[Lien]

Dear Norwegian,

I had similar feelings after finishing therapy. It felt like I was doing something, had some kind of control over the disease as long as I was in active treatment. Big guns, like surgery & rads gave me the feeling that I was using all available forces to combat the disease.

Now you are recuperating from surgery & other treatments, you very likely have side effects from your medication and/or chemo, and it sounds as if you have a pretty bad case of lymphedema. The recuperation takes time, but the lymphedema can be treated and you could try to change your meds. Are you on hormonal therapy? I'd talk to the doc if I were you. If not, mild exercise might help. I think you need a referral to a physical therapist who specializes in treating lymphedema.

When I went for my 2 year checkup, my doc congratulated me. The first two years are the biggest hurdle. If your cancer hasn't come back by then, your chances of survival are getting better every day.

If you are tired constantly, you probably (are beginning to) feel depressed. Sleep deprivation does that to a person. It makes one more anxious too. Been through that, so I know. And you probably don't exercise a lot, because of the pain and the tiredness. You are stuck in a cycle that's hard to break. But exercise helps you fight depression and could possibly improve the pain and stiffness in your joints. I was in a trial this past summer and I really noticed improvement in my hot flashes, my stiffness and my emotions. Hated the exercise, though!

The only reason I could keep it up, was because my son was recuperating from a serious foot injury and needed to start running again. So we ran together. Or rather, we wobbled together at first. You should have seen us; we looked really silly. When we were camping in France, we ran in the dark, with flashlights, so nobody could see us. It was really quite hilarious. We stumbled a lot, but we had some good laughs as well.

I know this is probably not very helpful. Just wanted to say that I know how you feel and that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Like you, I was really scared for the first couple of years. Every ache or pain seemed to be a sure sign that something was wrong. But my docs just said: wait a couple of weeks, then we'll see. And the aches always went away.

I hope this will be the case for you too! And I do hope that you'll get help with the pain in your arm, the sleeping problems and the fears. It's not necessary to suffer like that. Talk to your doctors and tell them what you need, apart from the scans.

Love

Jacqueline