Hi there Tracy...so sorry you've had to join our 'club'. I was diagnosed a year ago, also Grade 3 Stage 3 but hormone positive, so again, my treatment will differ from yours. Still, mine has a better than average chance of returning with a lymph node also joining the party. Went through six months of chemo, followed by the Great Chop, where the mighty weedwhacker took off both boobs. However, you specifically asked about how we cope with mindset, not treatment options. Each of us differs in how we respond to and cope with things in our lives, and so what may work for one, may be anethema to another. My coping mechanism has always been humour, very black humour. The reality that this diagnosis brought to me was, yes, I am going to die. When? Not sure. Tomorrow....probably not. Next week...nah. Next month....nah Next year....hopefully not....and so on. As a younger person (way back in the Dark Ages), I remember sitting on the table in the nurses' home one night with a bunch of other student nurses. A teenager had died on my ward that day. The discussion was would we rather die young or old and then would we rather get hit by a bus...lights on...lights off...or would we rather know in advance? That discussion went back and forth for ages, with all different pros and cons both ways. My beloved brother died at age 37 at the South African National Skydiving Championships...bad landing. He had time to say two words, and I have a very good idea what they were. Was his a better way to go than mine possibly will be? I don't know. He didn't have the chance to see his four beautiful kids grow up, on the other hand, he hasn't gotten fat and wrinkled either. I have. But now I face this. How? With a great big mid finger salute to the Cosmic Clowns who shuffle the Cards of Life and deal out out our hands. I mourn my non cancerous life, but just get on each day as it comes. Oh, and at my funeral, whenever it might be, I've stipulated that I wand the same song played as was at my brother's...Queens "Another One Bites the Dust". Sending a great big cyber hug to you and your family.
Ally xoxo
