Where to go from here...

cwcad said:

Your question can be answered in a word....
Badly. I understand completely the feeling of being alone. No one can know what runs through your mind while all of this is happening. The good news is that even if I have been handling the problems badly I am still here. So I take that as a positive. That is what I do. Find a positive and build on it.

Finding a commonality among all this carnage of human flesh and personal feelings provides me a motivator that comes from my midwest farm religious background which emphasized guilt as a major motivator. Reading of all the problems that others have endured pale my story which is with out much drama. I did the treatments of chemo and radiation, suffered through mucous and dry throat, lost more weight than the average man weighs, and did not swallow any food for a year or more. But all of that is done with and I am returning back to what I once was by accepting the new normal.

Guilt has a way with me that provides a motivator. I guess I did not have it so bad? Look at this other poster who has family drama or worried about a job loss, visible scarring and loss of flesh, or what ever horrible malady has happened upon this participating cancer victim of this forum. It could be worse! But it wasn't!! It is what it is.!!! I pretty much feel that I did not have a choice(even though I did) once the cancer treatment started. I certainly did not understand what was really going to happen to me before, during and after my treatment.

I was a head in the sand type of cancer victim. It made the journey harder for me. Not understanding the loss of control of my body was debilitating my recovery. I have done a lot of things to get better after cancer. Coming to this site to read, learn, and understand exactly what I went through has helped me significantly. I am better and I am not alone thanks in no small part to you and the other members of this forum.

stevenl said:

Healed
Dasri,

I have not gone through my chemo and rads yet, but I can tell you this , It seems that most everyone around me seems oddly to think I am cured. I had neck dissection to remove the mass on my neck, SCC primary right tonsil. This is stage 4 and they think since the surgery was a success that the chemo and radiation are precautionary. Gotta tell you if they were precautionary I wouldn't be going through this hell. Don't know how to convince everyone that it is still serious. So while I don't have any suggestions for you, I know where you are coming from.

Best wishes,
Steve

ratface said:

Forward is a great answer
I'm scheduled to go back to work next week. I anticipate a lot of questions. I'm sure the number one question will be "Are you going to live" The answer to this will for appx. the next ten years if I beat the odds is that nobody knows. This cancer as well as any cancer can and does kill. Society forgets that. All they hear is some "Pink walkathon" where everything is hunky dory and everyone survives. Absolutely not true, many people die from breast cancer. Head and neck cancer is the stepchild cancer, no races, no walkathons. Even if your treatment goes 100% you are still living from scan to scan, perhaps no different than the rest of society in some respects. I assume it gets easier as the scans go by.It obviously makes me angry when someone asks "When are you comming back to work" I want to say "When I damn well please and am ready" The only response I have to how are you is "I'm OK for the moment" I've had two doctors tell me in the last two weeks, "Don't worry be happy". I know they mean well, but what absolute ****. How many of you have been told that "Bad things happen to good people" More doctor ****. Doctors, all we want is to be treated like intelligent individuals who can actually grasp complex facts.

The treatment is the easy part. What I'm finding out now is that post treatment is a longer road with many emotional issues to deal with. back to my previous post, it seems this is a learning curve that some of you old timers have mastered. I'm quite sure i'm still in the angry mode. Question I asked at group with little response, "How do you keep fear at bay and just live a semi-normal life again?

Kent Cass said:

post-treatment
Dasri- considering what we all have been thru, comparative to the others we work with and socialize with, they probably cannot relate to us. And, that does make it difficult for us. Bottom-line: maybe it's the treatment's side-effects of suffering, or maybe it's where the extreme meds take us, or maybe it's just having to stare the Spectre of Death in the face every waking hour for many months- NO, Dasri, it is all of the above. To have survived what each of us have, with head and neck, is to have survived a most trying of ordeals. We all know this to be fact. And to get-on with our lives like very little has happened, when we know otherwise- not the easiest of reckonings. At best, we must be so very thankful that we have survived, as we all have. And it is this which we all must focus on, as we move forward, albeit with knowing that C has been fact within each of us, and may return, and we deal with the continued side-effects. We are still alive, Dasri, and that is the most important fact. I struggle with life, now, over 15-months of being a survivor. And my continued life is a struggle for me. Still, I cast breath, and thank the Lord each night for another day of life. You still survive, Dasri, and that fact outweighs all else. What you have survived is a very large battle, which most people cannot fathom, and may not have been able to survive as you have. All which is inadequate, or shallow, is with them- not you. Realize the enormity of what you have survived. Then, please, move forward.

Ratface- excellent of you to contribute what you have in this thread. Such as that is very much why we are all active on this forum.

Believe.

kcass