I hate writing this but it’s so misleading I just had to say something. You see I know it’s misleading and I just had to try and negate it.
Let me begin by saying that I don’t have full information about this lady’s condition, so I am NOT criticising her. I know the shock she’s experiencing and my heart goes out to her. I also don’t have the newspaper so I can’t read the detail, I don’t know what she has been told. What treatment she’s having.
I do know that what’s written in that headline has the potential to cause women a lot of fear that might make them scared to go for help, and scared not to go for help.
That diagnosis is not an automatic death sentence anymore. There is treatment, and to be honest if you can tolerate the tablets and bear the blood tests and scans, it’s rather wonderful. Inside three months I’m seeing great improvements and one of my nurses couldn’t believe how much things had improved, or how much I’d changed.
It’s a life-long treatment and people can be on it for decades. A friend of a friend has been on it for around 30 years. You’re so well cared for it isn’t true.
The eternal optimist in me says that they’re finding new treatments all the time and a cure is out there somewhere. Recent advances and trials in the UK have shown that not everyone needs Chemo after a mastectomy. Up to 90% don’t. So you don’t even have to automatically assume that you’ll have that horrible treatment.
Comfort I hope
Just please don’t take this headline to heart. The truth is so different, and different for each person, and that newspaper is being sensational. She possibly didn’t say any of this. I wonder if she even knows!
Also why is she wearing a winter hat and jacket in a blisteringly hot summer? They’re trying to insinuate a lot here. Looking at the teeth in both pictures, is that even the same person? These are good questions.
You also don’t have to worry if you didn’t rush to your doctor at once, or even quickly, according to my consultant the percentage that go at once is just over 30%. I didn’t go at once and expected a terrible telling off, all the consultant said to me was “Of course you didn’t it’s terrifying. It’s okay”.
I had the same diagnosis, I’m on lifelong treatment, and I feel so lucky. No one has guarantees but the team are pretty clear.
I had acute medical anxiety from childhood due to a back story you don’t want to hear. So I have to avoid opportunities to obsess.
To protect my mind I left the room so the doctor could give Tony all the information, he doesn’t obsess. When I returned I asked Tony tremulously if he was okay, his reply? “F***ing awesome, I’m stuck with you for years!” He seemed pleased. 🤣
He was actually beaming.
I don’t enjoy the tests but I trust my team and I just do as I’m told. I get a bit nervy before I see them but that’s all natural. Apart from that it’s nothing like my mind tried to create, and it’s changed my life for the better in any number of ways. That felt as odd to me as it reads to you. But it’s true.
I don’t know what will happen in the future but I’m sufficently away with the fairies to walk under a bus tomorrow, so why worry? 🤣
And no I never thought I’d ever say the words why worry. It was my unending hobby for decades. The past and all that. Acute anxiety is a b*tch, it erases you and leaves a mess in your place. Well that’s how I felt – who are you and what have you done with Debra?
Perspective
I write this as a person who was so scared of the medical profession I hadn’t seen a doctor since 1993. I had one blood test in 1984, one small op the same year. Due to that back story I don’t talk about, and a stupid GP who told me to just go away and make another one after I’d lost a baby and was reeling, I would not go near them. I was blessed with excellent health though.
So I’m not the gung ho, super brave person who doesn’t understand. I was shaking, crying, and so upset with myself for what I thought I had done to my family, friends, and cats. I was terrified and I was a mess.
You wouldn’t believe it if you saw me now. I didn’t want to go into this in detail because I don’t need to. It doesn’t define me, it’s a condition that needs managing. I take my meds, do as I’m told, and get on with my life.
I don’t know what anyone else’s experience could be, but you need the help so just go. Whatever you do, do not take any notice of that headline. Take notice of the people with the scanners.
The NHS receives extremely bad publicity, and some areas are under ridiculous pressure, but they’re doing their best. Don’t read the news, take your hospital, and your team as you find them.
I will give you one very simple piece of advice though. If you become tired or lethargic, and it doesn’t go pretty quickly, see your doctor. There are many causes from simple to more complex, but it’s a nice early warning system that can save you a lot of trouble.
I hope this has helped.
Best love
Amorah – Deb
Deb Hawken - Amorah 