Hi there,
This is my first time ever posting on an anxiety forum. This will be lengthy so thank you to anyone that reads it, I just felt the need to write it all down.
I am a 26 year old female with two children, they are 5 and 2. I’ve never had health anxiety, until June of last year. I woke up one morning with swelling in my left armpit, and I made the biggest mistake of my life:
I googled it.
Lymphoma, breast cancer, leukemia.. Google had me reeling with all sorts of terrible, life altering ailments. I waited a week to see if it would go away.. I prodded my poor armpit until it was red. I put a heating pad on it until my skin blistered from the heat. I did anything to make it go away, so I could say ‘oh it was nothing’ and move on. That didn’t happen. And so I embarked on an awful crusade of test after test after test to find out what was wrong with me. I had a left armpit lymph node ultrasound, a breast exam that led to a terrifying referral to a breast cancer clinic for an ultrasound of my breasts, and then to a breast specialist because I didn’t trust that my ultrasound tech was looking closely enough(she was so cold and emotionless as I cried while getting it!). In the end, nothing wrong with my breasts And my lymph nodes all looked normal. Phew! All over right? Of course not.
A couple of weeks after this whole ordeal, my mom got her mammogram. It showed a mass. They biopsied, and she found out she has breast cancer. I think this is when the beast in me awakened - cancer seemed so far away before, I even felt silly for thinking I could possibly get breast cancer - and then my mom was diagnosed.
Every ache, twinge, bump turned into the end of the world. Upper left rib pain that I was sure was lung cancer because of the pottery shop I worked at for two years. All the aches and pains were definitely metastasis to the other parts of my body, and at one point I had a panic attack for the first time in my life while driving with my babies in the car. I had to have my mom come and get them so I could rush myself to the ER to get an X-ray RIGHT that second because I had to know now how bad it was. Of course, the X-ray and ECG showed nothing. They told me they found nothing so just.. go home. I had a scheduled endoscopy to see if it’s something in my stomach, but I lost my insurance and had to cancel and am waiting to reschedule.. and now my new fear is melanoma as I have over 100 moles, used to use tanning beds(ugh so stupid!!) and am fair skinned. When I read it’s the most common cancer for 25-29 year olds I basically dropped to the floor and sobbed because I was sure I had it somewhere on my body. I examine my moles and freak out over and over, as I’m sure this flesh-colored one on my back is a melanoma that I just never caught because I didn’t realize they could be flesh colored! And now of course my aches and pains are because it has spread and I’m going to leave my beautiful children without a mom and not see them grow up. It wrecks me every day and I can’t function. I have an appointment with a derm on the 21st but it feels like ages I have to wait.
I had a break down last night and was sobbing asking my husband if we can just sign up for our insurance before we have our income paperwork to submit for a discount on it, meaning we’d be signing up to pay over $1000 a month to have insurance so that I could go to the walk in the next day just to have the darn think cut out of me and biopsied because I can’t wait anymore!! He of course was frustrated with me, and angry. He told me he can’t keep living like this as I’ve changed so much over the last 7 months, said for the first time he was thinking about what life would be like if we weren’t together and even mentioned he was going to take our daughter(not my son, he’s not his father) and go spend the night at his parent’s house. This of course sent me over the edge and I begged him not to.. he looked pretty ashamed and told me he wouldn’t. He also apologized this morning and said he was being so rude and insensitive and that I can come to him with this but more often than not he has just seemed frustrated and I don’t even want to talk to him about it, as I’m afraid he’ll be mad and say things. Normally I’d go to my mom as she’s my rock and always helps me with my thoughts but she HAS cancer and I feel so terrible even mentioning my fears because she has real, concrete things to worry about and she’s not even close to as anxious as I am!! So I feel incredibly alone.. I don’t even know where to start with therapy and I’m worried about the cost.. I’ve already spent thousands, with no results.
This forum has been a saving grace, I’ve stopped googling and instead just come here and search for my symptoms and read everyone else’s story and how it turned out to be nothing. So I guess I just wanted to throw my voice out there and put it down somewhere in the great inter webs. Thank you for all the people that comment and help others through their struggles, it really truly helps people like me who tend to lurk and not post. You help more than just the people you reply to.
My mom has her surgery tomorrow and thankfully they caught it early. She should be fine, but she’s refusing chemo and radiation and that scares me even though I understand it. There are risks to both and it’s her body and her life she has to live with.. but I’m terrified of losing her, she’s my closest friend. Why do these horrible things have to exist? It’s so unfair.
Reply With Quote