[v-ness]

dear lisajean - i live alone too and i am (and have always been) a bit of a loner on top of that - so it can be lonely business at times when you have breast cancer. one of many great things about this board is that you don't have to be ready to talk about BC at 5:30 on a tuesday night at a real-life support group meeting. if you're freaking out, as so many of us have, you can come here and post at 1 in the morning and almost always find support, or at least feel better for having vented. please don't feel ashamed about being unable to cope. it can be overwhelming. honestly, anti-depressants and/or anti-anxieties such as ativan can be extremely helpful at this time and give you the balance you need. it's nothing to be ashamed of - i'm on them!

i started this thread and i am kind of sorry i did because all it did was freak me out more when i was already anxious from my oncologist's 50% reply. nothing against those who responded - just that i finally came to realize that statistics can be pretty useless for those of us in the trenches and only serve to scare. we don't need that. we're not a statistic. someone here has an awesome sig file that says something like 'i'd rather be living anecdotally than dead statistically' and i recall beaming the first time i read it. THAT is the way to think. at herceptin the other day i just sat there feeling confident that it is working just as it worked on my sister's friend's stage 4 mets - all by itself it melted them to nothing. i visualize any leftover cancer cells shriveling up to nothing every time i have herceptin or a jolt of radiation.

i don't know how much time you have for reading with a small child, but i would seriously suggest an excellent book by Musa Mayer called "After Breast Cancer". it is actually a pretty quick read and i highlighted the hell out of my copy. i got it for free from Genentech when i joined her2connection. in fact they recently, for some unknown reason, sent me 3 more books. i'd offer to send you one, but i already passed them on to others in the same boat. but if you contact them, they send out useful emails and you get that book. i also find that it feels better when you at least have some sense of being able to do things to help lower chance of recurrence and there i have found the book 'Anti-Cancer' very useful as well. he doesn't pretend to have any cure-all's, but offers great information on how to be pro-active about your health and life. i like the fact that he is not only a scientist, but also has cancer. he writes in a very accessible way and i don't feel like i'm being bombarded with a 'you must be a raw foodist and take all these supplements blah blah blah' message. it's more like reading it and going 'wow, i think i'll try that and nah, i don't think that's for me' kind of thing. because, after all, even those who've lived and eaten "well" have gotten breast cancer anyway, and then you have julia child who ate meat, used butter and cream to excess, and loved her gin and lived almost 40 years beyond her mastectomy! so.... here's to doing what feels right for yourself. i just thought i would share some things that have helped me calm down the freak outs and suffer them less frequently. and this is coming from someone who was hyperventilating the first night i grasped what the hell her2+ breast cancer was from internet - which scared me with overly grim information but then led me to this site! best to you, i hope you feel more peace very soon. valerie