Spontaneous therapy session

I have a friend who also found out she had breast cancer - literally within days of me finding out about my own.  Her journey took her through a lumpectomy and radiation. We have compared stories and shared any gems of wisdom we have found along the way.  I had a chance to connect up with her today.  We are both due for our mammograms again.  And once again, we will be going for them only a week apart.  We are both terrified, to put it mildly.  Neither of us can face another year like we’ve just come through.  She had an appointment with her oncologist and she said her blood pressure was sky high and she was nearly in tears just being there.  She compared it to having PTSD.  I would have to agree. My heart rate is always above the healthy level when I’m at any of my appointments dealing with my cancer.  There is always this underlying thought that the rug is going to get pulled out from under me again.  It is nice to be able to commiserate with someone who is having all the same feelings as me.  As the holidays approach, I cannot remember much of anything about them last year.  It’s like I blacked out of a year of my life.  I look at pictures that I don’t remember taking.  I cannot remember the family parties.  I cannot remember the gifts that I gave or received.  It is shocking to me that along with suppressing all my fears about my upcoming mastectomy that I also supressed all my memories from that time period!  The brain is amazing.  We also talked about putting on a smiling and brave face for our families, friends, and workplace. When you do that without taking time to be honest with yourself, it is exhausting.  I became a fake shell of a person.  That is the only way I can describe it.  It is only now that I am desperately trying to claw my way back to the person that I was before.  It’s going to be a long road and I foresee the surgery in February setting me back a little.   Right now, I’m just consumed with distracting myself until I get news of a clean mammogram.....