I had a total thyroidectomy on Thursday the 27th and this is me today. I had been wearing my cute little pajamas with the button up tops, but I ran out so today. I finally cut into one of my exes old T-shirts and this is the result. Yesterday was my 56th birthday so it was a long day of friends and family and cake and pizza and it was a really good day. I hope everyone is recovering well and not being too stressed out by the prospect of an upcoming surgery. I feel like everyone heals differently and I truly believe that my positivity and confidence in my surgeon are going a long way to alleviate any stress and fear or side effects. I’m sleeping much better as of last night and I have finished all of the Harry Potter movies plus the first two Fantastic Beasts movies and I’m halfway through the third movie. But today I finally got up and did some dishes and vacuuming and working on the computer from home. I am anxiously awaiting the outcome of the tests of my thyroid because I had a nodule on my thyroid for over 20 years and out of nowhere after a year and a half I found out that the pain in my hip and legs are metastatic bone cancer from thyroid cancer. You really could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Sending everyone good vibes and well wishes from North Central Florida!

53 years old and ignored my health for way too long. Finally wanted to have a hernia checked out so I got a doctor. Nurse took my blood pressure and I was sent via ambulance to the hospital, super high. Found out kidneys were also stage 3 (from years of high BP neglect) and I was anemic. Got on the meds, now BP great and kidneys in rough shape but they should carry me to older age as long as I keep the BP down. Had my first colonoscopy yesterday as a normal screening and also to help eliminate sources other than my kidneys for the anemia.

Woke up in the recovery room to the doctor telling me I have colon cancer. Showed me pictures, I guess it was 4cm. I thought they had to send out biopsies to determine that, but I guess it is clearly cancer and the biopsy is just to tell what kind? I haven't told anyone yet, other than my wife who was with me. I am usually very chill and this has got me so anxious. I figured I would just blast this to the internets as a test run. I'm sitting at work nervous as hell to tell anyone. My work is beyond awesome, from the staff to the office and owners, so they will do (and have for others) whatever I need. I'm just so hesitant to tell people. I don't want to tell my children or siblings or parents or friends; my grandchildren are too young to really understand. Part of me hopes that I scan clean for the rest of my body, get it taken out with surgery, and that's it, and no one would be the wiser. My heart has been racing all morning, it's so difficult to focus on anything.

So 3 months ago I posted about having an emergency surgery to get out a giant mass, which turned out to be cancer. Well in the process of waiting for my hysterectomy/chemo (doctor wanted my body to fully heal) I had to go to the hospital AGAIN for the same pains and surprise it was another mass. This mass was 50% bigger than the last one and they went ahead and did the hysterectomy while they took it out. I have been struggling big time because i was still healing from the first surgery, then they had to cut me open again so soon/bigger incision and now I'll have to be starting chemo. I really need some advice on how to get through this because healing from this surgery is already such a struggle and going on chemo while I'm healing seems like its going to make me even more miserable. 😭

First day at a new job only 3 weeks after chemo, all my energy was sucked out of me and I feel that I didn't understand anything about the job and I'll basically be working alone with no one to help me :s should I drop it or Will it become better? I still have surgery and radio to do, so soon I'll be on medical leave

Had a scan on Friday and was told results would be available in 1-3 business days so I'm sitting here refreshing the patient portal, hoping to see a report. It's been months of this, appointments and tests and waiting for results. In between, I can kind of pretend everything is ok but once I have a blood test or scan, I just spiral into anxiety until I get results. I am a pretty reasonable person and know that worrying won't change the results but here I am.

Anyways, if anyone has any tips or advice about test results anxiety, I'd love to hear.

Had my first round of chemo yesterday. Floflox with keyturda. The initial day was a bit rough, last night it felt like the tumor was personally upset I was trying to kill it. The stomach pain was unreal. Today I’m tired as hell but I’m almost feeling normal. Pain and bloating hasn’t been happening today. I know it doesn’t mean it’s gone but hopefully it’s turning back the clock a bit and controlling it for a while. Anybody else have any experience this regime? Will it be progressively harder to handle?

Hello,

My mother, 67F was recently diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer with mets to the lymph nodes, kidney (3CM) and femur, which she had surgically removed with ORIF surgery as the met was actively causing the femur bone to fracture.

Before diagnosis, she was having symptoms for a few months that did not align with typical lung cancer symptoms. She started feeling extraordinarily fatigued around March, with headaches starting in late April/May, and near the end of May, her supraclavicular nodes above her collarbone blew up like CRAZY. Around the time of her lymph nodes swelling, she started developing low grade fevers late in the day/evening. Her normal body temp has always run quite low (low to mid 97 degrees) so when her body temp rose to the high 99s, she was feeling it throughout her whole body. With these fevers, they can range anywhere from 99.0-100.6ish.

Unfortunately a very long hospital visit ensued and after so many tests, pokes, scans and Guardant360 test, we got the diagnosis in June of this year. It's been an incredibly rough road for her. She has been hospitalized twice since her diagnosis, each time lasting 1-2 weeks. The first time was due to her sleeping for 3 days straight and then spiking quite a high fever. Surprisingly, cultures came back clear but she was put on a round of antibiotics to be on the safe side.

Then last week, I rushed her to the ER because she was physically too weak to get out of bed. I found her in her bed, awake but very confused, and she had some incontinence which has never happened before. When I got her to the ER they took her BP and it was only 70/46, so she was rushed to the recussitation room where they stabilized her but it took quite a while becacuse once her BP went up, her heart rate also went too high. Then once they stabilized her heart rate, her BP also dropped again. She DOES have a-fib and SVT, but I later leared during that hospital stint that one of her blood cultures came back for a gram negative gut bacteria in her blood, so her formal diagnosis was septic shock.

I've had her home for a couple days and she's still getting these fevers at night. She gets SO shivery. She also had them at the hospital, and they were just giving her tylenol. My mom was in IV vancomycin and was sent home with Augmentin for the sepsis, so now I'm at a loss as far as what's an emergency and what isn't. Of course, I can't get a straight answer from any doctor. Many of her oncologists have the exact phrase: "tumor fever?" (yes, with a question mark) in her MyChart. And like I said, while she was in the hospital, being treated for the sepsis, they gave her tylenol for it which I'm assuming means "we're giving her the antibiotics so there's nothing bacterial going on", but because she's been having these low grade fevers for so long, obviosuly I don't want to allow sepsis to occur in a month from now once she's off the antibiotics and just stupidly assume "well it's just 'tumor fever'" if that makes sense.

So, I was hoping I could find some people here who could tell me if they have experience with Tumor Fever and perhaps let me know when they call their oncologist out of concern. All of the documentation I've recieved on her chemo and from her doctors always say to call if it's 100.4 or above, but for example, last night her fever was 100.3, and she's still on the Augmentin.... so, I gave her some tylenol and it went away. But what happens next month when it spikes? At this point, I'd be calling her oncology team 2-3 times a week if I called everytime she had a fever of 100.4 or above.

Thanks so much for any help I can get!

Hi,

After my third run of immuno my cat scratched me (nothing serious) and I got a few mosquitoes bites in camping.

I reacted like crazy, it was hitching and really red like a burn. Now I am worry that it's going to scar.

It's been a month and it's still not okay (my kitty scratched me since then and it was okay so clearly I was super receptive for a few days. My nurse did not worries because the cause was external, it wasn't like I spontaneously got a rash.

Did someone have the same issues?

​

I Hope I Have My Testimony
I am deeply struggling.
I have been for a long time.
I struggle with the image I have of myself. I struggle to love the person looking back at me.
There have been brief moments in my life when I felt like I had finally made it to the other side—when I felt on top of the world, when I loved who I saw in the mirror, when I thought, Maybe this is it. Maybe this is who I get to be now.
But those moments were always short-lived.
I kept hoping one of them would last.
Over time, I came to understand my mental illness. I won’t say I overcame it, because some things aren’t conquered. Sometimes you simply learn their names. You learn their rooms. You learn how to live in the same house with them.
I thought I had conquered addiction too.
But there was always this need inside me—to be comforted, to feel desired, to feel loved. And when I couldn’t get that from the person I loved or desired, something inside me would collapse.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle rejection. I wouldn’t lash out. I wouldn’t blame them.
I would turn it inward.
I would go looking for relief in the darkest corners of myself and soothe what hurt with substances. For a few hours, maybe I could disappear from myself.
Then came the disgust.
The disappointment.
The shame of waking up and realizing that the thing I used to escape myself only made me hate myself more.
I would binge.
Disappear into depression for weeks.
Get myself together.
Do well for six months.
Then fall again.
The last few years were supposed to be my years.
My testimony.
I relocated for a job I believed could change my life, only to lose it four months later. Then I interviewed for almost a year for another opportunity—a good-paying job in an area I desperately wanted to return to. I imagined myself living there, enjoying whatever youth I still had left, finally breathing again.
Four months.
Gone.
Back to depression.
Back to substances.
Back to soothing myself because I didn’t know what else to do with the disappointment.
Then I couldn’t find another good-paying job. I started struggling with rent, something I hadn’t dealt with in years. I loved my home. I didn’t want to lose it.
So I worked.
And worked.
I took a second full-time job. Days and nights. Seven days a week sometimes. Seventy-two hours without real sleep. There was a time when one job allowed me to actually live. Now I was working two just to keep what I already had.
Life became something I was financing instead of something I was experiencing.
And somewhere inside of all of that, I kept thinking:
There goes another year.
There goes another piece of my youth.
I thought I had found someone who would love me. My best friend. Someone who shared so many of my interests, someone I could imagine walking through life beside.
That went awry quickly.
Yet they remained in my life, and I remained in theirs. I helped because I loved them. And quietly, painfully, I carried the knowledge that they did not see me the way I saw them.
And again I asked myself:
Why do I keep doing this to myself?
Why do I keep sabotaging myself?
Then my body started speaking.
Horrible headaches came first. Trigeminal neuralgia.
Then the night sweats.
The intense itching.
The unexplained weight loss.
I blamed stress.
I blamed working days and nights.
I blamed not sleeping.
I blamed everything except the thing growing inside me.
And then came the final blow:
Stage IV lymphoma.
Cancer.
Chemotherapy changed my appearance almost overnight.
The beard I started growing during COVID—the beard I had grown to love—fell out.
The muscle I had spent years building disappeared in what felt like a month.
Every three weeks I went back into the hospital for another week of chemotherapy.
Strangely, I handled the chemotherapy well. There wasn’t much nausea. Medicine has come a long way. The doctors and nurses knew how to make the poison that was saving me a little easier to endure.
But when they first told me I had cancer, I was ready to die.
And I cried.
Not because I was afraid of death.
I cried because I knew how much my mother loved me.
How much my family loved me.
And I knew there were people leaving this world who would have given anything for what I had.
I would read their stories.
Watch videos of cancer patients with this extraordinary will to live. Beautiful people fighting with everything inside them.
Fuck cancer.
That rage.
That determination.
That desperate declaration:
I want to live.
And some of them still died.
Meanwhile, here I am.
Alive.
Fortunate.
Surrounded by family. Surrounded by an outpouring of love. Given excellent care. Given another chance.
And yet there is something I am almost ashamed to admit:
Sometimes being grateful does not make the pain disappear.
I am 46 years old.
This is happening now.
And there are still so many parts of the life I wanted that I have never lived.
So many dreams I thought I would have reached by now.
So many things I measure as failures, even when people tell me they aren’t.
I look into the mirror now and sometimes feel more disgusted with myself than I did before cancer.
And I ask:
Why?
Why doesn’t surviving automatically feel like a second chance?
Why does it sometimes just feel like a harder road?
Why, after coming this close to death, am I still searching for substances to soothe myself?
Still wrestling with depression?
Still wanting to disappear from myself?
There are glimmers of hope.
I need to say that.
There are days when something inside me flickers and I think maybe—just maybe—I can build something from what remains.
But there are other days when people simply cannot understand why I feel the way I do.
And I understand why they can’t.
Because there is hearing about this life,
and then there is living inside of it.
Living inside the body that changed.
Living inside the exhaustion.
Living inside the uncertainty.
Living inside the mirror.
Living inside the question:
Will somebody ever desire me again?
Will I meet the love of my life?
Will someone look at this body, this history, this complicated mind, these scars, this unfinished man and say:
You. I choose you.
Because what is life without love?
And I don’t mean the love of family or friends. I have that. I know how precious that is.
I mean that love.
The love you dream about.
A partner.
Someone beside you through the beautiful days and the unbearable ones. Someone whose hand you reach for in bed. Someone who desires you when you’re strong and doesn’t disappear when you’re broken open.
People tell me:
“Don’t worry about relationships right now.”
“Don’t worry about sex.”
“Don’t worry about having fun.”
“You need to heal.”
I know.
I know they are right.
But damn.
I am 46.
Time feels different when you’ve been told you have cancer.
You become painfully aware that there is no endless supply of tomorrows.
My energy hasn’t completely returned. Some days I blame myself for that too.
And despite every encouraging word people give me, sometimes encouragement cannot reach the place where the fear lives.
Will I be able to work again in a year or two?
Will someone hire me after everything I’ve been through?
Will the cancer return?
My doctors tell me that five years must pass before that beautiful phrase—cancer-free—can truly belong to me.
Five years.
So I live somewhere between survival and uncertainty.
Between gratitude and grief.
Between wanting desperately to live and sometimes hurting so badly that I don’t want to live like this.
Both truths exist inside me.
Maybe that is the part people don’t understand.
Survival does not erase suffering.
Gratitude does not cancel depression.
Being loved does not automatically teach you how to love yourself.
And beating cancer does not mean every other battle inside you suddenly lays down its weapons.
We all handle illness differently.
I see people who seem so strong, and God, I wish I were one of them.
I wish survival had transformed me overnight.
I wish I had rung that bell and walked out of the hospital reborn, fearless and certain about why I was spared.
But that isn’t my story.
Not yet.
Maybe strength isn’t always the person screaming, Fuck cancer, with their fist raised.
Maybe sometimes strength is much quieter.
Maybe it is waking up while still disappointed to be awake—and staying anyway.
Maybe it is looking into a mirror you cannot yet love and refusing to break it.
Maybe it is admitting that you are struggling instead of turning your pain into some beautiful lie for everyone else’s comfort.
Maybe my testimony isn’t that I conquered everything.
Maybe I am still inside it.
Still wrestling with myself.
Still learning how to live in a body I barely recognize.
Still trying to believe love hasn’t passed me by.
Still trying to believe there is more life ahead of me than the life I think I lost.
I long for better days.
I long for a stronger mind.
I long to look at myself one morning and recognize the man standing there—not as the man I used to be, but as someone I am finally willing to know.
I don’t know what happens next.
I don’t know whether this is my second chance.
I don’t know whether one day I’ll look back at this moment and finally understand why I had to survive it.
But somewhere underneath all this hurt, there is still a glimmer.
Small.
Stubborn.
Alive.
And maybe, for now, that has to be enough.
I hope there are better days.
I hope there is love.
I hope there is still some life waiting for me that I cannot see from where I am standing.
And more than anything,
I hope I have my testimony.

I’m 30 years old now. When I was around 27, I thought I had what was a bad case of “jock itch” in the crease of my groin. I tried some antifungal creams which seemed to work, but there was an area that appeared thickened, macerated and persistent. This went on for two years or so before I finally went to a dermatologist who biopsied it. She was hesitant to say what her opinion was, but when I was walking out I heard her talking to a student and mention “concerning lesion”. I’ve struggled with health anxiety that’s waxed and waned but at times was severe, and this got my mind going big time. At this point, the raised “lesion” was approximately 4cm long by 2cm wide. Three weeks later, I answered a phone call at work and she stated that the biopsy came back as squamous cell carcinoma. I had done a lot of research and what I concluded was that a primary SCC in the groin in a person my age was exceedingly rare. She mentioned that it was well differentiated, and that an excision was the standard. She wasn’t too keen on answering any further questions. I started digging and researching while borderline freaking out while trying to continue to keep my head level while at work (I’m a paramedic). Eventually I realized I had a few more questions, so I called back several times trying to get more info about the pathology. Eventually I get a hold of a triage nurse who was kind enough to recognize my anxiety, and ask if I’d like her to schedule me for a Mohs procedure. I said yes, and luckily there was a cancellation for the next morning at 7 (less than 24 hours after hearing the results). I jumped on the opportunity and left work early to process a bit. The next morning, I showed up and the surgeon walked me through the process. The numbing was rather uncomfortable, I received roughly 40-50 injections. He excised the lesion and now the waiting started. The actual procedure lasted approximately 2 minutes, but I waited for intra-operative pathology for 3 hours. Later he came in, and said that there were no red flags for spread or aggression, but he was going to do an extra path stain called CK5 just to make sure he didn’t miss anything and since I’m so young. Fortunately after another hour, he said that it looked “crystal clear”. He sutured me up, and I went home. It was quite a shock going from diagnosis to “cancer free” in less than 24 hours. I realize that it’s typically not an aggressive type, but with the lesion size I was concerned none the less. I was tested for HPV which was negative, and the surgeon chocked it up to “really bad luck”. He told me that if I ever had any other concerning lesions to speak up, and if I was more comfortable I could even schedule directly with him. The whole process was embarrassing for me, having various providers photograph intimate areas, but I was so impressed and thankful by the surgical staff. Recovery wasn’t too bad and I was back to work within a week.

Hi! im 17F. Was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma last year and finished treatment recently. If you are a teen cancer patient (especially in singapore) Id love to talk! Pls dm. I moved here recently for studies and would love to connect. If anyone can help with support groups that would be great too.

So here's the really long post about my cancer journey. Spoiler alert, it ends well!

Honestly, when I look back at everything that happened over the past year, even I have trouble believing it actually happened. It feels like someone took my life, threw it in a blender, and somehow I still rebuilt it (even better).

And the worst part? It all started because of my cat.

End of July 2025, I’m lying in bed, Tiktoking and minding my business, when my cat gets startled by the Amazon delivery guy, jumps off my belly, and kicks me right in the stomach in the process. Ten minutes later, I go to the bathroom and… blood in my urine. I figured maybe she popped a tiny blood vessel or something. Weird, but whatever.

Next day? Same.

I called the health line, they told me to go to the ER, and after the usual circus.. blood tests, urine tests, waiting forever.. they scheduled a CT scan. Got the CT the next week, and a few days later, the hospital called me back in for a cystoscopy.

So... on August 15th 2025, I walked in expecting a quick cystoscopy, maybe antibiotics, maybe a “drink more water.” That kind of thing.

Wrong.

The doctor started with the words nobody ever wants to hear from a doctor: “We don’t have good news.”

At this point I knew I was in for a great time, no matter what he was going to say next...

The scan showed a massive tumor on my right kidney. Around 13–14 cm, probably cancer. Too big to save the organ, so the whole kidney had to go. “Ok, I can live with one kidney,” I told myself, trying to deny the gravity of the situation. But that wasn’t all. They also found a suspicious lesion on my liver that could be a metastasis, and during the cystoscopy they found a small mass in my bladder that could also be one.

So in the span of a few minutes, I went from “maybe I have a UTI” to “I might have kidney cancer with metastases.”

Not exactly the plot twist I was hoping for...

The following weeks were probably the most stressful of my entire life. Every scan, phone call, and appointment had the potential to completely change my future. At first, the possible scenario was really fu*king bad. A huge kidney tumor, almost certainly aggressive, with possible metastases in my liver and bladder. Stage 4 was genuinely on the table.

I was reorienting my career from optical fiber splicer to IT (if you read through here, remember that part), but I even stopped my studies because I didn’t know if I was going to live long enough for finishing my program to matter. Yeah… the MS Teams call with my teacher was awkward, to say the least XD

But over the next weeks, things started shifting.

The CT scan of my lungs came back clean. ✔️

The liver lesion turned out to be a benign hemangioma. ✔️

The bladder mass was a benign urothelial papilloma that required no active surveillance. ✔️

One by one, all the things that looked catastrophic were ruled out.

That left the big one: my kidney.

Imaging suggested it could be either a benign oncocytoma or chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, a rare but less aggressive type of kidney cancer. There was no way to know without removing the kidney, since a single biopsy sample would have been too small, they would have needed around 20 samples, and the tumor was so huge that the organ had to come out regardless.

So on November 25th, 2025, I had an open radical nephrectomy. A major surgery, a few days in the hospital, then home to recover with pain, fatigue, and more than 30 staples in my stomach.

Side note: if you think a fresh piercing itches (I have 15 piercings total), try 30 staples at once. 😂

In December, the final pathology came back.

Not the benign oncocytoma everyone hoped for, but...

It was chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, stage 3 (pT3a). According to my oncologist, a “bad” chromophobe tumor has a much better prognosis than a “good” clear cell one (which makes up like 95% of all kidney cancers).

The tumor was completely removed. Clear margins. No metastases. Since it was chromophobe: no chemo, no radiation, no systemic treatment. Just surveillance scans for the next several years.

Officially: complete remission.

Of course, I can’t just pretend it never happened. I’ve got years of follow-ups ahead of me, and scanxiety is probably going to be part of my life for a while. But considering the original scenario, where stage 4 was on the table… yeah. I’ll take the win. Had my first follow-up scan and everything was negative; my second is in two months.

And because life apparently wanted to speedrun the “kick him while he’s down” category… having cancer wasn’t enough bullshit for one year, my job decided to join the chaos too.

I had worked in fiber optics for eight years. (Remember when I said I was going to school to reorient my career?) After my original employer got bought out a few months before cancer even came on the table, I started getting less and less work because I was a student. They didnt liked students because they usually "don't stay".. My coworkers kept working while I was basically left on the bench. And while I was recovering from cancer, with a 20cm scar still healing, I finally got the official notice: employment terminated (with a check big enough that I could not sue them, but nowhere near enough to compensate for losing my job).

Eight years of my career.

Gone.

Just like that.

That one hurt.

At one point, I had no health, no job, my studies were on pause, I had a major surgery coming up, and I genuinely had no idea what my future was supposed to look like (or if I had a future at all). And yeah… there were some very dark moments. Ending myself was on the table at some point.

But somehow, I kept going.

I went back to school.

And then came one of the biggest plot twists of the entire year.

When it was time to renew my mortgage, my broker noticed my situation and suggested I check if I could make a claim through my mortgage insurance for critical illness. I didn’t think I had even a 1% chance. I submitted the claim with the same energy as someone walking into an exam they didn’t study for: “There’s no fu*king way this is going to work.”

Well… it fu*king worked.

After a lot of paperwork, the claim was approved.

My remaining mortgage — around $150,000 — was completely paid off, as well as my other debts accumulated since I wasn’t working.

ALL my debts. Gone. 34 years old, homeowner, debt free.

Take a second and let that sink in.

After a year of barely working, dealing with cancer, surgery, and having no idea what my financial future looked like… suddenly I had no mortgage and no debt.

Still no job, though.

Until…

Because of the time I lost during treatment and the pause I took on my studies, the end of my program lined up perfectly with a new cohort of interns at a company where one of my good friends works. I started my internship there, and everything clicked.

I’ve always been the “computer guy,” the electronics guy, the troubleshooting guy - the one people call when something with a circuit board breaks and nobody knows why. And suddenly, I was getting paid to do exactly that.

Three and a half months later, after great feedback, keeping me was apparently a “no brainer.”

Signed my contract; started full-time, full salary... New career.

When I step back and look at everything, it’s honestly absurd how much my life changed in one year.

A year ago, stage 4 metastatic cancer was a real possibility.

I had almost no work.

I had stopped my studies.

I had a massive surgery ahead of me.

I didn’t know if I was going to lose my kidney, my job, my house, or my life.

Today?

Complete remission.

I’m living with one kidney and doing well.

I finished my studies.

I completed my internship.

I have a new, well paid, full-time job in a field I actually enjoy.

My mortgage and debts are paid off.

I’m debt free.

And I’m starting over in a new career.

It genuinely feels like someone hit the reset button on my entire life.

In one year I went from “no health, no job, nothing left” to “complete remission, debt free, new career.”

And honestly… after watching my life fall apart piece by piece, I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

I’ll keep doing my follow-ups and scans, and I know I won’t 100% fully turn the page for a few years, but after losing everything, I somehow got it all back (and more).

In one year.

Hope this story gives hope to someone here!

Since all started with my cat jumping on my belly, even if it's probably not related, I like to tell myself my cat saved my life by forcing an ER visit! Cat tax: https://ibb.co/YF6GtKcG

Please, please, I need some guidance. My daughter was diagnosed with cancer in 2024. I am a single parent. I did everything I could, and got us through that hard time. Thankfully, she is in remission now. But, instead of celebrating, I’ve lost my job, they’ve repossessed my vehicle, and I’m drowning in debt. I have no family, or friends. My friends were my coworkers. Food has become a luxury. I own my home, free and clear, that’s all I have left. But I can’t even pay the utility bills now. I don’t have any kid of support system to help get me back on my feet. Our home is rural, and I’m stuck. I live nowhere near transportation. I don’t know what to do. All I can think about is food, but there is none. I tried to get financial help while we were going through it all, from SSI, but we were denied because they said her cancer wouldn’t last a year. I’ve put in job applications and when they try to set up an interview, I can’t get there. We are going to die like this. Please, tell me what my next step should be, I’m so fk’n lost and have zero people to talk to.

I’m going to rant here…finally. I was diagnosed with stage 1a breast cancer on 8/7. They found the mass on 7/13. It took 1 MAMMO, 1 follow up MAMMO, an ultrasound, and then an ultrasound biopsy to even get to the initial diagnosis. Then, I went in for the king/best test two weeks later—the MRI. Then, they found a couple more spots to biopsy. So, I will go back for a less effective ultrasound a week later to see if they can find the spots they couldn’t find before. Once they do that useless test, they’ll schedule me for an appropriate second round of biopsies. If they can’t find it on the ultrasound, I’ll go to the MRI biopsy, which is how they found the two additional spots to begin with. That will probably be scheduled a week or more out. Am I fucking crazy to question why they are delaying any treatment plans by flip flopping between tests and lengthy result times?!?!? I can’t with insurance anymore. I’m going to lose it! Give me one MRI, give me 1 appointment with biopsies. Fuck you healthcare!!!!

Does anyone have recommendations for groups where people are allowed to get angry about having cancer? My partner (IV kidney) would like to be able to talk to people who are also angry about their diagnosis. I think being able to get it out would help with processing the feelings of anger.

Edit:

Thanks for all the support everyone I got my results back and my brain is still doing okay and everything was unremarkable 💜💜💜💜

Hey all. I have stage four breast cancer diagnosed a little over a year ago.

I'm an idiot and didn't call my cancer center when I started feeling really dizzy and I'd go blind briefly during the dizzy spells and I'd drop things.

I also went to sit down a few times in midair instead of on an actual seat and had to realize and catch myself so I wouldn't fall.

This went on for a few weeks in between my appointments and I just chalked it up to me also being sick with a cold or maybe the steroids I was on or maybe low blood pressure.

But I told my oncologist at my appointment on Friday and they scheduled me for a brain MRI first thing this morning so now I'm kind of scared.

Anyway I don't even know why I'm posting here I'm just scared. I know people live a long time with brain mets sometimes but if I'm already having these symptoms from them I just wonder how much worse it will get and how quickly and I've only made it a little over a year from my diagnosis so far and I'm just really sad right now.

Anyway I hope you're all doing well and I'll update this when I get my results. I really hope it's not in my brain but it's all through my spine and was in my clivus bone when I was first diagnosed so I'm just not feeling very hopeful right now.

I am a terminal cancer patient, stage 4 metastatic liver cancer. I have made great progress with chemotherapy and histotripsy. At a recent evaluation my Oncoogist wants to start me on an oral chemotherapy called Tibsovo. I am interested in hearing from others, what your experiences were concerning side effects and treatment results. Thank you.

I’ve made a few posts whining about being post cancer, and the difficulties I’ve had. I’ve just recently realized an apparent big one. Before the cancer, I was working only as a musician. I would do shows, struggling through each one due to the muscle issues that would happen because of the autoimmune caused by the cancer. After, I’m now doing 2 self employed jobs, and 1 “401k” job as my girlfriend calls it. I’m not really having an issue, other than I cannot just sit. My muscle disorder is still there, so I guess the pain is an issue, but my brain is basically saying keep going. I wanna be able to show my kid that if I can do all these things, while having difficulty to walk, sing, play guitar, and I feel like if I don’t I fail? I guess. I’m really not sure. Anywho the whole point of this is just to see if anyone else found some sort of “addiction” to work. Anyone else who sits down and feels guilty for it? Idk. Thanks!