Are there scales for cancer survivorship?

i was really luckyFour words I use to describe my experience with breast cancer. They are meaningful, negative, important, and evasive. This is my intention when asking me about my breast cancer, double mastectomy, surgery, implants, and my overall feelings about being a “breast cancer survivor.”

I do this because I want you to know two things: was really lucky. And I don’t want to talk about it.

I was lucky to catch the cancer early with a routine mammogram, and I was lucky because I happened to work for a radiology company, so the results, the biopsy, the appointment with the oncologist, and even the surgery, all went well. Everything was done quickly. .

At the time, I treated it like an item on my to-do list: a breast surgeon appointment? check. Oncologist? check. Surgery? check. I didn’t give myself the time or space to absorb it on an emotional level.

My reaction was very real when an oncologist told me that if I had waited four months to find this cancer, it would have been stage four. Despite having three children, he nodded as if talking about the weather. “Interesting,” I said.

I was also lucky that the cancer was caught early and I had a radical mastectomy so I didn’t need chemotherapy, radiation or even tamoxifen. I was going to stay away from cancer, obliging her to have two silicone breasts and an MRI of her every other year. Please check and confirm.

I TRUE lucky. This is what I’m avoiding. I can be grateful for all the lucky circumstances surrounding my diagnosis and treatment, but being “lucky” left me with a certain amount of guilt. And to some extent, I deny it.

When I first started this process, when I was in the surgery center, I remember another breast cancer patient offering all sorts of helpful advice. i have a notebook drink lots of water. and so on. She took me into her changing room and showed me her newly reconstructed breasts.

Then she asked me She felt her cheeks heat up and her voice muffled in her throat, as if she had done something wrong.

“I don’t need anything,” I told her, trying to lighten my voice, but it felt like something between us had changed. I felt like an imposter.

Is there a degree of “survivorship”? Would I have been more justified as a “survivor” if I had postponed the mammogram, waited a few months, and had Stage 4, very advanced cancer? is it? I didn’t go through grueling chemo, lose my hair, burn my chest with daily radiation treatments, and somehow didn’t crawl out the other side — this made my experience somehow meaningless. do you want to make it?

From that day in the surgery center to this day, 11 years after cancer, I am here. I’m not admiring having the power to overcome breast cancer or contemplating my own life, death. I found myself denying the existence of very real events in my life because I had somehow judged them.

Cancer does something to us all psychologically. A friend of mine lives in fear that the cancer will come back.

To me, it’s this disgraceful kind of survivor guilt.survival Sense of guilt. Our doctors warn us of how we’ll feel physically after surviving cancer, but the river of emotion we’re left to plunge into is so deep and vague. I can’t alleviate these feelings, no matter how much therapy I have, or what groups I’m in, or write about it here. Regardless of whether you choose to

What I can say with certainty about my experience with breast cancer is that I was really lucky.

This post was written and submitted by Stephanie Landon. This article reflects Stephanie Landon’s views, not her CURE® views. Also, this is not intended to be medical advice.

For cancer updates, research and education news, don’t forget SUBSCRIBE TO THE CURE® NEWSLETTER HERE.