A - Z of Breast Cancer: ANXIETY

Cancer and anxiety go together like New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne, but without the drunken snogging. They are best friends so you better get used to it.

Anxiety can make you do strange things....

like asking your babysitter to feel your boob. Yes, I actually did. There I was chatting to my babysitter (and friend) when I put my hand up to my armpit and found a pea sized lump and immediately I asked her to have a feel. Unsurprisingly she said no and scurried from the house leaving me to my anxiety. Anxiety about taking time off work to go for a check up; anxiety about feeling foolish and wasting everyone’s time; anxiety about not being able to locate the lump for the doctor; anxiety about taking my kit off and having my breast kneaded by a complete stranger, or worse, someone I already knew in a fully clothed capacity - like the GP I only see when my son has a cough; anxiety about which shade of wood to choose for my coffin, the list goes on.

The good news is...

Anxiety is good, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It proves beyond doubt that you are sane and sensible and prepared to defend yourself. Doctors don’t like anxiety, doctors like anxiolytics (tranquilisers to you and me). These are drugs that take your anxiety away and make you feel perfectly calm in the face of chaos. Think back to your school days and to Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’

"If you can keep your head while all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…
Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it."

Now think of the wag who rewrote it thus:

"If you can keep your head while all about you
Are losing theirs – you have assessed the situation incorrectly."

I’m with the wag. You’d be mad not to feel anxious at a time like this. Of course you can't go around in a state of high alert all of the time and so for some people, sometimes medication may be a good thing, especially if your anxiety is interfering with your actual functioning. I however, found that I could function quite well and be anxious at the same time. I can worry, cry, bite my nails, wring my hands and gnash my teeth while preparing dinner, doing the ironing or making a packed lunch for my son.

Get used to your anxiety.

It is not going away. Because after a cancer diagnosis anxiety is your new best friend, urging you to get that pain examined by the doctor, making sure you check your body for odd changes, wagging a finger at you when you stray from your born again healthy eating regime. Anxiety shows you care about yourself. Embrace it.
If you are not feeling anxiety go straight to D for Denial.

Read more at http://breastcancercares.blogspot.com/