discouraging appointment
Feeling very discouraged. Went to 6 weeks post chemo appt. The point, as I understand it, is for the oncologist to see how we are doing. So a friend went along. I said I was feeling well but had questions. In the course of conversation he said WHEN it comes back. . . not if. Granted I have stage 4B. Also I have to take progesterone, now, which causes weight gain. I am ok w/ that if it gives me more time. When I said I had looked on the American Cancer Society web site and it said I had a 15% chance of 5 year survival rate, he said I had a LITTLE better of statistics than that (but not much, I guess). i just didn't feel very encouraged. I know he is not one to beat around the bush or give false hope and many people have reminded me a doctor can provide very good care even if he doesn't have the best bedside manner. I guess am wondering, since it seems inevitable that I will not be around in 5 years, for those who have died from uterine cancer is it a long, painful death? I am just scared sh**less right now, just have the worst sense of dread. Can anyone tell me anything? For today, thankfully, I feel well and I will enjoy this day.
Comments
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So sorry for what you are going through
Dont spend a lot of time with Dr.Google or other statistica. Many of them are old. You are a statistic of one and no one can say how long we have. I am stageIV and I have been around for almost five years now. most of that time on treatment. My life is not what I had imagined, but it is still good. I have many more good days than bad. We travel. My life has Not come to an end. God will take me when he wants me and not before. Enjoy each day and don't waste your precious days worrying. You could walk out of your house tomorrow and have an airplane land on you. We just don't know
Hugs and prayers, Lou Ann
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Bluedaisy, sorry you had just
Bluedaisy, sorry you had just a negative experience at your appointment. My oncologist had no bedside manner, either, and I did not like having to deal with him at all. Thankfully I did not require ongoing treatment because he came highly recommended and was 100% on point about my stage and grade prior to surgery.
I have been on this board since 2012, but don't often post. There were several ladies here when I first got diagnosed who were extremely helpful and had alot of knowledge. Some had stages and grades 2 & 3...some had late stage 4. Their journeys were all different and many of them still post. So they are still around.
I think as you move away from this disheartening appointment you will begin to feel better. Nothing like seeing the oncologist or having a treatment session or testing to keep you in a state of fear! God willing you will be around for quite awhile in good shape. Try to focus on the positive.
Best of luck!
Kathy
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Blue Daisy
Please read my post under the topic " in the recurrence club now", which I posted July 3rd.
I hope my story gives you hope. Doctors are not psychics. Most of them have not ever seen
Stage IV cancer patients go into complete remission and survive. I am one of those patients.
You have to fight for your own life.Sloan Kettering told my husband I might only have 4-6 months to live- that was Jan 2015.
I was in partial remission in March and complete remission by August 2015. And I have
remained in remission since then.
When I met with my integrative oncologist, as he was reading my tests, he said boy was my
cancer growing fast, but we could turn that around. And he did. He didn't tell me I only had
a few months to live. You might want to find another doctor who believes in working to keep
you cancer-free.
Takingcontrol580 -
Lou Ann and Kathy G said it
Lou Ann and Kathy G said it so well. Dr. Google may have a good side manner but he is a lousy doctor. There are so many things that are changing now in treatment and no one - no matter how good a doctor they are - can say how long anyone has. My doctor's nurse said to me, "Go out and LIVE!" and that is some great advice. No one knows how long they have.
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Lou ann
Can you give me a summary of your treatments?
Or is the recurrence today and what treatment do you take?
thank you very much
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bluedaisy
I was going on vacation when you first posted this thread, and I only go on here when the mood strikes me. Today, I looked back a little ways and found your old thread. I am a 7 year survivor with stage IVb UPSC. I am currently fighting UPSC (and winning again for the second time). I actually had over 3 years where I was NED after my first surgery in 2010. I had a little abdominal pain after that which felt like my incisional hernia was coming back. It wasn't anything major. Several doctors examined me and couldn't find a hernia, but when I finally had surgery again this past April, it was found again. My intestines were actually growing into the mesh from my 2012 hernia repair. I'd had a small mass found in 2014 which my GYN/onc had watched for a whole year with scans and had decided it wasn't growing, so it couldn't be cancer. I didn't have a lot of pain or any other major problems. I guess my biggest symptom, looking back, was that I was craving certain foods a lot, especially a local bakery's special home-style bread. I also craved sugar frequently. I know everyone's symptoms are different, but I think mine should have been a lot worse considering the fact that my cancer had spread dramatically fast in a two and a half month period. I'm sure everyone has different symptoms, but for someone such as myself who was well down the path towards death in my second reoccurrence, they just weren't that bad. I wasn't even positive I had my cancer back. My symptoms weren't all that bad the first time around, either. I thought I had celiac disease, not cancer. I'm glad my doctor refused to tell me the bad statistics when I first came down with this. The cancer probably would have spread more from my increased stress level of worrying about it.
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No one can predict the future.
bluedaisey, if I had to do my cancer experience all over again starting with the first time I heard that I had adenocarcinoma, I would have lived more without the paralizing fear. My stage 3a UPSC has not come back after almost 4 years but I expected it to as that was what my gyn onc led me to believe. Even if my cancer does some day come back, I am not the unsuspecting woman I was 4 years ago. It is different for me now. I am no longer terrified of dying. On some level, I've come to accept my fate and have made peace with it. Four years is a long time to face cancer and to come to accept it. If I die tomorrow- so be it. Right now, I plan to live fully.
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