't as valuable as seeing the actual CD for clarity.
PS Merry, I had no idea that people could have, yet alone survive, cancer for years, yet alone decades. I am very unwillingly new to what I think of as Cancerworld. Only one family member has has cancer and that was my father who survived aggressive prostate cancer the first time but succumbed to it thirty years later. Everyone else seemed to die of heart and stroke stuff with a sprinkling of COPD.
But a Bad News Biopsy, resulting from a Suspicious Mammogram last September, resulted in a lumpectomy and my first real concern about what-ifs. I'll be the first to note that I was and am not pleased with the idea of rogue cells hanging out in my body, but am happy they were discovered early and, hopefully, left no buddies behind.
But reading of others' oddly positive experiences during some rude health challenges made me rethink what I thought I knew about facing inconvenient crises. And living life during them. For that, and an unfailing graciousness, thank all of you who built this resource.