to be shit scared of getting cancer?

[watchingthebox]

n/c for this as worried I might cause offence to people have been affected, and this is really not my intention I promise

3 weeks and a third person in the public eye has died of this horrible disease. lemmy from motorhead, david bowie and today we have lost alan rickman :( ....all only in their late 60's . the stats are not good, and seem to be getting worse. isn't it now 50% of us are expected to get it?

it seems indiscriminate, you can be healthy, normal weight, not smoke, be fit etc and you can still get it

there just seems to be no escaping it....I am 36 and remember years ago it seemed to be quite rare and then only if people were heavy smokers and / or / elderly. but sorry to sound morbid people just seem to be getting it left right and centre nowadays

i had a scare myself a couple of years ago, found a lump, needed a biopsy, thankfully was nothing. but i will never forget those few weeks of hell it made me physically ill, I lost tons of weight, couldn't eat or sleep or function. since then it has been on my mind a lot.

death itself actually doesn't scare me. if i dropped dead tomorrow then so be it. what scares me is the idea of losing a loved one. or it happening to me, falling ill and being told i am going to die. and sort of, waiting to die. possibly going through treatment getting my hopes up and it doesnt work. again I am sorry if this post is morbid or offensive to anyone ...I do suffer from health anxiety so that doesn't help

LightTheLamp I agree with that. My folks died in their mid 60s, and although I wish they'd each had another 10 years, I'd take what happened over having them demented and/or physically incapacitated into very old age. They had good deaths and I'm very grateful for that.

I had cancer in my twenties. I worry about it coming back and I'm oddly resigned to it, even though my survival odds are good. I don't worry for me but for my family. I have two young children and one is so young that he'd have no memories of me at all, if I were to die in the next few years.

My answer to it all is that I don't deny my feelings or fears. Doing that only increases their frequency and power over me because they come back stronger, again and again. I acknowledge them briefly when they affect me - 'Yes, it would be bloody awful if I died and DS2 had no memories of me' - and then I carry on with whatever I was doing. They've lessened a LOT since I just accepted I'm never going to get rid of the worry and I've found my way to live with it.

Op I hear ya, I'm terrified too and suffer from health anxiety. Last year I self diagnosed breast, nasal , bladder and brain cancer. Of course I haven't got any of these things. I did visit my gp though for a breast exam (and then another for a second opinion a few months later) who both sent me away with a shed load of reassurance incidentally. I had an aunt who died of breast cancer my age twenty years ago and I think this is where my anxiety stems from.

I am ok at the minute, I don't watch any programmes about cancer, I resist googling, I hide things on social media that bang in about it (she says reading a thread about cancer ). I just want to live in pure ignorance because it helps me deal with it.

I also find keeping myself busy helps and exercising. I give myself a good talking to now and again too. It's silly because I was at death's door a few years ago with some other hideous condition but I wasn't worried about that!

It's been nice to read everybody's responses and see that an awful lot of us have the same fears.

oldblood I think that about my dcs, if I died would they remember me....its so morbid

tanfastic yeah keeping busy helps. trouble is when I get depressed and anxious it stops me going out (she says, typing away on mn on my 3rd day of barely even leaving the house) which just perpetuates feeling depressed

although its far too cold to go out today apart from school run, so I am going to make myself do an exercise video and then clean the house.

50% may get it but 50% of those are now cured so that's only 25% of the population will die from it. Now add in the old folk who years ago wouldn't even have lived long enough to get cancers so it doesn't seem so bad. Those old folk have to die of something anyway.

I've had cancer. It's bloody scary. But it's amazing what medical science can do nowadays.
Check your breasts, go for smears, be vigilant but don't let it rule your life and let it spoil the life you do have. Get it into perspective. We don't worry about getting into a car every time we do, but that's risky too.

Live life to the full and appreciate what you do have.

great post grapejuice - hope you are ok now

yeah I check my breasts and go for smears. (I absolutely hate smears, not because of the procedure but because i always go into a panic after a smear until I get the letter saying things are ok ) ....I absolutely dread when I am older and have to go for mammograms

I guess that and eating healthy, keeping fit etc is all I can do