grieving and depression

ElizabethK

My last herceptin treatment was on May 20, 2009. I was 43 when they found the tumor and I was told that I would have two surgeries and once they sent the tumor off for analysis, we would proceed with what type of treatment was best for me. It turned out to be an aggressive form of cancer. I had support from my doctors, nurses, family, church members, and neighbors. I walked through aggressive treatments, hospital stays, blood transfusion like it was a piece of cake. I prayed the whole time through the last 18 months and persevered. Now, that I am supposed to be "back to normal", I find that I have a huge sense of loss and depression. I feel like I just walked through hell and back and, yes, I am in remission and on Tomaxifen, but I am hurting so badly. I am already predisposed to depression so I take Lexapro, but it is not helping the deep knot of pain in my stomach. My hair grew back (losing it freaked me out), my appetite has not returned to normal which is okay because I needed to loose a few pounds, but nothing taste good and I only eat because I have to. The one positive thing that came out of this breast cancer was not having periods anymore. The hot flashes and night sweats are getting better. I have called the Care Coordinator at the hospital and the American Cancer Society and they have both told me that these feelings are normal. It is hard for my husband of 20 years to understand where I coming from because he has never been through anything major. My heart wants to get out there and live life because each day is precious, but all I feel like doing is crying. Old hobbies and interest don't have the same appeal that they used to. My support system has dwindled because the immediate crisis is over. I am just feeling so lost. Please tell me your experiences. I want to hear this will pass. The doctors don't tell you about the aftermath of breast cancer. They get you through the worst of it, give you pills to help you cope with the side effects, but no one warned me I would feel this hurt. Thank you for your support. I'm glad ya'll are here.

Marcia527

We have all gone through the
We have all gone through the same thing. The best thing I can tell you to help is to find people you really enjoy and are fun happy people and spend some time with them. Watch funny movies or do meditation. I watched a YouTube clip that is really funny. Google 'Johnny Carson egg trick'. Dom Deluise did the trick. He was such a happy person. Sometimes I wonder what makes some people so happy? It's not money or fame.

If your depression meds aren't working maybe you should talk to your doc about it.

lynn1950

Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.

I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""

Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.

Whew!

I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.

Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.

xoxoxoxoxo Lynn

Kat11

lynn1950 said:

Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.

I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""

Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.

Whew!

I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.

Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.

xoxoxoxoxo Lynn

I'm so sorry you feel this
I'm so sorry you feel this way. I am not yet where you are. I am pretty much at the beginning of treatment. I have no clue where this will take me. I think that it much like a death. Your so busy with everyone around you that when its over for them and everyone goes home, people forget that its not over for you. I hope you feel better soon. Will keep you in my prayers for better days ahead. Take Care

ElizabethK

lynn1950 said:

Grief and Mourning
After 9 months of treatment, barreling through the best I could, I gave birth to a massive monster of grief. Looking back, I can see that I had so much stuff to process. With friends' support, counselling, meditation, yoga, prayer, and medication I can now look back and see the monster for what it was and is. It took from October until July for me to finally wake up from what felt like a nightmare.

I have just finished reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It is about making sense of illness and death (and life) from a very personal perspective. Here's what she writes on p. 27: ...Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of "waves" Eric Lindeman, who was chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1940's and interviewed many family members of those killed in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire, defined the phenomenon with absolute specificity in a famous 1944 study: " sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intense subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.""

Didion quotes Gerald Manley Hopkins...
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day." Been there.

Whew!

I am a slow learner, so it took me a long while to see the help I needed and to process what needed to be processed. This is what I've learned: Seek help. What you are experiencing is NOT uncommon and not to be minimized. You will feel better. You do not need to apologize for how you feel.

Please always come here and share with us and we will help in whatever way we can.

xoxoxoxoxo Lynn

tightness in the throat
Dear Lynn,

Thank you so much for that. The information you provided from that book describes almost exactly how I feel, especially the tightness in the throat...like someone is choking the life out of me. We have all been through so much and when you are walking through it, you are in survival mode. I thought I was having a meltdown for a few days until I finally started to realize that I hurt like all get out and I didn't have energy for anything. It is easy to wake up each morning, but grueling to go through the day. I am so appreciated of support groups like this about real people who have been there! I'm trying to do things I enjoy doing...I told my husband to just not expect very much from me right now. He needs to help being "Mommy" right now so I can process through these waves of grief. Thankfully, he is helping me as I have asked him to do.

With love, Elizabeth

ohilly

depression
I will tell you my experience: I had a chemically induced depression which my oncologist agreed was from the Femara. I also looked it up on their official website and they list depression as a side effect of Femara. I also have a pre-disposition to depression (I had two blood relatives who committed suicide, although not in my immediate family), but I was never like THIS: I woke up every day crying and cried at work. I took Lexapro and within a few weeks the crying stopped. I would say that the Lexapro helped with the depression, but not the anxiety. I take a very low dose of Ativan when I need it, but I was thinking of asking the doctor to up the dosage of the Ativan.

Before all this happened to me, I never knew that medications themselves could actually cause depression. I wish my doctor had told me this when I first started taking Femara: I still would have taken it, but at least I would have known what to expect.

Write again if you need to.

Ohilly

Eil4186

Your post really struck a
Your post really struck a chord with me. What you are feeling is understandable and I think many of us have been there. I am more than three years out from diagnosis and recently started seeing a psychologist and taking an anti-depressant due to feelings similar to what you described.

I can say that with time things do seem to get a bit better. Being around friends and loved ones helps and doing things you enjoy even if you have to push yourself can help.

Cancer is very traumatizing. I suspect the whole experience changes us and with time we must try to readjust our perspective. I often wish I could go back and be the me I was before breast cancer. Hang in there, we are there with you.

ElizabethK

Eil4186 said:

Your post really struck a
Your post really struck a chord with me. What you are feeling is understandable and I think many of us have been there. I am more than three years out from diagnosis and recently started seeing a psychologist and taking an anti-depressant due to feelings similar to what you described.

I can say that with time things do seem to get a bit better. Being around friends and loved ones helps and doing things you enjoy even if you have to push yourself can help.

Cancer is very traumatizing. I suspect the whole experience changes us and with time we must try to readjust our perspective. I often wish I could go back and be the me I was before breast cancer. Hang in there, we are there with you.

the stress of it all
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.

outdoorgirl

ElizabethK said:

the stress of it all
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.

Elizabeth
A lot of women on here have or are suffering from depression-I am sorry that you are yet another one of them.
Can you get hooked up into a cancer support group where you live or close?You said you had a support group,but everyone has since left the picture-that is so true for many of us! I still have friends at church who ask how I am -and really want to know(and there are also some cancer survivors from there who face some of the same things that I do),but there's nothing like getting together with a group of people who have been there and understand! If you can't find one,call the ACS office in your area and ask and they should be able to lead you in the right direction!
Let us know how things go! We are also here for you any time of the day or night.

lynn1950

ElizabethK said:

the stress of it all
I really appreciate all of you responding to me. I am presently counseling with my pastor, a pychologist(sp), and a pysch for my meds. I have been on Lexapro for years and xanax, but the waves of anxiety and the knot of pain are just pounding within me. It feels so overwhelming and I just don't get it why it took 4 months to hit me this hard. It is like I just want to curl up in a ball and cry but the tears won't come. I'm afraid I will break if I let loose. My husband is trying to understand. I don't think my friends get it at all. This is a scary place to be after going thru all that junk and now my emotional health is in need of healing. I find if I just keep talking about it, it helps me cope and realize that I'm not alone.

Tears
What you write resonates with me. I was unable to cry for the longest time. With the help of my therapist, the tears came during therapy sessions - big racking sobs. I am sorry that I didn't think to write about crying in my earlier post. In the beginning of therapy, when I was feeling "strangulatingly" anxious, and the tears would not come, I played music that helped me to release the tears and tame the anxiety. Jackson Brown helped save me!

Hang in there, Elizabeth. xoxoxoxoxo Lynn

ElizabethK

outdoorgirl said:

Elizabeth
A lot of women on here have or are suffering from depression-I am sorry that you are yet another one of them.
Can you get hooked up into a cancer support group where you live or close?You said you had a support group,but everyone has since left the picture-that is so true for many of us! I still have friends at church who ask how I am -and really want to know(and there are also some cancer survivors from there who face some of the same things that I do),but there's nothing like getting together with a group of people who have been there and understand! If you can't find one,call the ACS office in your area and ask and they should be able to lead you in the right direction!
Let us know how things go! We are also here for you any time of the day or night.

going thru the process
Each stage of this cancer has been different. I am praying that I can get through this phase. I have called my pysch to evaluate my meds, reallying trying to motivate myself to walk again, and try not to get this down. I just know that I am really really tired. I did call my the ACS office here and got the info for the next support group. Thank you. Elizabeth