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thisisme · 11-09-2012, 08:10 PM

Cancer causes many changes and many emotions and the fighting aspect is overused and preached by people who have no conception of how cancer really affects people. No one who has not gone down that road can possibly tell you how to feel or fight or act, it is a truly unique and personal experience and differs from one person to the next. When I was undergoing radiation I saw many bad things and people very very young and very old and everything in between and it was truly humbling and heart breaking. I had gone in at the beginning feeling sorry for myself but one day i was waiting for my turn to go in and sitting with a young man waiting for his wife and there was a TV there and he asked what I wanted to see and I said I didn't really care and he said neither do I and then he told me his wife had throat cancer, she was about 23 and he was 24 and she had a handkerchief clutched to her throat and it was bleeding and she was crying, very quietly and softly, before she went in. Then he told me about a sailing trip a friend of his had taken him on and how much he had loved it and it was then I noticed a huge scar going halfway around his head and he told me he had inoperable brain cancer. That was the end of my feeling sorry for myself. I was still emotional and all but I stopped feeling so sorry for myself after that.

giganticpopcorn033 · 11-09-2012, 08:10 PM

I agree that knowing you are loved and appreciated is important. Since my diagnosis I have found a greater appreciation for my online friends as well as those that are close physically. They have helped me stay positive about my treatment AND they listen when I just need to talk about it.

I have also learned to not stress about the small stuff. Stressing is not helpful to my treatment or my general health.

If using the fighting metaphor helps a person get through it then by all means use it.

Haley P · 11-09-2012, 08:10 PM

I stayed strong with friends and family, humor and fun. Laughter. Medicine. and some damn good doctors.

I'm not entirely sure how cancer changed me emotionally because i've grown up with it. I was diagnosed two months before my 6th birthday and have been fighting it off and on for almost 13 years now. I am a caring person with a high pain tollerance. But, I may have been that way before, considering when I was diagnosed I had a kidney that was completely squashed by a football sized tumor and all i complained about was a little "tummy ache"...they thought i was probably constipated.

Anyways, this is a good question. And I disagree with the first poster. If you think you're gonna die, you might as well just croak already. If you want to live, try harder to do so.

KatRamos · 11-09-2012, 08:10 PM

I am a Cancer Patient. I will not go into a LONG answer, because everybody takes any disease differntly. Having said that. Once diagnosed with Cancer everything happened so fast that it becomes a horrible blur. Yes, Cancer has changed ME emotionally. I used to be so much fun and people loved to be around me. I was the one who always cracked jokes and whatnot....Well, now I am suffering from Severe Depression. I feel like my soul has been ripped out of my body.....I'm just giving my HONEST answer of how it changed ME emotionally. I cannot speak for others.

Gold C · 11-09-2012, 08:10 PM

I think it's important to be positive. I personally don't understand the concept of fighting it but a positive mind is more important. After a complication of the surgery for colon cancer, I had to have another one which resulted in an illeostomy. At any age that can be depressing, but I'm a typical 20 year old - into fashion, going out, tad vain!!! - so all I could think was my life is over. I didn't have the energy to do anything as I was so down but as soon as one of the nurses became determined to help me deal with it, I soon got used to it and made a recovery. She would confiscate my make up or hair straightners if I cried!!! So I did my best not to cry and be positive which really helped (Like I said, tad vain!). With the chemo, I found my first cycle hard but when starting my second one I decided enough's enough and I'm doing my best to handle it better now, which is making it a little easier, so I think a lot of it is in the mind.

It's very important to be positive, it is hard but it makes a huge difference. The doctors are the ones fighting it, but your approach on it is what determines how hard the battle is.