Just Get Me Through This! - Revised and Updated. Deborah A. Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ months. Guess what? Of this small sampling of women, women whom I thought I knew so well, each had an acquaintance or coworker who had been through breast cancer and was completely fine! My own spontaneous sample had a survival rate of 100 percent! They even told inspirational stories of women who had gone on to marry, have children, start new careers, etc. This was great! Not only did I no longer feel all alone in the world, but I learned very early that plenty of women do get through this experience (hence, my title), and that my friends would be there to help me.

      Determine who else you might want to tell your news personally rather than having them hear indirectly by word-of-mouth. However, make sure that these are people who will be supportive, optimistic, and hopeful. Let them know that, as part of your inner circle, they will be counted on to play several roles for you over the coming months. (See page 3, “Communicating the News.”) You don’t need to pick anyone else up off the floor right now.

      It’s Only Two Easy Syllables, but It Might Take Some Time to Be Able to Say the “C” Word.

      The word cancer is everywhere in our society. On a nearly daily basis, the news bombards us. We are informed of some new medical treatment for some type of cancer, made aware of some fundraising effort for cancer research, or reminded of yet someone else who has been diagnosed or passed away from cancer. But when the word becomes personally attached to your own individual identity, it becomes much more difficult to verbalize. It may take you several weeks. I started by explaining, “I have malignant cells,” then graduated to admitting, “I have a hard time saying the c-word, but I need to have surgery,” and finally was able to say, “I have breast cancer, and need to go through treatment.” Find your own comfort level over time with divulging the “c” word.

      How Can I Be Sick? I Feel Great! A Bit of Healthy Denial Is Just Fine.

      Your initial response to the doctor’s unfortunate news might be exactly this. Sorry, cancer doesn’t discriminate, but your response is very typical—denial. You want to deny that cancer could find its way into your busy, fulfilling life, when you are so energetic and strong and feel great. You may have never even had any other “female” health conditions before, so this must be a mistake. Unfortunately, breast cancer doesn’t provide any warning until the tumor appears, and even then is not generally associated with any pain or discomfort. So, you refuse to believe that this could be happening to you.

      Denial is the first stage of the grieving process of denial, anger, and eventual acceptance. It is a natural human emotional response, and must be balanced between constructive and destructive aspects. Use your denial in constructive ways to keep your attitude positive, to keep your life as “normal” as possible, to refuse to believe that you might die. You are entitled to a bit of healthy denial, and inevitably will move through it to accept it in your own time frame and on your own terms. It is a loss to be grieved—a perceived loss of femininity and sexuality, a loss of a sense of invincibility and immortality, and in the case of mastectomies, a physical loss of part of your body. Nobody can deny you the entitlement to grieve and experience a sense that your own body has betrayed you. However, don’t let it become destructive. Don’t let denial paralyze you to the extent that you don’t seek out advice regarding treatment and hopeful eradication of this disease from your body as soon as possible! And don’t hesitate to seek out support groups even if you think you’re really “fine” with it.

      Come Back Next Month. The Timing Here Is Really Terrible.

      Sorry, there’s never a good time for cancer to enter your life. You might even jump into high gear, worrying about how you’re ever going to fit it into your already hectic schedule. Work is crazy, your kids never get enough of your time, your parents complain they never see you, and you rarely have an adult conversation with your spouse these days. Save yourself the worry. This is the one nonnegotiable in your schedule over the next six to twelve months. Accept the fact that cancer will take its place front and center in the midst of your hectic schedule. And hopefully, all those people placing all those demands on you will rise to the occasion and help you manage that schedule.

      REACTING TO THE NEWS: IT’S ALL IN YOUR ATTITUDE

      You Didn’t Cause This . . . and If You’ve Got to Get One of the C’s . . .

      Let’s make one thing clear. No matter what your lifestyle, nutritional habits, exercise regime, family history, or anything else that you’ve read about that might contribute to cancer, there is nothing you did that caused this. You did not ask for it. It’s just one of those mysteries in life that happened. And while you might consider yourself one of the unlucky one-in-eight women that gets breast cancer, it’s not as if the other seven escape “home free.” There is not one person in this world who will escape having to deal with some type of disease in the course of his or her life. So, the other seven will end up with something else. This cheery idea was pointed out to me by one of my doctors as an attempt at encouragement in one of my tearier moments. Furthermore, as one of my friends rationalized to me, “If you’ve got to get one of the C’s, it’s not a bad one to get . . . because it’s completely treatable!”

      Paternal Genetics: Does He or Doesn’t He?

      In your quest to come to terms with why you got breast cancer, you’ll hear many different opinions on the role of genetics. Is breast cancer hereditary? From whom? While there seems to be consensus and a predominant focus that a history of breast cancer on your maternal side—grandmother, mother, sisters, aunts—places you in a higher risk category, paternal genetics can play an equal role in determining your predisposition to breast cancer. Look for patterns in your father’s relatives as well.

      Ten Leading Risk Factors

      It seems like everything you do, or don’t do, eat, or don’t eat, or even breathe in can cause cancer these days. Until now, you probably haven’t organized your life around how to avoid cancer, and you might have had no risk factors, but you still got it anyway. So, going forward you might want to be aware of the risk factors that you can control so you can manage them to prevent a new breast cancer:

      Some Basic Factors You Just Can’t Change

      1. Family history. If it’s in your genes, there’s not much you can do, except regular monitoring to catch any recurrences or cancers in the other breast in the earliest stages. In the extreme, you might consider prophylactic mastectomy if you carry the genes (see the discussion in Chapter 8, “Five-Year Follow-Up Visits” for overview of genetic testing).

      2. Early menstruation or late menopause. If you started menstruating before age 12, or went through menopause after 55, the many years of estrogen surges from your monthly cycle may trigger breast cancer, as some types grow and flourish on estrogen.

      3. Childbirth after age 30 or no children. Hopefully you haven’t done your family planning around whether you might get breast cancer, as there are much more important decisions around bringing a child into this world. But late childbearing or not having children is a risk factor because of the continuous exposure to monthly estrogen cycles, without an interruption for pregnancy.

      4. Exposure to radiation. If you’ve ever received any form of radiation to the chest area before age 30, say for Hodgkin’s disease, you are more susceptible to breast cancer.

      5. Use of estrogen / progesterone. This increases risk, mostly for lobular cancer.

      And Those Over Which You Have Control

      6. Smoking. If you ever have, just don’t, not ever again. You want your life—not breast, lung, or many other types of cancer. Enough said.

      7. Obesity. Fat cells produce estrogen, a potential nutrient source for breast cancer cells. If you’ve always wanted that lean, healthy body, now СКАЧАТЬ