If you had the courage what questions would you have liked to ask?
Hi, I am a breast cancer survivor and currently supporting someone going through their journey with breast cancer.
I have been asked to give a talk to a group about my journey with cancer and that of a supporter.
I want to give as much value to this group as I possibly can and I just want to ask the women and men in this group who are going through their journey or who have gone through their journey with breast cancer
1. If you had the courage what questions would you have asked?
2. What questions did you most want the answer to.
3. What information supported you the most.
4. What were you most afraid of?
Thank you in advance.
Comments
Thank you Bella I really appreciate your reply. Your opinions matter and it doesn't matter if someone else has a different response. It is by asking all questions and getting all of the answers that we get a full picture so that everyone can be supported. Sometimes we don't even know what to ask. This also depends on how you react to the diagnosis. For me personally, I continued on for 2 weeks going to work and the only one that knew was my husband. I was in complete denial and stayed that way. I was what would have been the model patient, I did everything I was told, said to myself (unconsciously of course) don't bother anyone, and certainly don't ask for help. I went through my journey as a process and didn't feel into it at all, only to discover that I would be hit with it further down the line. My response was as a result of both past trauma and learned behaviour. I am so grateful now that I have been able to clear that pattern of behaviour and I can live a life free from the guilt, shame, anger, and overwhelm that I had been living with from childhood.
Hi internalsolutions, I just saw your reply now. Thanks for that. I hope all is going well for you :)
Hi internalsolutions,
I've just completed chemo for breast cancer. I would answer as follows:
1. If you had the courage what questions would you have asked?
"Realistically, is this cancer going to recur?" (It didn't feel appropriate to ask too many questions at the start when we had to do other tests to find out what we were dealing with)
2. What questions did you most want the answer to.
Again, I wanted info and stats relating to a possible recurrence/mets/secondaries, in order to know what I was realistically looking at long term, but it wasn't really possible to get that at the start (had to do a breast MRI, do the oncotype test post-surgery, etc. to see the full picture)
3. What information supported you the most.
Daffodil Society info session and documentation folder
Facebook groups (private) relating to breast cancer
4. What were you most afraid of?
Pre-chemo - hair loss
During chemo - watching the person I recognised disappear from my mirror - I found it quite scary to slowly become someone I didn't know
Post-chemo - the possibility of recurrence, and the possibility of Tamoxifen's potential side-effects impacting my day-to-day life
Just my opinions - someone else might answer totally differently. Best of luck with it :)