On World Mental Health Day
As much I have enjoyed working from home I’m fed up of Teams meeting, dodgy wifi. Weight gain and low self esteem. Sometimes I don’t leave the house all week and apart from my hubby and son who I see once a week I miss the human contact.
When lockdown hit I was halfway through chemo. Every time the phone rang I was terrified it would be the hospital phoning to cancel my treatment. Fortunately my chemo went ahead as planned but it was hard having to attend alone. I then had a long delay before radiotherapy started and this left me feeling very low and vulnerable. The delay was due to reducing the number of patients in the dept. to keep it Covid safe. The moving forward course and other therapies I had planned were all cancelled. It has been hard and I’ve felt very low and isolated at times. Telephone appointments didn’t suit me and I often forgot what I needed to ask.
I finished treatment 6 years ago but the annual mammogram/check up is a date that never leaves my mind. My check up was cancelled 1 week before it was due - got myself into a right old tizz about it and the fact I was terrified of catching covid as a front line nurse. When I did have my review it was very weird attending on my own - the feeling of aloneness was indescribable. I was lucky - my treatment wasn’t cancelled but I feel that my mental health struggled during the 12 week delay for my review/ check up. Think I would have gone into meltdown had it been delayed further.
Joanne
Even before the pandemic, my recovery from breast cancer had left me feeling isolated, low. Living alone and without a full-time job, I drew my energy from social meet-ups with friends and family. I filled my diary with fun, with adventures and treats to look forward to. It was how I managed my low mood and loneliness. Then Covid struck and travelling across London for hugs with my mum, coffee with friends or fixes for my escape room and theatre addictions were ruled out. As winter approaches, as the days grow shorter and darker, as new covid restrictions bite and as worries about cancer recurrence niggle, I fear for my mental health as I spend the gloomy winter months alone.
