feeling sad after treatment

welchgirl
welchgirl Member Posts: 3
in Colorectal Cancer #1

Hi im welch girl i have colon cancer ive had my second treatment this past week . and took a pump home for2 days .i was just wondering if you sometimes get sad after treatment and dose it go away after a few day. ive did pretty good with the frist treatment i had some fatigue nauses but did better than what i thought i do .has i said ihave colon cancer i had surgery in sep. they got the polip in the colon but win they took out some limpmodes  21 they found 4 out of 21 cancers .i have some friends that have had colon cancer but i dont know anyone thats going throw it now. i like to know how there doing? thanks

 

 

Comments

  • John23
    John23 Member Posts: 2,122 Member
    edited October 2016 #2
    Depression.....

    Getting a diagnosis of cancer causes depression. I do not know of one single individual that claimed to be happy and filled with joy upon hearing their diagnosis of cancer.

    You will go through different stages, with depression, bitterness, anger, etc... all the emotions you never realized you had will pop up and out, so do not be too surprised about it. It's all quite normal.

    When they remove lymph nodes to check for their contents, the suggested amount of nodes to remove/check is varied. The higher the percentage of nodes with cancer cells, the higher your staging may be.

    If four or less out of 20 lymph nodes contain cancer cells, the patient is usually considered to be on safer ground. If the number exceeds that, then they feel that the cancer is more pronounced and possibly spread enough to classify your condition stage as more serious. (I had 7 or 8 out of 21 nodes involved; dx: 2006 as stage 4)

    One surgeon explains a lymph node to be like a jail for bad cells. It captures the defective cell and holds it in the node until (hopefully) the immune system (T cells) stop by and remove the defective cell. In a perfect world, that really happens.... Really!

    Depression can be from the emotional impact, or a chemical imbalance... or both. The imbalance of serotonin and melatonin causes depression (among other things), and the balance of those two important chemicals is normally regulated by your Liver. Harsh chemicals (like chemo/radiation, etc) will cause the liver to suffer, since it's job is to clean our blood, removing harsh poisons. The intentional addition into our system of what is going to impact the liver, can keep the liver from doing the job it should be doing.... The resultant lack of the liver's ability to properly regulate serotonin and melatonin, along with removing toxins that impact other organs, is what can/will cause all the other odd maladies you begin to suffer with.

    Eat well, try to remain well nourished and well hydrated and you should be able to fare well through this debacle.

    You have my best wishes and hopes!

    John

     

  • JanJan63
    JanJan63 Member Posts: 2,478 Member
    edited October 2016 #3
    I found myself feeling sad at

    I found myself feeling sad at odd times. Sometimes when I should have been I wasn't and other times it would suddenly overwhelm me for seemingly no reason. I almost always would get very emotional when I drove up to the cancer centre. It's been there for over 30 years before I became a cancer patient and I'd feel like now I'm someone who belongs there and be hit by sadness. One of the things that would really get me going was seeing other people there waiting for their treatment or being wheeled out of treatment if they were in bad shape. Seeing bald women, seeing people sitting with buckets in their lap in case they threw up. My compassion for them was a very hard thing for me to get past. I'm so glad I'm not having to go there now and for quite some time. But sometimes I'd see someone in really bad shape heading in to have their treatemnt, either chemo or radiation, and I'd just feel so bad for them that I'd just sit and cry.

    I sometimes get very sad now, almost three years after diagnosis and I'm often angry with it. I was also angry when I was in treatment. I can't say how many times I walked past a tree that had been painted on a wall and patients wre encouraged to write a positive note on a coloured paper leaf. I always wanted to just write 'f**k cancer' and stick that up there. 

    Anyway, I doubt your sadness has anything to do with your treatments or mediciations and has everything to do with the fact that you've been diagnosed with cancer. So you're entitled to feel however you want. Just let it out if you need to. Go cry alone or scream into a pillow, whatever works.

    Jan

  • welchgirl
    welchgirl Member Posts: 3
    #4
    JanJan63 said:

    I found myself feeling sad at

    I found myself feeling sad at odd times. Sometimes when I should have been I wasn't and other times it would suddenly overwhelm me for seemingly no reason. I almost always would get very emotional when I drove up to the cancer centre. It's been there for over 30 years before I became a cancer patient and I'd feel like now I'm someone who belongs there and be hit by sadness. One of the things that would really get me going was seeing other people there waiting for their treatment or being wheeled out of treatment if they were in bad shape. Seeing bald women, seeing people sitting with buckets in their lap in case they threw up. My compassion for them was a very hard thing for me to get past. I'm so glad I'm not having to go there now and for quite some time. But sometimes I'd see someone in really bad shape heading in to have their treatemnt, either chemo or radiation, and I'd just feel so bad for them that I'd just sit and cry.

    I sometimes get very sad now, almost three years after diagnosis and I'm often angry with it. I was also angry when I was in treatment. I can't say how many times I walked past a tree that had been painted on a wall and patients wre encouraged to write a positive note on a coloured paper leaf. I always wanted to just write 'f**k cancer' and stick that up there. 

    Anyway, I doubt your sadness has anything to do with your treatments or mediciations and has everything to do with the fact that you've been diagnosed with cancer. So you're entitled to feel however you want. Just let it out if you need to. Go cry alone or scream into a pillow, whatever works.

    Jan

    Thank you jan I do have

    Thank you jan I do have depreesion I had it a long time and I'm on medcation for it but so much has happen in my life this past year my husband lost hin job in march of 2015 and hasent got a job yet.and I was cleaning houses before I had surgery .I did clean a house last week .I was thankful for that but I don't thing I can clean all the houses I had with the treatment and the days it takes you to feel better. And then in july is win we found out about my cancer and its been a roller coster.iam blessed I have a very supported husdand  and family and friends that will help in anyway  and I have the lord s help too .but has you know its a scary time  and you have all these guestion of why me .what did I do so bad to get this .your mind can go on and on .but I do believe god will take care of me .and I want to see my son get married someday and I would love to have grandchild and share my loveof god to and love of gardening and many other things.

  • welchgirl
    welchgirl Member Posts: 3
    #5
    John23 said:

    Depression.....

    Getting a diagnosis of cancer causes depression. I do not know of one single individual that claimed to be happy and filled with joy upon hearing their diagnosis of cancer.

    You will go through different stages, with depression, bitterness, anger, etc... all the emotions you never realized you had will pop up and out, so do not be too surprised about it. It's all quite normal.

    When they remove lymph nodes to check for their contents, the suggested amount of nodes to remove/check is varied. The higher the percentage of nodes with cancer cells, the higher your staging may be.

    If four or less out of 20 lymph nodes contain cancer cells, the patient is usually considered to be on safer ground. If the number exceeds that, then they feel that the cancer is more pronounced and possibly spread enough to classify your condition stage as more serious. (I had 7 or 8 out of 21 nodes involved; dx: 2006 as stage 4)

    One surgeon explains a lymph node to be like a jail for bad cells. It captures the defective cell and holds it in the node until (hopefully) the immune system (T cells) stop by and remove the defective cell. In a perfect world, that really happens.... Really!

    Depression can be from the emotional impact, or a chemical imbalance... or both. The imbalance of serotonin and melatonin causes depression (among other things), and the balance of those two important chemicals is normally regulated by your Liver. Harsh chemicals (like chemo/radiation, etc) will cause the liver to suffer, since it's job is to clean our blood, removing harsh poisons. The intentional addition into our system of what is going to impact the liver, can keep the liver from doing the job it should be doing.... The resultant lack of the liver's ability to properly regulate serotonin and melatonin, along with removing toxins that impact other organs, is what can/will cause all the other odd maladies you begin to suffer with.

    Eat well, try to remain well nourished and well hydrated and you should be able to fare well through this debacle.

    You have my best wishes and hopes!

    John

     

    Thank you john for your reply

    Thank you john for your reply I do have depression I had it many years and I on medcation for it .I ask my doctor if the chemo would brother my dep.med he said I should be fine but I know how I feel if something not right.I'm a strong believer that if you are suffering from depre.to get help from your doctor or councling  because there is a lot of help out their .if I meet someone that has depression I want then to know their not along because their are many people with it that live mornal lives .they may be on med to help then  but they have a good live sorry I didn't mean to preach to you .

  • nateswife
    nateswife Member Posts: 65 Member
    #6
    Steroid emotional swings

    Hi Welchgirl, 

    Feeling sad after treatment might be because of medications that you receive with the chemo drugs. I forget the names now, but there are a few drugs that the nurse puts in my IV that lessen the side effects of chemo. One of the drugs is a steroid, which in me causes emotional mood swings- mainly sadness. I always notice a big difference in my mood for a few days after treatment and I'm pretty sure that that's why. My husband also used to get high doses of steroids in hospital for treatment of a disease and he said the same thing.

  • NewHere
    NewHere Member Posts: 1,428 Member
    #7
    It Is Normal

    With all of the things you are going through to feel bad and/or depressed.  The tips above are good - try to eat well, exercise and not get too caught up in think about cancer too often.  

    My lymph node situation well and I had 11 out of 20, plus suspect spots in liver and lungs.  I was diagnosed as IIIC, though one of the spots was indeed cancer that I had removed from my lung last month.  And knowing what 11 out of 20 lymph nodes indicate, plus an actual confirmed met from original scans, I get bummed out/depressed. You can allow yourself some of that, but after a couple of minutes, go do something.  Watch some campy comedy TV show, play a video game, walk around the block, put on some happy music and listen to a couple of tunes.  

    I was told that walking was good before my lung surgery and purchased a Tom Tom Fitbit style thing.  I have found that going out and walking really helped make me feel better in my mind also.  Usually I do not set aside time to for music and things that I like enough to just enjoy.  It really helps.

  • beaumontdave
    beaumontdave Member Posts: 1,289 Member
    edited November 2016 #8
    welchgirl said:

    Thank you jan I do have

    Thank you jan I do have depreesion I had it a long time and I'm on medcation for it but so much has happen in my life this past year my husband lost hin job in march of 2015 and hasent got a job yet.and I was cleaning houses before I had surgery .I did clean a house last week .I was thankful for that but I don't thing I can clean all the houses I had with the treatment and the days it takes you to feel better. And then in july is win we found out about my cancer and its been a roller coster.iam blessed I have a very supported husdand  and family and friends that will help in anyway  and I have the lord s help too .but has you know its a scary time  and you have all these guestion of why me .what did I do so bad to get this .your mind can go on and on .but I do believe god will take care of me .and I want to see my son get married someday and I would love to have grandchild and share my loveof god to and love of gardening and many other things.

    There is no why, things just

    There is no why, things just happen to people, The only thing to do is get mentally tougher. Easy to say and hard to do, I know. The doc gave me a script for Xanax, at diagnosis, and it definitely helped with the low lows. I only took it at the hardest moments and for me it really helped. I rarely take it now. The only other thing that really helped was keeping my focus on the day at hand and not looking down the road or worrying about the future. That's hard as well, but I thought if a dog could live in the moment, so could I, and to a great degree I did, until my wife died. A year and 7 months later, I'm starting to do things with an eye on what kind of life I want to live now, and I feel optimistic and strong. I'm not out of the woods, but I'm tired of fear and melancholy ruling my life. I hope you can fight your way through the fear and pain, and get to a place where it's all manageble, and hope is your goto feeling....................................Dave

  • ron50
    ron50 Member Posts: 1,723 Member
    edited November 2016 #9
        Hi Welchgirl,

        Hi Welchgirl,

                             I had 48 weeks of chemo , every Tuesday. No pumps no ports just a bag of 5Fu slowly dripping in followed by a bag of saline flush. Every second week I took nine tablets of levamisole over three days starting a day after chemo. I had 6 of 13 nodes involved with an extremely aggressive tumour. My surgeon said he could nearly see it growing. That was nearly 19 years ago. No cancer since but I get regular scopes. Good luck with your treatment, Ron.

  • kmygil
    kmygil Member Posts: 876 Member
    #10
    Normal

    Hi Welchgirl,

    Depression is normal.  I had just gotten on antidepressants before my diagnosis, and the dosage was upped during treatment.  It helped me stay positive enough to fight the **** cancer.  I'm still on them since my depression is chronic, but not as high a dosage.  Hang in there and don't be afraid to ask your doctors for what you need.  

    Best of luck, Kirsten

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