Cancer Support Thread #71 - here to help if you’re dealing with cancer in any shape or form, come in and say hello.

[Brassica]

Hi again everyone and welcome to the 71st new thread for cancer support.

All those who are currently being treated, have been treated in the past, have worries and concerns and/or are having tests are very welcome to pull up a chair and chat, vent, rant, pour hearts out, share milestones and anything else! We are a very friendly and all-too experienced bunch on here and there are no questions too small or silly to ask.

Our previous thread is here .

Anyone with any type of cancer (female or male) is welcome. And we will hold your hand if you're waiting to find out whether or not you have cancer at all.

If you've got a loved one with cancer then your best place for support is probably on the Life-Limiting Illness board.

Please can I invite current members to reintroduce yourselves below for latest situations and stories so far.

brassica looks like we might be holding hands across the chemo finish line! I've absolutely no confidence at all that my bloods are going to be behaving on Friday as I've been feeling a bit crap for most of this cycle...but then at the end of 1st cycle I felt fab and bloods were dire so who knows!
bridget .....what?! Nooooo! .My blood test is Friday so party central at mine on Thursday after all then!
Thank goodness for the lovely brassica who keeps track of everyone.....I don't think I have the brain capacity to do that even when not chemoed up.
Wishing good things to all xx

Sorry I don't think I worded my post well. I do have a date for surgery (27th September). I just meant the waiting for the surgery is hard. I saw a lovely nurse Monday who talked it all through with me and I'm feeling a bit more positive now.

It's great to hear some positive stories on here. I hope they continue.

Sorry I don't think I worded my post well. I do have a date for surgery (27th September). I just meant the waiting for the surgery is hard. I saw a lovely nurse Monday who talked it all through with me and I'm feeling a bit more positive now.

It's great to hear some positive stories on here. I hope they continue.

WTF fingers crossed for you bloods and has the codeine worked? I am stretching like mad at all opportunities .
The BCN says the oncologist I will see is a lovely guy who is very young and keen and up to date. I was always expecting to have chemo and it was sold to me as an insurance policy against the potential of unknown cancer elsewhere in the body. So I actually would feel quite anxious if they now said it wasn't appropriate.

Diary are you having mastectomy or lumpectomy? It is hard waiting but at the end you know they are taking the cancer out at last.

Trumpton do you have your appointment through for results yet? Look after yourself meanwhile.

meercat sorry about the family stuff. How is your DD?

Brassica hoping your blood does what it's supposed to do for number 14 x

Skap
Next Wednesday for results . I asked for a late appointment as I need to take MIL shopping ( she’s 96 and lives alone and loves to go to Marksies ) I didn’t take her this week as DH away and I was a bit wobbly .

Soo... they said just to come any time and they would send an open appointment...now I am trying not to panic !

Got seri strips off armpit this morning ,they were catching , looks good .

Did your physio give you an exercise sheet . I have been setting the alarm to do them every three hours !

Ah, good to have the date fixed Diary. Apologies if you’ve already said somewhere but will it be a mx or lumpectomy?

Good to see you back and sounding perky fatandlumpy.

Great news from the doctor Skap! I hope you won’t have to wait long for the oncologist appointment but it must be a bit hard on you not knowing all this time whether you’ll be facing chemo or not. Do you have a preference to go for it if the arguments are borderline?

You don’t need to have a word with yourself Redspook. I suspect your treatment was more traumatic than what many of us (like me) go through - yes you’ve got to the end and that’s something we’d all like, but you had quite dramatic, isolating and invasive therapy performed at short notice so if anything I imagine you need a bit of sympathy to process it and come out the other side.

WTF I am the same with the blood count - on several weeks I was fully expecting to be told I didn’t make the grade, but last week I had fewer side effects and felt more well and robust than for a while. Go figure. Another way in which cancer messes with our heads!!

I am still experiencing vertigo. It came on two months ago after an MRI and I get wobbly quite a lot of the time. My oncologist has referred me to a neurologist now but while I wait for that I went to see a local physio earlier in the week to see if he could help. Long story short, he didn’t help at all and seemed to think I had misdiagnosed myself. His treatment consisted of pulling my ears and laying his hands on my head/neck. Eventually I demonstrated what happens to me when I get a vertigo episode and he agreed I needed to see someone who had experience of vertigo... Frustrating as I couldn't have been much clearer in booking the appointment what I was looking for!

Today my husband and I are off for lunch to a new place in Covent Garden that has a cheese conveyor belt...mmm, cheese!

Have a good day everyone x

Cross posted with you there Skap so don’t bother answering my question about chemo again!

brassica, your kind words have just made me cry (in a good way I think 😳). Thank you x

Just back from my one stop shop for the breast clinic ( 3 hours )
Thankfully the lump / hardness is scar tissue in the area of previous breast surgery .

VictoriaBun
That’s so brilliant . Smiling like a smiley thing here x

Trumpton
Thank you

Yay for scar tissue victoria!

Same treatment rationale for me skap. I haven't used the codeine yet as no bathroom action for me since Tuesday......it's all or nothing here! Good that you've got a personable oncologist. My BCN warned me that mine has a very serious demeanour......she was right.

brassica I hope they get to the bottom of your vertigo swiftly....it doesn't sound very nice and definitely something you could do without right now.
Cheese conveyor belt sounds too good to be true!

redspook be kind to yourself. You've been through the mill and no mistake.

trumpton hope you're managing to distract yourself from the imminent results day.

I'm out for coffee and cake with a friend in a bit and then my son is coming over to cook for us both later, so a nice day all in all.

WTF99

Yep. Over the moon 🌙🌙🌙

Brassica and Skap My DD is amazing and strong and independent but it is hard seeing her going through an all round tough time.

The vertigo thing sounds horrible. Not sure why the physio thought that pulling your ears would do to help! I have never heard of that as a treatment for anything but there you go. My Sis-in-law is suffering with something similar at the moment as it is making her feels really unwell.

Having treatment postponed because of bloods must be very frustrating. It didn't happen to me although I think it was a close run thing a couple of times. When you are counting down the weeks until treatment is over the last thing you need is any delays.

Hello again all! I'm feeling pleased but incredulous atm as I haven't had a phone call from the chemo ward, so it looks like my blood has made the grade for chemo #4 tomorrow!

So, good luck to WTF and Brassica for blood tests tomorrow. Brassica, sorry about the vertigo, that sounds horrible - hope you have a very delicious lunch tomorrow.

VictoriaBun I'm so pleased for you, it's great to get good news on this thread!

Redspook I'm echoing what others have said about not needing to apologise for feeling distressed and talking about it here. There's no pecking order for who feels worst! I don't want to make you cry tho'

Trumpton waiting for results is scary. Hope you can have some pleasant distractions till Wednesday, and that the shopping trip with your MIL goes well.

Diary you've got the waiting game now too, glad the nurse was lovely.

meercat I am sorry your DD is having a hard time, of course you will feel very affected by it. And the hair thing is miserable too. I must say I am kind of fed up with being bald now, the novelty has gone, and it's chilly, and I do feel a bit self-conscious about taking my hat off in public. But as it could be April before I have a full head of hair again, I'll have to suck it up!

Skap the cording does sound nasty, do you think the painful massage helped at all? Will your DP be any good at doing it?

Greetings and good wishes to anyone I've left out.

Bridget sounds daft to say that I am pleased for you that your treatment can go ahead! Ordinarily you wouldn't wish it on anyone but given that it is needed, sooner it is done and dusted the better.

VictoriaBun Fantastic news. So pleased for you.

Special best wishes for all who are playing the waiting game. One of the worst bits of the whole cancer horror.

That is great VictoriaBun and also Bridget, different reasons for being pleased but we all like good news here!

The cheese conveyor belt was awesome. I recommend for anyone in/visiting London 🧀.

Just to keep the whinge ratio up, I’ve got bone pain this evening from the WBC jabs. Which I take to mean they’re stimulating my bones into producing some more neutrophils and that’s good, but it’s so bloody uncomfortable waiting for the nurofen to kick in.

Does anyone else here get rage when people casually mention things like ‘you must be nearly finished now’? It grinds my gears. When you are still 3 cycles away from finishing, and getting a bit stuck on making progress, to have someone unthinkingly suggest it’s basically all over bar the shouting is so vexing. I won’t even welcome it the night before my last treatment to be honest given hatching chickens and all that. Clearly they can’t know what it’s like, am I being hard on them?

Brassica no-one has said anything so crass to me! Anyone who did, has no idea how nasty it is having cancer treatment, or how long it takes to recover from the side effects. And then there's all the anxiety about monitoring, and the very real possibility of recurrence.

Sorry you have bone pain, I've had that too from the injections. Paracetamol did help for me.

Brassica was the physio attempting the Epley Manoeuvre for your vertigo as it can be ear related? It's meant to move the fluid around somehow. No use at all if your vertigo isn't ear related!
I've had vertigo myself as well as dizziness and they are of course quite different. Both seem to run in the family.
The crassist thing said to me so far was by someone I believed to be a good friend. I told her by email six weeks ago, just after I had told DC. She replied that she was there for me and of course breast cancer isn't the sinister thing it used to be. So that was me told. I've not heard a word since, not even a text, not even when i was in hospital. AIBU to be disappointed in her

Brassica Skap Thank you both for voicing something that has been bugging me but I couldn't quite put it inti words.

It is when people say "Oh so chemo and rads is over so you can now put it all behind you" Well I so wish it was that easy and sorry if you think I am milking it but somehow another 6 months of three weekly Herceptin fusions and another four years of hormone suppressing drugs plus monitoring for as long as it take dies nit quite feel like all over!! So, Brassica for me you are not being hard on them. Unless of course I am too

Maybe you have to experience it to know how it feels, but then I wouldn't wish that on anyone

Hello all! I don’t post much these days as I had my op at the end of January and had clear scans at the end of May. I’m still having regular blood tests and oncology appointments to deal with the side effects of my immunotherapy, but I effectively regard myself as “cured”.

But, but, but.... I’ve been crying pretty much every day for the last 2 weeks. I’m really lucky to have a big support network through work, so I’ve sat there and said (and sobbed) “but I’m better! Why aren’t I coping?!” And everyone I’ve seen has said : you can’t just switch from what you’ve been through to “back to normal” after 6 months - no one does.

So I just wanted to say to everyone who is beating themselves up because their treatment is finished but they’re not conquering the world- you’re not supposed to, I don’t think that’s how it works. “Healing” is a much bigger process than finishing a course of treatment. And well-meaning friends are lovely, but they really don’t have a clue.

Lots of love to everyone XX

Toofar sending much sympathy for this phase in the illness - I guess it's a bit like PSTD, maybe? Glad you have kind and sensible colleagues at work. And thanks for the heads up, for those of us still in the treatment stage, that emotional after effects are to be expected.

PTSD even!

PTSD, even!

Goodness, I'm on the ball today (not)