Emotional aftermath following breast cancer treatment

Yes I had 1 it was .90mm sentinel node 26 were taken all negative. The oncologist said I would be resistant. I appreciate the message, next week I get colonoscopy for stomachache.

Yes I had 1 it was .90mm sentinel node 26 were taken all negative. The oncologist said I would be resistant. I appreciate the message, next week I get colonoscopy for stomachache.

Do you have any groups that you would recommend to help me get over the anxiety. 6 years remission.stage 1b Lobular breast cancer: dmx, onco type oncologist said chemo won’t work. Then said after I said ok to radiation she would give me chemo but I didn’t. Took anestrozole 4 years dr said stop cause of anxiety tried other ais. Tamoxifen the stopped. I wanted to go back on ais but she said no because of resistance. Then year 5 I had scans dr said ned. I said so will I be ok, she said “ I would never say that because I’m supersticious and I don’t want to jinx anything and she d/c me to pcp. I want to stop the anxiety and have my life back. Any groups that might help? Thanks

Boy, I'd bet we all know that feeling and feel compassion for a yearning to recover a state of cancer-innocence as I think of it. The body has survived a trauma or two and will rebuild on its own schedule. This will sound goofy but, when I had a bad back injury, my P/T (who'd nearly died from a worse one from a paragliding disaster) recommended that I talk to my body. So, when I had back spasms that literally buckled my knees and caused me to collapse, I had a different attitude. Instead of being angry or impatient, I figured that my body was trying to protect itself from being further injured and kind of thanked it for getting my stubborn attention.

I cannot stress how much it helped but it made ALL the difference in healing. And reminded me that many great thinkers have stressed the mind/body unity that western thinking and medicine have lost focus on. I think western attitudes treat the body as a separate entity...a body to be worked or dieted into some dumb current ideal, muscles to be developed into innanity, endlessly more competitive sports events... it's odd when one thinks about.

Cancer is the unwelcome visitor and likely a result of myriad assaults on the body, including, I firmly believe, environmental toxins. Whether some others understand what you're going through, there are thousands of people who do and applaud your honesty and thousands who've come out the other side of the tunnel and can 'remember' when they felt the same way you do but no longer feel that way as life refills itself.

I am at the five-year mark post mastectomy, right side only, hormone positive both ER plus and PR plus, Lymphedema and right upper extremity that required a VLNT surgery, A failed DEP flap surgery, ultimately resulted in my chest, bursting open on the drive from Ohio to Florida and another surgery to quilt my chest shut. In addition to that, I am one of those rare people who have what is called anesthesia, awareness, and other words for me, mild sedation never works. I found out when I had my first colonoscopy done in my 50s. That doctor told me mild sedation doesn’t work for you, you are awake and you need to let everyone know that so you can be given sufficient sedation. I have told every surgeon and surgical team. Didn’t matter for the major surgeries because I get knocked out for those
And so far, the anesthesia awareness has not occurred for general anesthesia. But I have had three total, two following my breast, cancer, diagnosis, episodes, where I was aware during procedures. The worst was the implantation of my port. Somewhere around the five-year mark it occurred to me, that I was really really struggling emotionally with everything. Breast cancer, lymphedema, anesthesia, awareness, recurrence, add onto that every other issue that occurs as we get older. What I learned is that I have a significant PTSD condition probably have had some degree of it for a long time, but the cancer diagnosis, the complications, that occurred over the past five years, and the general process of aging and worry about recurrence add to that dynamic. So I saw specific therapy for PTSD with a psychologist in the winter. That was tremendously helpful, I stopped thinking and feeling like I should be able to fix this or it’s just go away. Neither one of those things is ever going to happen. Over the course of about two months and working with a psychologist, I was able to verbalize and re-verbalize, all of the stressors in my life, and for any of us with the cancer diagnosis, even if it’s not complicated by other issues, the cancer part of it is truly a trauma. I found it by revisiting it,, discussing it in a safe place help me diffuse , some of my reactivity. I still worry greatly about future procedures that will require mild sedation, generally, but I also feel greatly empowered and insisting that I have a face-to-face meeting days before the procedure, with the head of anesthesia and whatever hospital the procedure Will be completed and a firm plan and how anesthesia will be administered and monitored. Well, it is a low incidence condition, one to two people per every thousand, the anesthesia awareness in one years time happens to 30,000 people. That’s a low number, but that’s the amount of people that fill a small footballer baseball stadium and that’s a lot of people. so my thinking is that any and all of us who feel stressed at any point during our journey before during or after cancer to seriously consider the trauma component of the procedure, even when our outcomes are good. We’ve been through a lot and the future is always uncertain. I was very pleasantly surprised at how effective working with the psychologist from the PTSD and trauma angle really really helped me. It was well beyond a general counseling session with a social worker. I think it requires a higher skill set. Just my humble opinion.