What helps you get through tough days?
Living with a cancer diagnosis means facing some exceptionally hard days. What small practices, coping strategies, or anchors help get you through the rough patches?
My battle began in 2019 stage4 nsclc .3 years chemo, radiation, immunotherapy. NED !! only just 3 years ,metastasis to brain...watchful waiting now. As a RN I understood all medical treatments were necessary. I'm now having the "scanxiety" patients go through. I've found music and drawing and being in the quiet of nature help me.
And always tell myself there are others out there that have things much worse than myself....Thanks for sharing your experience. The arts and nature can be so calming. Have you had a chance to discover our sister community, LungCancer.net ? There you'll find the expereince of others living with advanced lung cancer, and you might even want to share your own story. All the best, Kathy (Team member)
Before my first kidney cancer surgery I took a class on caning chairs. If you don't concentrate, you mess up! So it took me clear up to just a couple days before my surgery to finish the seat of my chair.
The second surgery was right after one of my daughter's wedding, so the distraction was great then as well.
Having something to really concentrate on helped me a lot!Thanks for sharing! Distraction does help many people get through the tough days. I wonder how many of our community members have taken up a new hobby as their distraction. (Your chair caning sounds lovely). I hope your daughter's wedding was beautiful, too. Warmly, Kathy (Team member)
My 'treatment' after surgery for oral mucosal melanoma is regular surveillance -- full body scans. My tough days are those days when I can't shake the realization that 5 year survival rates for mucosal melanomas are below 35%. I know that this is an aggregate statistic and doesn't necessarily predict outcomes for individual cases. Yet some days, it occupies my mind nonetheless. I find that occupying myself with efforts at writing and engaging in exercise can help. I don't know that I can every fully avoid such days of distress but I can try to keep them from taking over.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Worry about what might come is exhausting. (One of our health leaders calls it "Concern exhaustion.") It sounds like with your exercise and writing you have a plan to keep this feeling at bay. Do you have a good support system that can lift your spirits as well? Warmly, Kathy (Team member) Thank you! I have a loving and devoted wife. And, I have some very good friends. But, as an introvert, I don't share much about my worries with them. And, my medical team, my surgeon and oncologist remind me that all looks good so far and that I shouldn't treat an aggregate statistic as a prediction of my future.
This will sound weird but every morning i would play this game called cell survivor. Instead of fighting and killing diseases i would think of them as different cancers. I would kill that cancer every day. It really helped to visualize what the chemo was doing. I also would do crafts if i felt up to it. I made little pendants and good luck charms for for the volenteers at oncology to hand out to the other patients. I put one on my purse and would rub the 4 leaf clover befor appts and scans
thank you. I think making them and giving them out helped me just as much as them. , that's a eart-made gift! <3 - Warmly, Donna (Team Member)
