Cancer changes you forever. Even if you’re lucky enough, like me, to have the type of cancer that can be cured. Your body is not the same. Life is not the same. It can feel very isolating when friends and family don’t understand this.
#graphicmedicine #cansky
#graphicmedicine #cansky
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#cansky
Silly (to me) hair changes aside, other changes were positive for me too.
Can you get the body to a point where it can defend itself.
My cancer is not curable but for the moment is controllable.
I feel I don't know my body any more. I can't be sure of its reactions. I can't decode the way it behaves with any confidence & other people don't understand how your sense of sureness has been undermined.
It's an added sadness.
So scanxiety is my reality for the foreseeable future.
I can sense the eagerness to get back to 'normal', and while I understand it, I wish I had a way to convey this to them.
Btw, I did Kadcyla after surgery too.
You’re right, it is hard for people to understand who have not experienced the loss.
I have become more compassionate toward those with long term and more severe health conditions. ❤️🩹
Gut check time..
Having cancer is tough, surviving it is tough too.
Yes it changes you forever.
You now know:
- what really matters,
- you are a warrior.
Many of us didn’t understand how your body changes in subtle but life changing ways.
Going to enjoy life for as long as I can.
You're very special 💕
You are alive and cancer free, but mind and body may never be fully whole.
It's a struggle
I have neuropathy. I had significant hearing loss that got significantly worse during treatment & my tinnitus got worse.
I am very lucky but my body took a hit as did my brain
I can feel swelling under my arm pit sometimes and I need to stretch it out and remember to wear my compression sleeve.
From Canada 🇨🇦 with love ❣️
Wishing you good health.
I just went to my SIL's funeral this past weekend. she survived cancer 15 years back, only for the treatments to have done irreversible damage to her kidneys and liver :(
I guess I'm just more effected by the funeral then I thought
This applies to all of us, cancerpatient yet or not. The shock can be used mindfully. Do the things you have dreamt of, cherish and let in the flashes of happiness, small and big. - and talk about that it'll help people talk too.
Yes, forever changed & forever worried it will come back or be worse. Yes, forever changed in that I found out who my 'real' friends are, those that I can truly count on.
But yes, forever changed in that I try to be the better friend & resource to those dealing w this.
I’m glad I beat the disease but it continues to be a lot.
Support the Fighters
Admire the Survivors
Honor the Fallen
I almost lost my sister to it, and we fought tooth and nail together to beat it - so far.
But, we both came out the other side fundamentally different people. 1/2
So, yes people don't understand, and yes we can educate them if we have the energy to do so, but a part of me is grateful they havn't HAD to learn the hard way
I get it.
Still hanging in here, awaiting my second disability claim from the VA to be denied.
IF chemoradiation is part of your treatment plan, see if you can get a port. It's awesome.
One thing at a time & all the best to you.
Was the mouth drying out and being sore and blistered a problem for you? Like was swallowing hard? That's what I'm most afraid of right now
Once the sword of Damocles has hung over you, you know you are never out of its reach
I was diagnosed when I was 27 I’m 65….. 🥳
I survived. The vast majority of my relationships did not. I don’t even miss them, they’re missing out in the life reboot.