Things you wish you had know!

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  • Jane221
    Jane221 Member Posts: 1,195 ✭
    edited March 2015
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    Just wondering if you've gone in for your operation yet? I hope all is going well and that you are recovering comfortably.

    This is a great thread,  I've just got a few extra points:

    • The hardest thing I had to do in this ordeal was to talk to both my kids (then 8 & 13yrs) about my diagnosis. The Cancer Council's book, Talking to Kids about Cancer was invaluable and helped my husband and I to work out how best to tell them.
    • Both my children's schools provided practical help (meals, hampers, child-minding) as well as checking in regularly with both kids to see how they were going. This was a great support, especially during those tough months of chemo and radiotherapy.
    • Learning to accept help is difficult but was the best lesson learnt and now I can pay it back.
    • Learning to pencil in eyebrows is a new skill which unfortunately I still need to practise as mine are still pretty much AWOL even after 18 months of active treatment.
    • Deep purple nailpolish hides all sins.
    • Chemo stole my brain so am much more forgetful these days and sometimes struggle to find the right word for something. Am doing crosswords, puzzles, reading and writing to try and find it again.
    • I found the Encore Program to be helpful after treatment as it gently improved my movement through water and other exercises, gave me an opportunity to talk with others in the same boat informally about bc and was done in a private session at the local hydrotherapy pool at the hospital so I didn't feel self-conscious about my lopsided swimwear.
    • Weird side effect: iris colour has gone from "polluted blue" to "murky green". My eye colour always went green after a couple of wines, now they seem to be permanently that shade!
    • Despite our best efforts, crap happens; eg after my first chemo I was hypervigilant about hygiene, temperature checking, sanitising everything etc only to have my son come home with chicken pox and so I landed in hospital for a week!

    Jane x

  • Juli
    Juli Member Posts: 60
    edited March 2015
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    Thanks ladies I love this site, it has some great hints.


    Cheers Juli
  • shelli
    shelli Member Posts: 42
    edited March 2015
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    Amazing Tips!! Thank you... We are just putting the book together this week - will make sure I share it! :-) x

     

  • shelli
    shelli Member Posts: 42
    edited March 2015
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    Oh Nicole - how are you going? I know there is just nothing about - so our project will hopefully help patients in the thick of it - i think we have all been thorugh the murky waters of Whattt??? and finding stuff -t hese are great tips and I agree BC is an ordeal - its not a journey, there is nothing easy about it and its hard - and also I am a prepare for the worst and hope for the best - it has done me well from you are going to die to - guess what - we think you have more years! :-)

  • shelli
    shelli Member Posts: 42
    edited March 2015
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    hey Tink! Hope you are doing OK and I am hoping that this project that I am working on will help us, and all future ladies that have to go thorugh all this - I have worked out that the majority of us go through the same thing so lets get all that info together and make it easily accessable to everyone! x

  • shelli
    shelli Member Posts: 42
    edited March 2015
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    Great Suggestions and I LOVE an essay when it comes to this! :-) x

  • shelli
    shelli Member Posts: 42
    edited March 2015
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    i completely understad the privacy issue - it is only after i have been through the tough times that i was ready to be more open about it. How you want to process and be is your choice. I always said - having BC was not a secret, but it is private. x

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