Is it normal to feel so anxious and violated after surgery.

Welcome to OCF! Please tell us about yourself so we are able to assist you better.

A cancer diagnosis can wreck havoc with a patients life. You are not alone in feeling anxious. Depression is also common. Many patients (caregivers too) find taking anxiety meds and talking with therapists who treat cancer patients can help make it easier to manage mentally.

Heres lots of links with info from the main OCF site. By reading and educating yourself about your illness, it can help you to feel better about your situation. An informed patient is a stronger advocate.


Emotional Aspects from the main OCF site

For me, I was more relieved that the cancer had been removed and was now out of my body. And sheer drive & determination to get out of the hospital and back to my normal life as quickly as possible. Through the window, from my hospital bed I could see out the waterway where my teammates and competitors were training in outrigger canoes and dragonboats, and it just drove me crazy knowing I would be off the water waiting for my forearm flap, the "new" tongue, the skin graft on my thigh & the hole they had punctured in my throat for the trach to heal.

Very early on in the process (long before the surgery itself), I decided that there wasn't much I could do to improve my situation by worrying about it. It was the doctors, nurses, techies and other people fighting along with me that were going to get that garbage out of my body, then zap me with their multimillion dollar ray gun in case any stray little buggers got away. Yeah, it was horrible and terrible. It hurt and it made me extremely uncomfortable. But it happened. I wanted my life back.

Hard question to answer. Anxious? Yes. Violated? I'm not sure what you mean.

I mostly remember pain....pain mixed with frustration. (Frustration was based in an inability to communicate effectively and a long line of well meaning doctors and nurses poking around every 30 minutes or so.)

Regardless of the type of surgery, recovery is a very important step. You should focus on eventually being cancer free rather than the temporary discomfort you feel now.

Good Luck

My husband felt completly vulnerable and we became even more dependent on each other. He felt he was given a second chance after surgery but the period of time directly after was brutal. Breathing, swallowing, tubes tangled even bathroom issues, everything was a fight. He doesn't clearly remember it all but came out determined. The radiation on his neck was very aggressive and for that he has pain and tightness as well as a tendency to get infections. We are both still very exhausted three years on and slowly finding our way back to a fulfilling life. Surviving cancer and living with the residual effects changes everything, but we both keep searching for a new happy.