I totally agree with you and its completely fine for you to vent. No one knows your body like yourself and when you know something is wrong and everyone dismisses it as, anxiety or depression or even "your getting old" I love that one. I hope you are feeling better, Thank God you are cancer free now, and I wish you the best. Pamela
Lydia, thanks for sharing your story with us. Pancreatic cancer is such a beast and virtually unstoppable. yours if a tale of hope for everyone here.
Don't stop believing in what your body tells you. and don't be pressured into returning to work if you know you are not ready. Be your own advocate and keep pushing until you feel comfortable with your situation.
congrats on beating this one -
Lulu
First off, congratulations to you for your survival after battling pancreatic cancer. It is one of the most difficult cancers to treat and has such a low survival rate. You are indeed blessed.
I can completely empathize with you in terms of feeling as if docs are not taking you seriously. While no one yet has come to suggest mental issues with me, I sometimes think that may be lurking in the back of their minds.
You come from a position of strength in warding off this kind of suspicion on a docs part, but you have to lay it out on the table for them. You had pancreatic cancer, with sx that lasted for years and were passed off as depression. That is your starting point with a doc; you knew there was something wrong and persisted even though you felt you weren't being taken seriously and it could have killed you. Express gratitude for a diagnosis.
You might then want to go on and say your are having symptoms and know that something is going on with your body. Tell the doc how it is impacting your life, focusing on the things you want to accomplish, but are now difficult. You might also say that you are not one to complain, haven't told others about this or something to that effect so that you are not seen as someone trying to get attention.
It is truly hard dealing with the medical community nowadays. There's so much that they don't know and coordination of care is severely lacking. We waste so much precious time looking for a diagnosis.
Again, I am so amazed to hear your story of beating pancreatic cancer. I imagine that you see an oncologist on a regular basis for follow up...is there any way you can ask him/her for suggestions? Chemo drugs can cause central neurtoxity, memory loss, cognitive problems, etc- see http://www.chemocare.com/managing/central_neurotoxicity_memory_loss.asp for more information. There are neurologists who specialize in oncology and can help to rule out if some of your medical issues are the result of highly toxic chemo drugs.
She's a survivor!
Audrey
I remember
I think you are a lucky woman with respect to pancreatic cancer.
As far as depression goes there are essentially two types, one is because you react to events going on in your life, the other is due to organic issues in your body. MS is famous for the latter, the process that results in lesions and demylenation [sp] produces depression.
Many of us with MS are depressed, I think I'll be on an anti-depressant for the rest of my life, the one time I stopped taking them, my thoughts were very dark, I restarted the medicine very quickly.
Before you start an anti-d, see a specialist in this area, often a psychiatrist. Don't take one just because a neuro or GP prescribes one, they don't know enough, hand out Rx's like candy at Halloween.