Need Assistance-Thanks in advance

What you describe is sort of similar to something I've experinced since my bout with bc (I was diagnosed May 2002). After finishing with my 3 surgeries, 6 mos. of chemo and 33 radiation treatments, I found myself profoundly uninterested in my job. Up until that point, I'd been very work oriented. I'm single and unmarried and am proud of the career I've built. But mine is a very high-pressure job (manager in a financial services company) and I really let everything get to me (I'm a bit of a perfectionist too). Well no more! I just can't get all that excited about work post cancer. Like you, I just want to do the job (and not all the extras I used to obsessively spend time devoting myself to) and go home. It's just not worth it to allow myself to get all stressed out at work....life is too short, as we've all found out! I too am impatient with the nonsense that seems to fill up too much of the workday. My mantra for everything these days is, "life's too short." But it is sort of disconcerting to find out how little I care about my job, as compared to how I used to feel about it. I think I still do a good job, but I'm no longer a perfectionist and I'm not willing to give 110% of myself to my employer. And I have better things to do with my time than spend endless hours working overtime - like spend it with family, friends and doing things that interest me. As to the memory thing, I really don't know what to say about that. I have terrible memory problems myself, and they do seem to have gotten much worse post bc. But I am getting older (57 now) and my memory seems worsen as I age. I laugh that I might be getting Alzheimer's, but sometimes it gets so bad that I'm not altogether sure it's a joke! Pretty soon I'll be walking around with Post-Its in my hair! It could be that your mind is dwelling in a place other than work these days, which causes you to be distracted and forgetful on the job. This disease changes us all in so many ways and I think changing priorities is just another one of them. I don't really have any advice - just wanted to tell you you're not alone. I can really relate to how you're feeling. Good luck....and don't let them get you down! Ellen

The other thing to think about is depression - you may not feel sad, but feeling stressed, lack of concentration, forgetfullness, crabiness/short temper can all be symptoms of medical depression. Your MD can recomend treatments to try. I hate tension in the workplace - I deal with the same "snakepit." I get out of the conflicts by telling others that I'm busy working on "project x" which is the top priority for someone higher up than me. Usually gets them off my back till the next controversy!
jill

Hi wimpy:

You're certainly not useless or incompetent! Scared, yes. Who wouldn't be???

Unaddressed stress is a huge killer of concentration. Forgetting things is part of the scenario. Feeling "scattered" is part of the healing.

As for "chemo brain": I'm not convinced that the drugs we take are wholly responsible for it.
I tend to believe that it's also the whole experience of having cancer and the major, serious stress it brings; the fear, the worry, the feeling of being out of control of what's happening to us. The changes in our lives are sudden and huge. Our worlds are turned upside down in a heartbeat and what mattered to us yesterday, (though it was valid in our lives at the time) no longer matters or matters in a very different way. This can be confusing to us. Our "comfy rug of life" is quickly and almost violently snatched from under us. If that isn't enough, then our choices (if we want to take our best shot at continuing this thing called living), is to undergo surgeries, followed by chemo and/or radiation, which can do terrible and damaging things to our bodies. The treatment can bring almost as much terror as the dx.! Most of us, needless to say, make the choice to continue living for as long as possible and until there's something better, drugs, rads and surgeries are it. During all these dreaded processes to cure us, who and what we were before our dx is out there somewhere, floating amoung the fallout of being told we have cancer. Anyone who isn't seriously affected by the stress of having cancer, has to be stress proof!

As hard as we try, we can't always get back into touch with the person we were. Trying is an effort at sanity on some level BUT what we'd really like to do is to scream at the top of our lungs that we WANT OUR LIFE BACK...NOW! My point is that this is so much to deal with while also dealing with treatment and trying to recover physically, it can seem almost unbearable at times. Our emotional recovery often has to wait because in the throes of it, our energies go into surviving treatment(s), healing physically and trying to be "ourselves" at the same time. Whatever that is! We struggle with putting one foot in front of the other, while thinking that we'll have our life back, once treatment ends and we're physically healthy again. But it doesn't happen so easily. I'm convinced that our
emotional recovery is just beginning when treatment ends. It's a lot of mental and emotional work to stay afloat and we may find that we don't always really want our lives back just as they were before. Realizing and accepting where we are and where we need to go isn't easy. It's often confusing, frightening and tearful. I personally think that's perfectly normal for those of us who've been there. Others may not understand it but that's ok. The important thing is that WE understand it and continue to make progess toward the emotional recovery we know we need.

The people around us haven't changed. We have. Our wants, needs and ways of looking at things have changed. We didn't choose to change these things about ourselves but we can choose to make the most it. With patience, persistence and loving ourselves, we can start to make sense of where we've been and where we want to go from here. Warts and all.

When treatment ends is when most of us get the first "alone" feelings and begin to feel left adrift because we're no longer seeing doctors and nurses all the time. Our friends and families fuss over us less and expect us to get on with our lives. They don't understand all the ramifications, why's and wherefore's. The bare truth is that the rest of world more or less kept on spinning while we took a major bumpy detour. We have to remember that people are only going to be empathetic to a point and we really can't expect them to treat us any differently than before. The exception is family and close friends, who have some idea of what we go through but even they often don't really understand the gravity of it. The world pretty much sees that we're up and functioning and back to work, school, play or whatever, so we must be fine and "over it". It's not the rest of the worlds' problem really and that's as it should be. Again, it's WE who have changed. Most everyone else has remained the same. I'm thinking that the squabbles and all at work probably went on before your cancer? Why should they stop now? Everyone there is the same as before and their way of getting the day's work accomplished is the same. The difference is your response to that environement now. Because you're different, it has a different effect on you now. As you sort out your feelings, you may find that you want/need a differnt work environment? If you do, it's up to you to take the steps to get there. That's the hard part: We have to do a lot of this "growth" stuff on our own. A good counselor can certainly help a lot but the choices are still up to us. We may waiver about with avoidance tactics, excuses, crying jags, days of feeling trapped in a vacuum because we can't make choices or take action on our decision, etc.. All that is a perfectly normal part of our recovery and building the life we want, need, love and enjoy, post cancer. I guess this is why growth times in life are more often referred to as growing "pains" because none of it is easy. While we try to make strides and good choices for ourselves, based upon our new perspectives and our desire to move on, we can still feel the tug of "the way it was before" and that's always a quandry for us all. We almost have to go through a grieving process for the old us, so we can let go and continue to make progress in the direction we now want to go.

As you realize more and more of what's making you unhappy and why, you can begin to address each issue. You'll begin to feel more in control of your life and every day will begin to bring new surprises and new avenues for you to explore.

I think this is one reason so many cancer survivor's make changes in their lives. We ARE changed and in a sense "new" and with that, we want different things than before. What we need changes. What we'll tolerate changes. What we expect of ourselves changes. What we have to give to other's changes and this last one is often for the better! LOL

Some days it can feel good to just turn down all the noise and focus our energies onto people and things which have nothing to do with our cancer or our recoveries. A little break of sorts which can be wonderful for taking us "out of ourselves" for a bit. It can give us renewed energy and focus and it's really true that giving comes back multiplied. If nothing else, it gives us a break from our battered selves. Sometimes we can just be trying too hard to carry on with our old idea of "normal" and trying to make it fit now the way it used to fit. If we keep fighting that battle, we'll just become more worn down and more frustrated while remaining in the same compromised position in our lives.

None of that is going to make your pesky co-workers go away or stop getting onto your nerves, of course, but it can help you to understand yourself and your particular needs and give you the courage to make the changes you choose to make regarding your career and other areas of your life as well. Even telling your co-workers to focus on what's really important in life isn't likely to help because they haven't been where you've been and they likely think they're already focusing on what's important to them. Such as it is, we have to accept that other's ideas of what's important, is theirs and legitimately so.
We cannot tell other's what is important to them or make it so. We can foster and support changes for the better in others but we can't make them happen. The only thing we can really control in our lives is our own response to what happens around us or to us. Thinking differently is just futile in my opinion. Otherwise, we'd all be wizards with big wands we could wave in order to change the world in one pass! LOL

When we're compromised and traumatized, as most of us are post cancer, it can be a very difficult and trying time. It seems almost too much that we'd have so much more work to do, once treatment ends and when we're at our lowest but that's the way if falls to us. We can have a little pity party once in a while, (we certainly deserve it!) but beyond that, it's about making progress toward our best lives and today is always a good time to start sorting it all our for ourselves. If it seems overwhelming, then seek the help of a professional with whom you're comfortable and go from there. Getting to peace and perspective is worth every ounce of energy expended and aren't we worth it?

You're just feeling the stresses of the changed you. Don't ignore it. It doesn't just go away of it's own accord. You CAN do this and do it well and there's so much to look forward to, even though it can be tough at times!

Know that you're not alone, as evidenced from the replies to your post here thus far. We all forget stuff, etc. but as SusanAnne proves with her method of coping, just write it all down and keep checking your list often! We simply need to compensate and that's a wonderful way of helping ourselves out!

Keep us posted and remember to just take it one day at a time, one issue at a time and be patient with yourself.

Love, light and laughter,
Ink