When did your grieving start?

WOW!  Isn't that an interesting question?  What a wise man and quick of you to realize what the question really was.  For me, I think the grieving goes on all the time.  There is always something new I can't do, something new loss that makes me mad, sad and then I just have to accept and let it go.  I feel most like the 'strong man'  I have trouble with what I can't do and what I can't take my kids to do.  I knda get my balance and then off goes my hair again, or my leg goes numb or it feels like a bear is chewing on my shoulder for days as the cancer eats another bone.  I want to be the FUN MOM and I am just a little more pathetic every year.  URGGHH!!! I HATE THIS!  There should be what, denial, anger sadness and acceptance, and then going on with your life, but with this disease, I get 'halfway through' grieving and then poof a new thing to grieve.  I have to say, for me, the hardest part of the fight is WANTING to fight when going would be so much easier!  (Philippians 1:21-24) For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose.  But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

I AM 'hard pressed from both sides'  fighting is hard, exhausting and painful - my kids need a mom, or do they just need to quit worrying when, and get on with their lives?  All questions too hard for me.

I started grieving when my chemo and surgeries, treatment, ended, and i still am grieving almost 3 years later. I am accepting the things i can no longer do, accepting the physical, emotional, mental changes that i've gone through, and the fact that i will never be back to the same person i was before my diagnosis. But there is a big lack of understanding in some of the people closest to me that is a big part of the problem. In some ways im a better person now than i was before - more appreciative, kinder, more eager to try new things, developing new interests and hobbies - but some of the people closest to me dont see that and instead focus on why im "not back to normal yet". 

Thank you for sharing what the gentleman in your group shared. Very poignant.

hugs

heather

Heatherbelle said:

I started grieving when my

I started grieving when my chemo and surgeries, treatment, ended, and i still am grieving almost 3 years later. I am accepting the things i can no longer do, accepting the physical, emotional, mental changes that i've gone through, and the fact that i will never be back to the same person i was before my diagnosis. But there is a big lack of understanding in some of the people closest to me that is a big part of the problem. In some ways im a better person now than i was before - more appreciative, kinder, more eager to try new things, developing new interests and hobbies - but some of the people closest to me dont see that and instead focus on why im "not back to normal yet". 

Thank you for sharing what the gentleman in your group shared. Very poignant.

hugs

heather

I understand and get this.

Bella Luna said:

My 2 cents

Carol... this is a very good question.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts and story with us. 

I think I started grieving when I heard the words, "You have cancer."  I knew my world, as I knew it, had changed forever.  I didn't know what lay before me and I felt like I lost control.  It was a scary time and the uncertaintity of it all was something awful for me and my family. 

It's been over 3 years since that eventful day and there are times I still grieve.  I get depressed when we loss another Pink Sister or Brother to this awful disease.  I hate what it does to families and the children that are left behind.  Life before cancer was so different.  I was naive and carefree to an extent.  It's not to say my life was rosy.  Like anyone else, I had hardships but my prespective on life and the ones who are in it changed.  I have evolved as a person.

As for what I did to get out of it.  I decided to fight!  I was determined to get through it, no matter what.  With the help of God, my family/friends, and my good doctors, I made it through to the other side.  I know the future remains unknown, but for now, I chose to live and be a mother to my daughter and a wife to my husband.  I also started working at my daughter's former elementary school.  I am an educational aide and help kids from kinder-5th Grade.  I focus my attention on them and enjoy their honesty and varied personalities.

That is all. 

 

I definately greived when I got diagnosed. I grieved for the life that was gone. It is normal to go in and out of different phases. i feel i do that, I allow it.

Chickadee1955 said:

Still grieving.  The 'new

Still grieving.  The 'new normal' is not normal at all.  I have foobs, not breasts,

and tamoxifen feels like it is sucking

the life out of me.  I am quite literally drying up and, for the first time, feel like an old woman.  Do you ever stop grieving??

 

Chickadee

Had a lumpectomy (right breast), finished the 33 radiation treatmnets and that poor boob is so sad. It's a little dried up and smaller but I never had big breasts so the bra camouflages the difference pretty well. See the oncologist Mid-March for next steps. Tell me what the tamoxifen is doing to you?

I don't think I'm to grieving yet, angry that this cancer treatment stole 5 months of my life from diagnosis to last rad treatment. Don't have my energy back yet....actually it comes and goes.

Any information you can offer will be appreciated before I decide which med to take for the next 5 years.

Heatherbelle said:

I started grieving when my

I started grieving when my chemo and surgeries, treatment, ended, and i still am grieving almost 3 years later. I am accepting the things i can no longer do, accepting the physical, emotional, mental changes that i've gone through, and the fact that i will never be back to the same person i was before my diagnosis. But there is a big lack of understanding in some of the people closest to me that is a big part of the problem. In some ways im a better person now than i was before - more appreciative, kinder, more eager to try new things, developing new interests and hobbies - but some of the people closest to me dont see that and instead focus on why im "not back to normal yet". 

Thank you for sharing what the gentleman in your group shared. Very poignant.

hugs

heather

Now that the treatments are over it's like everyone expects me to do the same things, the same way especially at work. Well, this cancer gave me a different outlook on what matters. Grateful for the job and the insurance but the pettiness is driving me crazy.

My family, who live in another area and don't see me often, don't get what I've been through. My neighbors who see me every day understand and telll me to slow down and take it easy. 

I agree with you, there's probably never going to be normal again because we see things differently now.

Am I on track?

Dear Carol,

This is an excellent question.  Every traumatic situation we have encountered in life, be it cancer or something else goes through those five stages of grief.  

Grieving, no I should be if I read the posts but I am not nor have I ever grieved about breast cancer even when it metastasize.   I had accepted what the rib mets in 2000 meant.  That this disease was terminal and in due time I would die .   NED for 8 years, gave me time to do my bucket lists.   I am so grateful to have had that opportunity that is not given to every one.  I wouldn't be able to go to all the places I had wanted to visit.   I don't have the stamina, shortness of breath issues, and the walking problems cause by medication along with my ankle PTTD.

I believe that I'm in some mini funk and that is a little of depression which is what I was writing about last night.  

When I was diagnose, I was to numb to grieve, as a divorcee with kids, I had to work.  Falling apart was not an option, so I kept moving forward, one foot at a time.  When it was over, I was elated.  Then life always hands you new problems to handle and the old was gone.  I always suspected my cellulitis was related to cancer but all the doctors, I encountered at the time, assured me that women who had lymph node dissections often had cellulitis.  The 2nd time, I was more angry at the oncologist for forgetting to give me radiation at diagnose, to be grieving.  Since breast cancer is so sneaky there was no way of proving the lack of radiation caused the tumor.  It could have been a cell left behind.   Had he given me radiation, there would not be a cell there left behind.  The tumor was there and I had to deal what was and not what if.  I was angry.

When the mets to ribs were found on the bone scan and 3D imaging, I felt justified.  That time we were not searching for cancer and it wasn't my oncologist who ordered the scan and imaging either.    I finally I had proof that my complaints had a cause.  I sure did let the radiologist and oncologist know that they had messed up big time.  Since Arimidex was working I was happy.  I still held a grudge against the radiologist oncologist for not listening and the oncologist I fired when he again made another mistake.  I had a new oncologist and she listened.  

Then when it returned as widespread pulmonary and pleura metastasis along with a pleura effusion in 2008, I wasn't surprise.   I knew it would, I just didn't know when.  I simply began to look forward, what needed to be done.  I had other medical issues at the time and they were causing me more problems than the cancer.  I was working and dealing with what I had while still living life.

A good reason is that working in a school system, over the years, I knew so many students that had very serious health issues, including cancer.   Some died, some had a hard battle to fight, and went on to do well.  Hard to feel sorry for yourself, when you observe young people fighting so hard to live.  

I always accepted grieving, as a normal part of life.  When someone you love dies, there is a grieving process.  To me the best things to do after a certain amount of time has elapsed, is to find other distractions and move on.  That is how I handled grief in the past.

Doris

I guess I'm still greiving.  After the original dx, I hurtled from one treatment to the next as quickly as my docs would allow.  I wanted 'it' out!  I only had 4 months without treatments and with NED.  I think that was not enough time to process everything.  Then it was back to work and local recurrence/mets/treatments at the same time.   (I was literally in my 3rd day of training for a new job when I got the 'positive' news.)

I do wish I didn't have to deal with this, and I miss my before cancer life.  More than anything else, I greive for the energy I used to have.  I could go all day like the energizer bunny, now I have to 'rest' a couple times a day.  I still want to say 'yes' to everything...chaperone a field trip or a dance, sign up for a volunteer project, work all day then help with homework while cooking dinner, run to the store for last minute stuff...now I have to say 'no' to lots of that. 

I know there is no way to get my previous life back.  But I still don't know what my 'new' life looks or feels like.  I guess that's true for everyone, cancer or no cancer, because life keeps changing for all of us. 

Hugs,

Linda

Heatherbelle said:

I started grieving when my

I started grieving when my chemo and surgeries, treatment, ended, and i still am grieving almost 3 years later. I am accepting the things i can no longer do, accepting the physical, emotional, mental changes that i've gone through, and the fact that i will never be back to the same person i was before my diagnosis. But there is a big lack of understanding in some of the people closest to me that is a big part of the problem. In some ways im a better person now than i was before - more appreciative, kinder, more eager to try new things, developing new interests and hobbies - but some of the people closest to me dont see that and instead focus on why im "not back to normal yet". 

Thank you for sharing what the gentleman in your group shared. Very poignant.

hugs

heather

I have had a discussion with my husband on more than one occassion as to how cancer stole not only my breasts but my life as well in so many ways. I am alive and I am so  thankful to be NED (hopefully for a long time) but everyday the aches and pains I have remind me that I am not who I was. Yes I was beginning to wear down some prior to BC, joint pain, etc. but now I have the neuropathy and fatigue added to it and there are days I just can't find energy to do much at all. My hubby thinks my aches and pains are because of my weight, and he is probably right. But I don't have the energy to go walking. I tried the treadmill, and I will continue to try but I just don't feel good.  This is not me! I hope that my "normal" is yet to be achieved. I will be a year out in May so I have a few months and maybe I will be in a better frame of mind then. I feel guilty that I am cancer free and whining about it but... I know some of you understand the feeling. I am grateful to God for answering my prayer to be cancer free! I just want to feel good too.