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Remission Anniversary
I got a reminder on my phone this morning that in one week, I will officially be at my one year mark for being one year declared cancer remission. While it is great to know…it is also incredibly traumatic. In the mental health community, some people have what’s known as “traumaversary” which is the fancy way of saying “this is when something really traumatic happened to me and every year around that time I start getting panic attacks and other panic-related symptoms”. I am no exception to this.
I feel extreme amounts of apprehension. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy to still be on this Earth. However, cancer and chemotherapy left me with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I start borderline hyperventilating whenever I happen to drive even in the general direction of the town with the hospital where I got my chemotherapy in. I start getting terrible flashbacks (visual and smell) where I feel like I can suddenly smell the chemotherapy treatment given to me and/or the port cleaning materials used to clean my port (how they injected the chemotherapy into me).
After I ceased treatment for my cancer (because oncologist said it was safe to), I immediately stopped following different cancer groups online. I feel like I was subjecting myself to traumatic flashbacks when I would read about someone else’s pains and…
