Struggling After Friend's Diagnosis

[Brooke4131]

Hi all,
I've been struggling recently after a friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She's quite young with a beautiful family and was very healthy, so this came completely out of the blue. I feel so terrible for her and her family. This has also selfishly triggered a big bout of health anxiety on my part. Her cancer is so rare in someone of her age that I keep thinking that of it can happen to her, it can happen to me. Every little ache and pain has turned into something that of course, must be fatal. Thanks for listening, just needed to get that off my chest.

[Rey1989]

Im terribly sorry about your friend's diagnosis.

Stay positive, you will be alright!

Rey

[BikerMatt]

That's terrible. I'm so sorry to read about your friend. Keep strong!

[Leah88]

This set my anxiety off recently too.... it's so worrying when a young person with no family history of disease and who lives a healthy lifestyle dies and it's always frigging cancer! It makes you realise how fragile humans are. I guess all you can go off is statistics and odds about how unlikely things are, like how many elderly people you know who got through life without disease. Sorry I'm not very helpful with this one.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I'm really sorry to hear your friend has been diagnosed terminal. :hugs::flowers: You must all be in bits and she must be going through a whole load of emotions and strange thoughts.

I don't think you should berate yourself for your anxiety being triggered by any of this. That's quite normal and it matters much more how you deal with supporting your friend and in letting the anxiety go so it doesn't get in the way of that.

Think of it this way, if you saw someone get hurt by someone, wouldn't it also trigger your feelings of anxiety if you had fears around being harmed by people? It doesn't mean you wouldn't help that person or care about them, but it doesn't mean you are bulletproof to your feelings at the time or afterwards.

Like you said, this is rare. Sadly, rare means there are some and in this case it is sadly someone you know. It will always be someone who knows them, it's just that you also have anxiety around health that will trigger you over it. That doesn't change the fact it is rare and your chances, or anyone else on the forum, of getting it.

When your friend has found the strength to come to terms with this, I bet she would tell you to live your life and not worry about something like this as she never expected it to happen to her. It's very important we listen to them on this.

[unsure_about_this]

Sorry to hear about your friend.

[Mav]

Sorry about your friend although I can understand a little how you feel because my friend was diagnosed with lymphoma earlier this year and now every little symptom to me feels like it's happening to me :(

[emmegee]

Hi all,
I've been struggling recently after a friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She's quite young with a beautiful family and was very healthy, so this came completely out of the blue. I feel so terrible for her and her family. This has also selfishly triggered a big bout of health anxiety on my part. Her cancer is so rare in someone of her age that I keep thinking that of it can happen to her, it can happen to me. Every little ache and pain has turned into something that of course, must be fatal. Thanks for listening, just needed to get that off my chest.

What you are feeling is not unusual, and not selfish. I have been through the same thing a few times.

I also had an acquaintance around my age with a young family diagnosed with terminal cancer. I could not stop thinking about her, how she was going to deal with it, what I would do in that situation. I could not let it go. Researched about her cancer on google, and even started wondering if I could have some symptoms. For those of us with anxiety, especially health anxiety, these situations can be emotionally distressing, and serve as triggers to our own dormant health anxiety.

These situations remind us of how life is unfair and fragile and that is a hard pill to swallow for some of us. I would venture to guess that most of us here on NMP have felt the same way.

I try to tell myself the I do not need to take on the weight of all the sadness in the world (which I do a lot of). It doesn't always work and I am currently in the midst of a HA relapse triggered by a coworker's recent terminal diagnosis. Experiencing my own physical symptoms that I can only hope are a manifestation of my anxiety.

Try to take care of YOU, knowing you are anxiety-prone and wired to feel this way. Try not to feel guilty for your feelings. Take care.

[AndiRoux]

So sorry about your friend. Same here, I found out two weeks ago a friend of mine is diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer. I'm really really sad about it but she seems to be doing fine. :( Just like you , I always think wow it can happen to me too. Ugh I hate HA.

[Brooke4131]

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement, it really does help! :). My friend is being amazingly strong and many thanks to MyNameIsTerry for pointing out that the last thing she would want anyone to do is spend their life worrying about becoming ill.

[Kitty Kitty]

Brooke 4131, I'm so sorry about your friend, and I know what you are going through. In fact, I actually joined this forum today to post something similar.

My best friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. It is not terminal, but with the BRCA1 gene she is facing a lot of treatments and surgeries. Like your friend, she is strong. She is also upbeat. Her prognosis is good; however, the whole thing has triggered my health anxiety and my general anxiety disorder as well, but it seems this is a somewhat common reaction in those of us with health anxiety.