Every so often someone takes us back to the feelings we experienced when we first found out we had breast cancer. We remember the feelings of shock, panic, denial, anger, isolation, sadness and most of all the feeling that life, as we knew it, is gone.
We feel out of control as we make appointments to visit cancer specialists, surgeons and oncologists we don’t know but have to trust to cure us or put us in remission from this disease. We wait for the scheduled visits, we wait to be seen. We wait for the tests the doctors schedule us for to confirm or clarify the suspected diagnosis and the extent of our breast cancer. We wait to hear the results of the tests and the proposed treatment. We wait for the surgery date, the results of what was found during surgery and what additional treatments we will need. We wait and we wait and during the waiting our moods swing from confidence to fearing the worst and everything in between.
Diane’s email last week took me back. She is a few weeks into her breast cancer journey. She is in the waiting zone. Diane described waiting as the hardest part of the whole breast cancer experience so far.
She found my site, www.noboobsaboutit.com, while surfing the web trying to find more information about her breast cancer and looking for whatever it is we look for during the night when we can’t sleep and we are trying to control the “What ifs.”
Diane wrote to tell me how important reading the stories of survivors was for her. As she put it, “I don’t know if the people that are blogging and tweeting realize how much new people use other survivor experiences to help us on our journey.” I think all of us who have gone through breast cancer know what she means. Survivors give the newly diagnosed hope just by having survived!
For those survivors reading this, please send your stories to: jean@noboobsaboutit.com You may never know directly those you help, but, as Diane confirmed, “Survivor stories are tools for the newly diagnosed trying to get through treatment.”
Thanks for the reminder Diane! We’re here when you need us…just write and we will answer.
Source: Jean Campbell, www.noboobsaboutit.com
