Postby [Ana & Alex] » Tue Aug 22, 2017 6:54 am
I don't mean to be disrespectful or to downplay the previous comments.
Hell, I still didn't had to deal with the anxiety of scans or wating for results post treatment or seeing CEA bouncing and all that crap. But bear with me if you may. I'm lucky to have been stage III when diagnosed, so I'm lucky to not know what it means to gave a stage IV diagnose, and my heart goes out to anyone living in that limbo.
For the ones that are NED, this comes often as a theme as well. After treatment, and if I understood this right, the chance of a recurrence is somewhere between 20 and 30%. So, that is even lower than the risk of a person in the gerenal population to develop any type of cancer in the US in their lifetime.
The problem is, after all we've been through, we know what it means if this shit comes back or does spread, while normal people who hadn't had any contact with cancer, see this as an abstract problem and have no trouble smoking that cigarette, ignoring that pain in the lower back or eating ham everyday.
Post traumatic stress may even play a role with it, as some studies have shown. Survivorship is hard work on the mind no doubt.
But try your best to keep rational and enjoy what you have been given. If you worry all the time, the time you still have left will be wasted with problems that aren't even real at the moment. Everyone has pains and problems, even the ones who don't know what cancer means.
A full quality of life and permanent well being is more a mirage than a reality. We all balance in between feeling shitty and feeling good has hell. Sometimes we live during a while on one if the edges, ones more than others.
Plus. We are all going to die and no-one knows when. That is a fact. And I'm sorry, but there are still things in this world way worse than cancer - so try to stay positive, grateful, and enjoy the day with the life quality you have left!
And if ranting helps getting you back in the balance, rant away! We are here to listen and we do get it when in some days there isn't just any way around it!
Sorry if I'm patronising. Just don't want to see you waste energies and not so bad days with things we cannot change...
Hope you're feeling better..
Love,
Ana
Dx @ 29 yo. Mum (2 y.o.) & Wife
12/2016: Rectal AdenoCa G2. CEA 4.3. RAS Wild. MSS. IIIB.
01 - 03/2017: 28 RTx + CHT 2,5 g/d Capecit.
03 - 06/2017: Suplemments and Cimetidine.
05/2017: TME/TAMIS + permanent Colostomy CEA 0.5
05/2017: ypT2N2aM0 (4/15), good cCR, limited pCR
06 - 8/2017: 4x CapOx 3,5 g/d (2x Oxi reduced to 80%)
09 -11/2017: 3x Capecit. monotherapy 4g/d
12/2017: Aspirin, Vit. D3, Curcumin, Multivitamin.