Post treatment depression

I believe many people feel degrees of what you are feeling. I know I did. While we are in active treatment, we have nurses, doctors, and other medical staff looking after us and pampering us. My nurses always smiled warmly, brought me snacks and blankets. I loved them.

I missed them when it was all over. And there was a nerve wracklng quality about it. Am I OK? If no one is looking after me, how do I know? Every little ache or pain would trigger thoughts of, is it back? 

Take it easy on yourself. You have just been through serious, major treatment for a critical illness. If all you feel like doing is sitting and staring out the window, don't beat yourself about it. Go ahead and sit and stare for a while. Those couple of hours each day you are feeling better will begin to grow to longer spans of time. As more time passes, you will become more confident and will begin to feel more like yourself. Try to be patient.

Hugs,

Rocquie

Ah Pickle, so sorry that you are struggling so hard right now.  You have been through so much and, understably, you want to be finished with it.  But you need to give your body and your mind time to recover.  Remember that are recovering from two things at different rates.

First, there is your disease.  You've done the hard, hard work already of getting through your chemo, and congratulations on that! I'm sure it wasn't easy.  But you have only just finished and there are parts of your body that need to "come back" and need time to do so.  Your bones, your white blood cells, your red blood cells, your platelets, maybe your spleen and your liver.  Each of these has to recover and their recovery won't happen overnight.  Weeks to months is more realistic.

Second is recovery from the chemo, from which your body has taken a beating.  Appetitie, fatigue, skin changes, nerve issues, strength, stamina, etc.  Again, each of these take time and you need to give your body a chance.  Some things may get better quickly (appetite?) while others will take longer.  They just will.  3 months, 6 months, possibly more for some things (neuropathy), but hopefully not. 

Feeling like moping around the house at this point is tied into to all of the above and not at all surprising, at least not for me.  If anxiety and depression are overwhelming you, please do ask your doctor's office for support: counseling, medicinal, or both.  And please, please, please, do not beat yourself up for feeling as you do.  What you are expressing feels very familiar, but I find that it is gradually getting better as I recover from all these things. I also find that I have to work hard at not making myself feel guilty for not wanting to get "up & out". Importantly, I have to work at not letting others make me feel guilty either. Be well.

Pickel,

I've had what is today called major depression since 14 years of age. Formerly it was termed "clinical depression," and before that, I have no idea.  My father was brilliant and moderately wealthy, but a severe lifelong alcoholic.  My mother was paranoid schizophrenic (very mild case, and she was functional), and my adopted sister was born with a sociopathic personality disorder.  My biological brother made two serious attempts at suicde over the years. NOT "appeals for help," but serious attempts to die. Only the grace of God kept him alive, and relatively well today.  Home was "interesting."  My diagnosis with depression was in a teaching hospital by a major psychiatric institute, and all the doctors said that major depression is mostly never heard of or diagnosed in someone as young as I was.  

I was later diagnosed with PTSD in 1988, two years into recovery from being crushed essentially to death in a car accident.  I came home after two months in the hospital, still unable to walk, and even had trouble speaking for a few months beyond that, due to neurological damage.  Rocquie mentioned sitting and looking out the window.  Upon returing home, I had to sleep downstairs on a couch bed, because the bedrooms were upstairs.  From that bed I could see out of some French doors across our yard to a major road.  I would spend hours just watching the morning traffic go by; after a month or so, I had memorized probably 70% of the cars that passed each weekday.  Somehow, it was extremely pleasurable; I have no idea why.  But simple things can be repairative.  Buddist monks mediate and train for years on something as simple as breathing: they ponder in-and-out breathing lifelong.  You get the point.  It was six months after the wreck before I was first able to get myself out of bed, and later moved upstairs.  But I missed seeing the traffic.

I was not long thereafter part of the worldwide clinical study that approved Zoloft for PTSD use.... (worthless for me, but approved).  PTSD can be temporary or lifelong; mine seems resolved today.

After my Lymophoma diagnosis years after that, I used to joke to people,  "I was depressed, then I got cancer."  And then two years after ending Lymphoma treatments, I was diagnosed with a second cancer (Prostate).  And then was followed for two years invesitgating a suspicious nodule in my lung, finally judged benign.  Best anyone can tell, I am today cancer-free.

You need to be under a doctor's care and on medication, significant medication.  My non-professional view.  I tell people "I've had no medical training; I've just had every medical thing." (My medical summary runs two single-spaced pages.)

To deny or resist medication at this point would itself indicate significant issues,

max

My last chemo was Oct 2015. I then start prep for Stem Cell which was put on hold March 2016. That is when my hair started growing back. It did not come in thick and curly. It came in fine and straight, like it always was. Here I am 2 years later and the area in the front is still very thin. I have resigned myself that the "thin spots" will never fill in. Yes I hate the way it looks but I also know that there isn't much I can do about it. Solution, don't look in the mirror any more than needed. 

For me work allowed me to put the thought of the cancer behind me when I was between treatments. Afterwards I was annoyed when people were talking about their family activities and no longer asking me about how I was doing. What changed me was a series of TV commercials by a drug company. The running theme was "I am not cancer. I am ______(their name)". The message was that cancer does not define us. So everytime I started to feel that no one cared I would say this line in my head. It real helped my get back to living my life and to stop being haunted by the thought of cancer. 

I have no experience with depression, I'm the polar opposite yet I too struggle from time to time.  I had circumstances that were more bothersome for me than my diagnosis.  I won't get into the details other than three weeks after my diagnosis my father was too.  Both NHL.  I had no support.  I hid my cancer.  After a year I found a Councelor to help me. I just needed someone to talk to and vent my frustrations with.  I'm a pretty annoyingly positive person yet cancer is rough.  It's not easy and treatment takes it toll on us.  I was told by my Councelor I have PSTD times three.  I really needed my Councelor time and greatful I found her.

Seek help if you need it, do what ever it takes and most of all be good to yourself and give yourself a pass.  It takes time but it does get better. 

Good Luck!