My acupuncturist told me today that I am tense. “What have you got to be tense about?” she teased. I immediately blamed the two articles I have due in the next week, plus the book I am writing.
But that did not ring true. I have spent my life fighting deadlines. Why would they start bothering me now?
Then, she said, “I think beneath this all there is some anger.”
Bingo.
Four years after my diagnosis, I am finally starting to get royally ticked off that I had cancer. One catalyst for this anger is that I came across the statistics from the National Cancer Institute estimating that 12.7 percent of all women will face breast cancer in their lives. So that means that 87.3 percent of all women will NOT face breast cancer.
After being positive and upbeat and shrugging this thing off for years, I am now starting to ask, “Why me?”
But why now?
I think I used all my positive energy to fight this thing and am only now feeling safe enough to get cranky about being selected for this elite club.
I am also facing my various doctors’ visits and mammograms and blood tests and all the whooha that we all deal with three or four times a year. I am tired of it. Tired of these regular worries about what might come. Are they going to find something this year? Has it come back after all this time?
Remaining positive is wearing on me. My husband says there’s no reason to think they will find anything this time—I am feeling fine and have no symptoms, yada, yada, yada. But, I tell him, if there is no risk, why do they do the tests at all?
And then that ticks me off. I remember so many friends who passed their tests and then ended up with a cough, a bump, a whatever, and the nasty stuff was back.
Yet, others catch something early and take care of it. I have talked with women who are years past a recurrence of triple negative, so a recurrence is not a death sentence.
Because my original diagnosis was not as frightening as most—a small tumor and no positive nodes—I sometimes have felt that I am not as justified in complaining as others. A friend recently told me that somebody had called hers a “fake cancer” because it was hormone positive and less than a centimeter. But, even though she has a better prognosis, she still faces the possibility of cancer returning. We all do. It happened once and we are forever on our guard.
That stinks.
Plus, I wonder, if this did come back, what would I do? Go through chemo again? I am truly not sure. I might just take my savings and hop a plane to travel the world.
In a few days I hope to post an update on being four years cancer-free. Still, I would rather not be dealing with all this at all.
I am pretty sure I am not alone in that feeling.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jane Lane and MeredithMagStudies, Patricia Prijatel. Patricia Prijatel said: Check out my blog at breastcancer.org: http://community.breastcancer.org/blog/my-belated-breast-cancer-anger/ [...]
I understand the feeling – anger about being told they don’t do scans to check for recurrence, but finding it early is important. Anger when people say “just get on with your life” when that life has been unalterably changed. Its embarrassing to admit that I am feeling that anger when I should just be grateful to be alive, to have had the insurance to be treated with the best that medicine can offer, to have had a husband who was very supportive. Still I am angry at the callous treatment I received by some in the medical field. The nurse who wouldn’t let me speak to my Oncologist when I called to report a fever, her response “what do you do sit around taking your temperature all the time?” Misdiagnosed with stage 0 only to find out it was stage 3. How did I find out? When I removed the bandages and saw that the scar from surgery was much larger then expected. I could go on but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t change anything. So I push it down and think of the good things – like my husband.
Hi Patricia
Glad to hear from your experience. i am in remission for a year now and is having a quarterly following up check up. i noticed that you have the type of cancer like i do, a hormone negative type. My doctor told me that i have more chance than the hormone positive type to have a recurrence.
I had a mastectomy on my right breast, a radio therapy, and a chemo. That was a year of hard ship and the fear of having a recurrence is haunting me daily. Love to hear from you more concerning the type you had.
Thida
I understand–I was diagnosed with DCIS. After going through treatment–I opted for a mastectomy with reconstruction instead of radiating that breast. When I went to see the oncologist after everything was done he told me: so you had DCIS–ductal carcinoma in situ and the “in situ” means “just kidding”. That reverberates with me in a very negative way. If it’s not really cancer why are we zapping it with radiation? Why not just do lumpectomy and leave it at that?
I have so many blessings–excellent medical care, a wonderful supportive husband, great friends, overall great health, etc, etc, but I am now coming to terms with the great ordeal I have been through.
I was so positive through out treatment and now I am hitting a negativity wall. I know other women have worse outlooks and I feel guilty that I feel as I do.
I suppose it is a process. I will go forward expecting the best but being realistic about my health and testing.
You’re not alone!
I’ve been free for a year. I was so nervous in June when I had my first tests after the surgery in June 2009.
I’m not thinking about my situation every day or all the time.
But every now and then I feel frustrated because the medicine gives me side effects but I can live with them…Not fun but I can manage. But 5 years…oh boy, that’s a long time but a woman got to do what a woman got to do…
I made a series postings of my ‘before – after operation’ with lots of photographs if you’re interested.
You find my blog here > BLOGitse
I hope my postings help other people…
Finally, a post reflecting my feelings Your blog is the way I felt from the beginning. But, I did not want to appear ungratful for receiving one of the less threatening dianosis. I wonder if the Cancer God will “strike me down” for my display of anger over my diagnosis, now? I doubt it.
My doctors, all three, told me how lucky I was. Somehow luck and breast cancer, to me. are at odds in my brain. Since, my disease was estrogen positive and under 2cm with no nodes or vascular, I felt uneasy about complaining and asking WHY ME! So, I walk the path with a smile, new found energy rooted in fear and manage all the insult of check ups hurdled my way with a positive attitude
Now, 1 1/2 year later, being a more sober person, dealing with the insult of check ups, call backs and the expense of dealing with this disease, I get more angry. Glad I can finally say the word – MAD and breast cancer in one sentence.
My recurrence rate is low. Yet, my fear of reccurrence heights with every check up. The longer my recovery- my fear writes a script of “what if’s” in the back of my mind that slowly grinds away at hope.
Logically, a genetic disease will be uneffected by a positive emotion. Besides, some days, I do not feel like being positive-just mad. Yes, mad! But, I keep quiet.
Why? As I read the post on breastcancer.org, I quickly realised the many facets of the disease. Reading the fear based comments by so many other women who do not have my diagnosis, I understand why my doctors used the work luck when me.
AMP
Thank you all for your comments. I am glad I was able to be positive as long as I was, but I sure understand now why others can’t seem to muster the energy for those happy vibes. Cancer has changed my life in many positive ways, but it it not the best gift ever, is it? And Thida, check out my blog at http://hormonenegative.blogspot.com/ — it focuses on hormone-negative disease. Best wishes to you all. Pat
Although I have been on this site for months this is the first time I have read the blogs. Interesting that one of the first ones I read is the very issue I am struggling with. I, too, had the “good” kind of BC, DCIS, had NSM, clean nodes and reconstruction. Breezed through it, was all finished and then just hit a wall. I was so angry!!! I realized that this was not going to just be months out of my life, but a never ending experience. Every follow up appointment just seems to make it worse. The biggest thing for me? I want my body back! I no longer want to share it with every doctor, surgeon, radiologist, nurse, etc. who don’t understand what it is like to bare yourself in that way while you feel fear at what they will find. The straw on the camel’s back was prior to my exchange surgery, when they took me back to pre-op, my PS had left photos of my bare breasts laying face up on my bed for all to see. That was the point they no longer felt like my breasts, and a part of my femininity, but something in a petri dish instead.
This is the first I’ve stumbled upon this blog and feel as if you all are writing about me. Today is my one year anniversary. Had the “good” kind. Those very words were what gave me hope and the positive energy to get through bmx and reconstruction. Everything was upbeat. The hope of beating this and putting hope into others(medical profession) for getting you through it. I have a supportive husband and children who can only support what they understand. Now, its as the flood gates have opened and any negative experience that you think you have put behind you and moved on with resurfaces all at once to deal with. Feels like a puzzle that has taken months to put together has now landed all over the floor and only you are left to pick up the pieces and sort through them and decide what to discard and what to mend.
Newly diagnosed and blogging as well, I try to make fun of the incompetence of Cal. health care, but wow!~ PET scan radiologist said I had lymph cancer, not breast cancer. Ist surgeon appointment before chemo registered me in the fertility clinich and didn’t realize that someone had cancelled my 3-week long, desperate fore, appointment. Doc didn’t know what RR meant regarding breast cancer-Recurrence Rate. and I could go on and do. You are the first angry blog I have enjoyed. Thank you, and here’s to the positives about being negative! http://pinkpeeca.blogspot.com
new blog for a smile. http://pinkpeeca.blogspot.com
regarding top ten crazy chemo things.
Oh, my gosh… Patricia, you’ve expressed what I’m feeling. Now almost 4 years out from my diagnosis, I still have a sense of foreboding. My diagnosis and treatment haunt me. I was so angry in the 6 months immediately following my diagnosis (during my active treatment), that I couldn’t possibly be that angry now. But everything else you said is exactly the way I feel, even now. Thanks for saying it so much better than I could.
i was diagnosed with breast cancer in august 2010.i have since had my recer part of the processonstruction chemo and radio.i was positive and strong throughout all this.my emotions are all over the place .at present i feel very angry and its my part of the processner who gets the brunt of it all and hes been a rock.is anger part of the process.