Dear Minh - I can so relate to what you are feeling, and it reminds me of my son's experience in the early days after treatment ended. From your signature info, it seems you are not that far past the end of your treatment so I'm sure you will start to see progress and feel better soon about how things are going. The worst for my son were the or three months right after the end of his Tx. My son's doctor prescribe anti-depressants for him and it seemed to help so, as Christine mentioned, it may help to talk to your doctor about it. Different things work for different people. Being outside in the sunshine helps, deep breathing (10 deep breaths), calling a friend, getting a hug from someone close, seeing a funny movie, reading, exercise helps, even if it's just bending over once or twice to touch your toes. Sometimes when I was feeling down, I would just go into the bathroom, bend way over for several minutes and brush my hair 100 strokes. I thought that maybe it would help oxygen to get to my brain so I could think more clearly. Other times, when the depressing thoughts just seemed to have taken residence up in my brain and would not go away, I would give myself a time limit for entertaining the dark thoughts - say, three minutes. It's ok to feel compassion for yourself during these times. You have good reason with what you've been through. It's not the same as feeling sorry for yourself. At the end of three minutes I would force myself to switch the thoughts to'/ something funny that had happened to me or to someone I knew, concentrate on Sudoku puzzles, scrabble, etc. and then do something physical like vacuming and I hate vacuming but it helped me to start thinking of something else. Do you have someone close by like a friend or family member that can be with you for support or to just help you to get some good thoughts going? I'll be thinking of you and hoping each day gets better, so keep in touch and let us know what happens.


Anne-Marie
CG to son, Paul (age 33, non-smoker) SCC Stage 2, Surgery 9/21/06, 1/6 tongue Rt.side removed, +48 lymph nodes neck. IMRTx28 completed 12/19/06. CT scan 7/8/10 Cancer-free! ("spot" on lung from scar tissue related to Pneumonia.)