It’s been five years this month (August 14, 2019 to be exact) since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At least, in the words of the surgeon, “The pathologist still has to examine it, but it doesn’t look good.”
I was numb. The doctors are of course immediately in treatment mode and as a patient I mainly wondered whether I was going to die and how soon.
No one knows the answer to that question; neither patients nor doctors. Despite the protocols and resulting treatment plans, as a patient you are dependent on the doctors you encounter. And that has consequences for your chances of survival.
Different doctors have different insights and therefore treat differently. As a patient you have to make the considerations for yourself. You will never know whether you are making the right choices. For my peace of mind, I have decided never to regret my decisions regarding my treatment.
I’m very grateful that I am still here and therefore feel that I cannot complain, but the past few years have not been easy. They have been challenging both mentally and physically. In short, I can say that hormones are a major problem in my body. The balance has been off for years (thyroid) and even led to hormone-sensitive breast cancer.
The female hormones estrogen and progesterone that are produced during the fertile period of a woman’s life and normally ensure supple skin, muscles and joints (and so much more!), also stimulated the growth of my tumor. After surgery and radiotherapy, the hormone therapy had to counteract that hormone effect; it is therefore actually anti-hormone therapy.
In a natural process, around the age of fifty, a woman produces fewer female hormones and that is the beginning of menopause. It can cause a big imbalance in the body, but I hardly noticed. However, the (anti)hormone therapy caused me to have a menopause 2.0 with so many complaints that I had to stop.
Where in the beginning after the diagnosis I was mainly afraid of the breast cancer returning, I now think that my complaints are mainly menopause-related.
Fortunately, there is increasing attention for the menopause and associated complaints. These can be very decisive for health and well-being. Women with menopausal symptoms can do hormone therapy to reduce the symptoms. However, this is certainly not self-evident for women with a history of breast cancer. Doctors are generally very hesitant when it comes to hormone treatment for these women, as I noticed with my oncologist. Everything that even slightly resembles hormones is avoided, as a precaution, to prevent stimulating the growth of cancer cells.
My sister pointed me to gynecologists (mainly abroad) who see this differently. Different doctors have different insights, especially a young doctor with a breast cancer history herself. My sister found a gynecologist in the Netherlands with a distinctive view on menopause. However, I don’t have to make an effort for an appointment yet, because the insurance fund is empty. Maybe at the beginning of next year. I just need to find the energy, because that remains a problem with the continuous lack of sleep.
I think that the long-term lack of sleep is also the reason that I am not in a hurray mood about ‘the magical five-year survival’, because many days remain a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately, I am also less socially active because of this. I really have to recharge myself for social activities, because they take a lot of energy. But I can still enjoy them immensely and I do realize: I’m still here.
After five years of survival that feels very hopeful!