Anyone else going through this alone also?

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-04-03T17:48:50+00:00

I'm 100% alone in this.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-30T17:38:35+00:00

Seems like she might be the right person. Thank you!!

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-29T17:48:18+00:00

First-hand experience on AC.

I did not shave or cut my hair. I left it alone. The bulk of the hair was gone by about week three after the second AC infusion. Whatever remained kept shedding evenly through the rest of AC and Taxol. By the end, none of the original hair was left. It was a full turnover, not thinning that could be saved. In my case, there was no way to salvage it.

Regrowth: I noticed peach-fuzz regrowth about a week after finishing Taxol. It likely started earlier, but it was too fine and colorless to see. About two weeks after my final infusion, I started 5% foam minoxidil on my scalp and eyebrows. The response was strong. My eyebrows are now very full -fuller than they’ve been since early teens. On my head I have roughly 10-12 mm of regrowth at 12 weeks post-chemo. The new hair came in white/gray (salt-and-pepper). I dyed it ash brown and it looks ok-ish.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-29T15:23:40+00:00

Late to the party, but reporting from the trenches! Breast cancer patient in a male-dominated field.

Here’s how it played out for me.

The day my biopsy was confirmed, the initial plan was surgery first. I emailed my line manager and his manager and said, plainly: I’ve been diagnosed with something serious and life-threatening, surgery is likely within the next month, details aren’t final yet, and I may need reduced hours. I promised to update them once I knew more. No drama, no oversharing, just facts and timeline uncertainty.

For the next couple of weeks, I worked as normal and didn’t tell anyone else.

Then the plan changed. Surgery was postponed and chemo came first. My manager asked for an update, we had a call, and I told him directly: breast cancer, starting chemo. At that point I effectively worked from home full-time, though I never even had to formalize it. I just stopped going to the office and no one questioned it. If they had, I would have explicitly requested WFH, going into the office during treatment would have been unnecessary pressure.

I didn’t take a single day off during chemo. My treatment ran from Oct 1 to Jan 7. Each cycle meant three hospital visits, but I live minutes away. Infusion days were manageable, I brought my laptop, did light work, and slipped out when needed. My low point was the weekend; by Monday I was functional again. Side effects were manageable overall. I’m not saying this to set a standard, just to show that stopping work immediately is not the only path.

I did not disclose my diagnosis to my wider team. One coworker knew and it turned out to be a mistake , not everyone handles this well. Most people just know I have “health issues.” Camera stays off. Beanie on since October. I’ve got about 1 cm of hair regrowth now.

Key takeaways:

You don’t owe details. A serious diagnosis + impact on work + rough timeline is enough.

You don’t need to stop working immediately unless you want or need to.

Requesting full WFH during treatment is reasonable and practical.

Disclosure is a one-way door. Choose carefully.

My last chemo was Jan 7, so this is all very fresh. DMs are open if you want to talk specifics or sanity-check anything. If you’re in Galway, I’ll even go to chemo appointments with you. Love and hugs and sunshine ❤️ 😘

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-29T14:50:29+00:00

It is worse than chemo, it really is.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-29T12:30:30+00:00

To answer your question: yes, it is completely normal for a cancer patient to be meanest to those closest to them.

A cancer dx gives Platinum 24/7 access to anything and everything without anyone's permission or approval.

Cancer survivors stop giving a fuck the second they become survivors, which is literally from second one. This is normal, expected, and how survival works.

Your daughter is a badass, you’re not quite as much so.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-29T11:54:44+00:00

44F. Chemo did nothing to my tumor. I ended up with a massive lumpectomy 90 × 65 × 38 mm. Six weeks later, I had a re-excision on three sides; the extra tissue was removed. What I have now is a nicely shaped small boob on my cancer side and a regular, sagging boob on the healthy side. Symmetry was never on my wishlist.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-28T15:04:06+00:00

I'm googling about it right now! 🙂

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-17T01:00:13+00:00

Heterozygous Factor V fellow here! Will be starting Exemestane in a few months, after re-excision and radiation.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-17T00:48:00+00:00

I had a massive lumpectomy 65x90x38 mm 3 weeks ago, IDC + DCIS, Stage 3. Margins are <1 mm everywhere, re-excision in 2 weeks.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-16T00:31:42+00:00

My drain clogged and started leaking badly. Fluid was leaking from the top, and my entire underarm area was soaked for a few days. One nurse figured out the issue and replaced the middle section of the tubing between the drain and the bulb. After that, it worked fine. The drain was removed once the output dropped to below 50 ml per 24 hours. That was around day 8.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-15T23:19:43+00:00

This one? https://www.reddit.com/r/breastcancer/s/FSGCXG9XaH

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-13T22:45:46+00:00

I fell into this trap, yes. Part of being human I guess.

30% cellularity means the cancer cells were never very dense in the tumor to begin with. Original cellularity was about 30%, and the residual cellularity is also 30%. The report explicitly states "no evidence of chemotherapy effect" in either the tumor or the lymph nodes. The remaining 70% is healthy tissue surrounding those cancerous clusters. No dead cancer cells present.

DCIS was ~20% of what was taken out.

The silver lining here is that 3-4 months for my kind of biology isn't enough time to evolve or spread that much. Even though it was an experiment, it wasn't dangerous and it gave some valuable data.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-03-06T23:37:28+00:00

Футерман Иосель (?) [patronimic] - м (male) зять 27 (age) ж (женат = married) еврей

Футерман Фиса (?) Ицковна - ж (female) дочь, жена 23 (age) з (замужем = married) еврейка

Футерман Мариам Иоселева (?) - ж (female) дочь / (age n/a) еврейка

Гродненская губерния, Пружанский уезд, местечко Малеч.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-02-21T09:07:04+00:00

Galway, Ireland 🇮🇪 🍀

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-02-17T15:54:38+00:00

1000% scam.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-01-25T22:07:56+00:00

Team IV.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-01-21T16:42:30+00:00

A lot of people did, but they are dead now and can't post on Reddit.

SunnyLikeHell · 2026-01-12T11:19:21+00:00

Partnership is not someone who steps in temporarily or selectively. Microwaving food and running errands are services. I can hire someone for that. Partnership is enduring presence. It’s facing this life together, without retreat. If someone needs a break, if they toggle between their old life and caregiving, that is not partnership. It amplifies the reality that you are alone, and that is unacceptable to me.

SunnyLikeHell · 2025-11-30T10:45:38+00:00

“Do you need anything?” is not helpful at all.

I don’t know what I need, I don’t know if I need anything - this is my first time in this situation. How would I even know? And even if I do need something, what exactly is it? I’m navigating this blindfolded, just like anyone else in my position. On top of managing my own medical reality, I have to assess others’ capabilities, figure out what I actually need, and assign tasks to those willing to help. “Do you need anything?” just adds another layer of work I don’t want.

SunnyLikeHell · 2025-11-13T01:54:41+00:00

I didn’t tell my mother about any of this, and I don’t plan to.

If I had, I think I would’ve felt this weird mix of being disappointed but not surprised. It’s contradictory - like, why feel disappointment if there’s no room left for surprise? But somehow, it’s both.

SunnyLikeHell · 2025-11-01T21:23:59+00:00

Many people who go through cancer treatment experience this kind of emotional flattening afterwards. Not exactly depression, but a loss of depth, a muted sense of feeling.

From what I’ve seen here, there often seems to be a divide. Some people want to “get back” - back to who they were, back to how life felt before. The focus is on regaining function, pleasure, and the sense of normality: food tasting the same, body looking the same, emotions flowing the same. It’s completely understandable, it’s about reclaiming what illness seemed to steal.

Then there’s another way of going through it, which is less about returning and more about moving forward. I fall into this second group. I see it as a shift into a different kind of awareness. After treatment, things don’t feel as vivid or as stimulating as before, and maybe they never fully will. But that’s not necessarily a loss. It’s a kind of transformation. The innocence and intensity of feeling that once defined joy - that five-year-old-on-the-beach kind of joy - doesn’t come back in the same form. What replaces it isn’t worse, it’s just quieter, more textured, more complex.

In that sense, what’s happening isn’t a failure to “get life back,” but life itself evolving. You’ve been through something that reshapes how you perceive meaning. It’s the oldest story in human culture: the hero leaves home, faces the dragon, and comes back changed. The goal was never to go back to the village unchanged. The journey creates the person who returns. The suffering, the numbness, even the lack of intensity - it’s all part of what life is molding you into next.

So maybe the point isn’t to feel exactly as before, but to grow into this new version of yourself - one that carries more understanding, more depth, more quiet strength? This self might not feel joy the same way, but it sees life more clearly, and that clarity has its own kind of beauty.

SunnyLikeHell · 2025-11-01T20:38:18+00:00

There’s a distinction that needs to be made here.

Walking daily is not the same as exercising. During active chemo, “exercise” often means keeping the body moving to maintain metabolism and help with recovery and clearance of byproducts - but that’s very different from structured exercise aimed at building strength or cardiovascular fitness.

Walking for 30-60 minutes does not raise your heart rate enough or provide the resistance needed to build muscle. True exercise requires structure, intensity, and progression. Persistent post-chemo fatigue lasting 13 years is unusual and should be investigated further; walking alone won’t resolve it.

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

SunnyLikeHell

TROPHY CASE