A is for Anxiety

We have been reading up on things a bit, as you can imagine.  We found a book called A Breast Cancer Alphabet that has a section on 'Anxiety' that hits home.  Here are a few excerpts:


Anxiety grips you as you await the pathology results in the days after they remove the tumor.  When you know you have to have chemotherapy, you try to anticipate what your body will feel like after it has been pumped full of poisons to cure you.  Because there is nothing to prepare you for all of this, your anxiety meter will be off the charts.
Anxiety is like your cancer companion; it is attached to you now, sometimes in the background, sometimes front and center, but always there.  Anxiety stalks you as you sit through countless doctor visits, hours and hours of tests, and days and days of waiting.  It sinks its tentacles in you and makes itself at home through bad news and even when you get some good news.  It lurks like an unwelcome visitor who never leaves, because it never does.  It is in your mind, yes, but it also manifests itself physically - nausea, light-headedness, stomach upset, racing heartbeat.
Your challenge is to manage it.  I'm pretty good at time management, but this is a different beast.  Anxiety is not neat or measurable.  It is amorphous and stubborn and oh so resilient.  It cannot be compartmentalized or shoved aside or thrown out or vanquished.   It actually must be managed, and you have to figure out the best anxiety management techniques for you (drugs, meditation, therapy, yoga, work, play, ice cream, movies).  Coping with anxiety is the part of your cancer treatment that may get short shrift from the medical professionals.  They are dealing with a big thing - your cancer - and thank goodness for that.  But anxiety is real and important, and you have to let people know that so you can get all the help you need to manage it.
The good news is that reality is never as dark as the places your mind can take you, and unfortunately anxiety takes you to the darkest places imaginable.  Maybe living with it becomes a learned skill and the anxiety subsides; in the meantime, managing it seems to be the only option.



And I'm sure once we kick this thing, we will always have anxiety about when/if it will come back....