Emotional aftermath following breast cancer treatment

This is so helpful, Chris. I feel the same way. I think people distance themselves from illness and death by saying a sick person "did" something wrong. But every person on earth falls ill, and will die. It is our mutual fate, and should engender friendly compassion rather than blame! (For ourselves too). I recently had coffeee with an acquaintance--we both do some writing about breast cancer. She started fretting about how she could have gotten it. I said--it's just because we have human bodies. She surprised me by bursting into tears! I was just trying to be sensible but it turns out this lifted some burden of self-blame. Maybe our job is not to discover causes but to be kind to ourselves and others.

I have heard more than a few statements to hating myself or being angry at myself for getting this disease.
I think a lot of that is because we keep hearing about breast cancer is a modifiable risk. I think this is a horrible thing to say to a breast cancer patient. Especially since they can’t really say for sure if YOUR cancer was from a “modifiable” cause. They say lung cancer is mostly caused from smoking too, but the person who started smoking in the 70’s didn’t know, what we know now. If I knew that, I would have bought apple stock in the 70’s too.
Please stop beating yourself up. We are all just trying to live the best life we can live, ours is tough enough with breast cancer without beating ourselves up as well.
My doctors look at me now as an overweight older lady and presumed had bad habits causing my cancer.
I was never overweight until 8 years ago after a bad accident. I was actually considered a little too thin. Because I worked and played hard and felt like eating and sleeping were optional. I have friends who are vegetarians, rail thin and never drank or smoked in their life and still got breast cancer.
Please give yourself the benefit of the doubt regardless of who you are or your previous habits. Cancer beats you up plenty, don’t give it an extra hand to hit you with.💕

Thanks for the 15 minute meditation idea! I love it!

abnormal mammo 4/29 did,nt get next mammo 5/16.biopsy pretty quick,but a month before I could get a MRI and before I met the surgeon.She was.nt available.Maybe vacation.Probably another month before surgery.Too late to find another doc now. So technically from 5/16.I'm a mess.

That was a beautiful post rhongirl. Many of us can echo your emotions and struggles.
I was diagnosed at 70 in Dec 22 with ILC which was TNBC in one breast and IDC in the other breast. We live in MI but we ended up going to Mayo and then I was to have the surgery. However I had developed a large hematoma from the needle biopsy in my hometown so the Mayo surgeon had to delay my surgery for 5 weeks because the hematoma could hide pathology after surgery. He said because I was stage 1
it would be ok to wait. I was a nervous wreck about waiting, I'm sure you can all relate. I also had 2 spinal compression fractures from osteoporosis during this time. I felt like a total mess. So we went home and I am a great believer in prayer and I was praying morning noon and night. I started reading books about positive thinking and how it affects your health. During this same time I was to lay flat on my back for 15 minutes a day to help with the spinal compression fractures. So I decided this was the perfect time to get my mind in a positive state. So I started what I call my " Optimistic Self Talk" and I still do it each and every day. I know it has helped me immensely. As I am laying down I put a 15 minute timer on my phone. I close my eyes and I start with a prayer. Then I repeat over and over for the 15 minutes, "Love, Light, Optimism, Wellness and Healing. I am staying in a remission, I am staying free of cancer anywhere in my body. I am a Survivor and I will stay a Survivor. I am well and healthy, I am just fine, all is well in my body. Thank you for my healing and healthy body. ". Then I just keep repeating that for the 15 minutes. I know it has made a big difference for me. Hopefully it can help some of you. Whenever I have a negative thought now about my health I just repeat some of my optimistic words to myself and it really helps me. Sending Love and Wellness Wishes to all of you. ❤️

It's been 10 weeks on a journey i thought would be cut and dry.BOY! was I mistaken. Biopsy,lump and lymph node.O.K. get it out! no,Need am MRI to see if there was anything else.Found another lesion.Now I have to have another biopsy.Bone scan coming up.Hope they don't find anything else. So far all organs are good,but who knows what they will find when go in there .So 2 and a half months and still unsure about what is going on and no surgery scheduled.I hate my new life with cancer!

abnormal mammo 4/29 did,nt get next mammo 5/16.biopsy pretty quick,but a month before I could get a MRI and before I met the surgeon.She was.nt available.Maybe vacation.Probably another month before surgery.Too late to find another doc now. So technically from 5/16.I'm a mess.