Forum Discussion
2 year all-clear, 2 year all-fear.
I've just had my second year check-up scans. It's always going to be so stressful.
I've had a range of worrying new symptoms pop up over the last couple of months while on my Tamoxifen break, so I'm worried something was there and has now domino down my left arm lymph nodes.
Taking a look at my scans, my layman eyes don't see a disaster. There are areas in the ultra that look like masses although to my memory they don't seem to have the blood flow activity to indicate tumors, however on the mammogram they radiate the margins of my crash site (... that's what I call my scar tissue, haha). And as much as I'd like to think hey, it's just age, it's just calcification, there's nothing like it in my other breast to establish that.
I know, I know, the cardinal rule of check-up scans is not to look at them before your consultation but as if have scans of inside my body in my possession and not look? Ha!
I never shook the lethargy. My doctor told me that it's actually a normal thing for cancer survivors to be chronically tired. There are no solutions; work while tired, exercise while tired, eat while tired, struggle to sleep, wake up tired, repeat. And everything always hurts. It's just my normal now to need painkillers to get through the day. 2 years on and my radiotherapy pain still hasn't gone away - and it's not just that it's not gone away, it hasn't "settled" the way I was hoping. It might be that during healing I just got lucky and clumps of nerves got together to make particular movements painful. I hurt every day and I needed to complain about it. It's been so long of waking up with pain and no energy and I don't complain anywhere. Sorry BCNA. You get my worst side.
I've refrained from posting quite a lot and just kept to the activity threads because I feel that my particular forum needs are a form of clutter for those in active treatment. A follow-up/aftercare category/life after category would be nice?
I've had a range of worrying new symptoms pop up over the last couple of months while on my Tamoxifen break, so I'm worried something was there and has now domino down my left arm lymph nodes.
Taking a look at my scans, my layman eyes don't see a disaster. There are areas in the ultra that look like masses although to my memory they don't seem to have the blood flow activity to indicate tumors, however on the mammogram they radiate the margins of my crash site (... that's what I call my scar tissue, haha). And as much as I'd like to think hey, it's just age, it's just calcification, there's nothing like it in my other breast to establish that.
I know, I know, the cardinal rule of check-up scans is not to look at them before your consultation but as if have scans of inside my body in my possession and not look? Ha!
I never shook the lethargy. My doctor told me that it's actually a normal thing for cancer survivors to be chronically tired. There are no solutions; work while tired, exercise while tired, eat while tired, struggle to sleep, wake up tired, repeat. And everything always hurts. It's just my normal now to need painkillers to get through the day. 2 years on and my radiotherapy pain still hasn't gone away - and it's not just that it's not gone away, it hasn't "settled" the way I was hoping. It might be that during healing I just got lucky and clumps of nerves got together to make particular movements painful. I hurt every day and I needed to complain about it. It's been so long of waking up with pain and no energy and I don't complain anywhere. Sorry BCNA. You get my worst side.
I've refrained from posting quite a lot and just kept to the activity threads because I feel that my particular forum needs are a form of clutter for those in active treatment. A follow-up/aftercare category/life after category would be nice?
67 Replies
- Tough love from your oncologist @Silba!
- Everyone looks , I don't even know why they bother to seal the results, duh !!
Finished radiation to chest and hip area 3 weeks ago and feel like a wet rag, (after chemo and bilateral surgery).
Saw my Onc today , complained about tired , pain, headaches and hot flashes/sweats(tamoxifen) ,his comment .
'suck it up " , I'm tired of being tired,and it looks like it doesn't improve much , but keeping fingers crossed that I can at least kick the pain killers down a notch in about another 8 weeks or so when the rad to the hip met should start to work and I can walk without limping and flinching everytime .
Such a horrible disease to live with , rrrrgggghhhh ........ - PrimeK maybe Now What ? - Survivorship struggles.....
- @Marianne_BCNA
I'm happy with Now What?
Also like the idea
"Survivorship struggles"
Not sure what others think. - @Marianne_BCNA Awesome sauce. :)
- Hi @kmakm, I think a couple of them were your ideas. I just listed the suggestions in the thread. If everyone is happy with 'Now what?' I can create the category tomorrow morning :)
- @Marianne_BCNA 'So Now What?' was my suggestion. I think the truncation to 'Now What?' is good as well. However I insist upon the question mark!! Punctuation pedantry aside, it indicates the genuine bewilderment and questioning that many of us have about what happens after active treatment, stuff we weren't told about, things that we have no idea how to improve, and the genuine concerns about recurrence that lead us to question pretty much everything we feel and are told. K xox
- @Patti J, that's both discriminatory and stupid. The discrimination is pretty obvious, the stupidity is not recognising that models of how to take affirmative action in your life are important to everyone at every stage. I hope you have the energy to challenge that position. Best wishes.
- Now what? suits me. There are so many ways to interpret that, depending on the delvery and where you put the emphasis.
- Well, as far as I'm concerned the managers can get stuffed @"Patti J" I certainly wouldn't want to participate in a program that discriminates like that. 'Scare the newbies' what a crock of shit. The newbies are already scared, or they bloody well should be.
Everyone has a right to try to improve their quality of life and being excluded like that makes a crap situation even worse. If you think you would benefit from that program, enrol in it. If they try to sideline you because you are living with the disease and technically you (like many of us, realistically) are always going to be 'between' treatments rather than ''finished', you let us know.
There will be a storm of indignation! Mxx
