u/Sarappreciates

My husband of nearly 35 years has been loving and supportive, gentle and sweet through my cancer "journey" so far. He is an extremely kind man with a warm heart and a loving soul. But he has always wanted (since I've known him) to own a hearse.

To be clear, when I say "hearse," I'm specifically talking about a used vehicle that transports the dead between a funeral home, a funeral, and a cemetery. And, yes, he's made it clear he wants me to ride in it with him.

Someday.

And I was okay with that because "someday" means "not today," and I never actually thought he was all that serious about it anyhow.

It turns out he was serious, and "someday" has recently been revisited, and I have stage 4 cancer now. (Diagnosed de novo in 2020.) I wish I had a better sense of humor about all this, but that kinda left when I lost my hair last year. I really miss my sense of humor. It was like my armor, but now all this is just offensive to me, and he can't fathom why. Like I'm the unreasonable one. Oh gosh! Am I the unreasonable one here? I'm currently NEAD, so maybe? I don't want a hearse! We're not made of money.

I don't understand how he thinks this is fine. He's not phased by it in the least and doesn't understand what it has to do with me having terminal cancer.

Psychologically, I don't love death or symbols of death in my house. I rarely even welcome dried flowers for long. I'm trying to find a different way to see this, but I feel like I've already been a really good sport about this cancer thing so far. I don't let myself sit around crying about it. I try not to complain about side effects or symptoms if I can help it. I try to keep myself in a fairly positive mindset with my thoughts far from death or dying, and it's worked for me really well so far in combating depression and anxiety. But I feel like seeing a hearse sitting in my driveway everyday will maybe make that harder to do on a day to day basis.

Does that sound like I'm just being a drama mamma? Am I making sense to anyone? Can anyone relate to my mindset at all? I feel like such a bitch for saying no. It's like I'm crushing his soul.

I know I ask for a lot while he asks for very little. I went to Australia (from the US) earlier this year, and he didn't do anything special for himself. I don't work, but his job is providing our health insurance, so he still works, and he works a lot of hours. He never does anything for himself, and now he wants to do this one thing... But why does it have to be THIS? He wants to replace our van, which definitely needs to be replaced, but why with a hearse...?!?

Would you enjoy riding in a hearse, like, as your main ride? Would you want one in your driveway? (Not enough room in our garage for our van - or a hearse.) Do I need to just lighten up?

I'm looking for advice on wearing my Jon Renau wig during summer. Especially on hot days. I'm not completely new to wig wearing, but I'm not very good at it yet either. I have questions...

• How often do you have to reset your wig grip under your wig?
• Is there a particular wig grip you find most comfortable for a full day?
• How do you deal with the heat of wearing a wig in the summer when it's hot and humid?
• I have a front lace wig. Is there an easy style I can use to lift the back/sides off my neck?
• My wig came with care instructions not to use a manikin head while it's wet, but to give it a blowout when done washing... I feel it's time to condition and detangle both my wigs. HOW do I do that without a headstand and only 2 hands? I want to cry just thinking about it, and this has prevented me from washing my wigs, so I'm barely ever wearing them in order to keep them nice. I'd wear them more if I felt comfortable washing them!
• I maybe want to try getting a wig to have installed. I'm a cancer patient. Does this involve harsh chemicals?

How to shorten this to an appropriate length? So much has happened! I wanna preface my story by adding the fact that I don't play with mods. I'm using all the packs except for "Life & Death" and "For Rent," and this save has been ongoing since I created this Fairy Sim when "Enchanted By Nature" was released, so I'd say I began playing her a few months ago. She's a "Super Sim" now with multiple maxed skills, mostly involving plants.

I began with the goal of building and curating a greenhouse tower in which my Fairy Sim would collect every non-oversized crop-yielding plant in the game and curate them all to Perfect condition. Simple, fun, fairly straight forward with lots of side quests like unlocking and fabricating the Hydroponic Planter in the Civil Designer career.

My Sim broke ground at the 20x20 lot in the middle of the giant tree at the bottom of Everdew in Innisgreen. We're not vertical farming, but we're using planters on the floor instead in order to space everything out for hydroponics later on.

She completed Fairy Fables to unlock the Starseed Teleporter (before discovering one on another lot, lol!) in order to explore the alien world, Sixim, for more exotic plants.

Then the phone calls started. A Mysterious Admirer wanted to meet my Sim, but I was as focused as a player as my Fairy was a "Very Focused" Sim. We had a mission. We were on track learning Vampire Lore to discover a few more exotic plants and unlock the recipes we could serve with this knowledge, and thus she had begun mastering the culinary arts as well. The phone calls continued, but she ignored every invite to meet her Mysterious Admirer when the laughter started...

Her lengthy string of indigo Focus moodlets suddenly gave way to a bonkers-load of crazy purple Playful moodlets. She tried using her fairy abilities and Apothecary skills to correct the inexplicable refusal to continue reading her favorite subjects or practice her favorite activities, instead preferring to shrink down and play in puddles until I turned off her Free Will and Aging to get control back over my game as she giggled at me, refusing to do anything else until she literally died of laughter.

Noooo! I'd worked too hard to let this be. So I loaded back in, ignoring the Annoying Admirer, no time for romance while trying to figure out how to get my sim to behave properly again. But whatever I did, she kept accumulating Playful moodlets, giggling without any regard to performing tasks even related to needs, and then dying of laughter. Continuously reloading in to find the same result again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I just wanted to build my round greenhouse and decorate it with flower arrangements, paintings, and photos! It's 4 stories of flora with a domed roof that lets shadows of the glass/metal structures dance across the mossy stone floor throughout the day to match the walls and staircases. The basement is more of a living space where club functions take place during which skills can be learned much faster.

It suddenly dawned on me that maybe my admirer was somehow to blame for all this unfocused laughter and dying. So my Sim agreed to finally meet him, and who was there to greet her? Well, it was Clement Frost, Father Winter himself. Just like that, the laughter stopped, and the Playful purple moodlet went all pink and Flirty. By every indication, they are a perfect fit despite his cheery, childish nature.

Alright, fine. I didn't picture my Fairy Sim to be caught up in romance, but I do have the "Lovestuck" pack, so maybe I should lighten up and allow my Fairy Sim a little love. She'd earned it. So why not? Why not, indeed. I got Clement to agree not to be jealous for any reason, and off we went into the dating life with occasional camping trips and a date or two to unlock the "Single Rose" decoration reward for the greenhouse by earning silver on a date.

Before I knew it, my Whims wanted us to get engaged. This not being my usual play style, I consulted with Reddit and learned that Sims engagements can last indefinitely, so my Sim happily accepted the Satisfaction Points, threw an engagement party, and gave Clement his First Kiss. He seemed utterly thrilled by this, so we left it at that.

My Sim went back to her quest and kinda forgot Clement. She'd been fast-tracking her way through a few careers after buying the "Connected" and "Professional Slacker" traits, collecting the "Enchanted By Nature" plants, and delving more deeply into mastering Swordsmanship just for fun when Clement showed up uninvited one night. He was flirty, then suddenly she was flirty, so my sim invited him to stay the night. Then she asked him to seductive dance because I was showing my husband how hilarious it is when the place erupted in music and confetti with a big announcement that my Sim is PREGANT! She never even WooHoo'd, but now she's PREGNANT!

I've never had the game itself intrude this way before. It usually just lets me lead my Sims through my weird little game ambitions, not completely forcing a family on them.

And truth be told, I've only played with a toddler once out of curiosity. It's a very different game with a toddler. I'm thinking of leaving the aging off to see if I can make the baby phase last until my Sim at least has a chance to do university!!! WTF, Father Winter?!? Throwing off a whole Sim life plan, LOL! I woulda wanted her to build a proper house before starting a family, but she's not abandoning the Greenhouse!

Since this isn't anywhere near my usual play style, I'm open to advice and tips. I hear Clement is quite wealthy if she marries him, but I also think it might be cool to see if he'd remain Father Winter for his kid. I read he has maxed parenting skill, and he fixed a video game machine the night he stayed over. He also cleaned up my trash heap and made her restart the Trash Plant 3 times before she got the plant to grow. He kept walking through the fence I'd built even after I locked the gate. He arrives unannounced. I have half a mind to break up with him, and the other half wants to make him a best friend then ask to "Just Be Friends." My Sim has earned enough Simoleons from gardening that she doesn't need anything from Clement.

Then there's the option of playing the child. I've heard it's likely gonna be like a magic kid. Will it be a fairy?

EDIT: It appears pregnant sims can no longer be devoured by cowplants. I'd read that it can't kill them, but my pregnant sim isn't even given the option to take the cake.

Have any of you heard of this before? Onco tells me that my weight (currently hovering at about 195 pounds) may be impeding my ability to get off hormone therapy now that I'm in my 50s and likely in natural menopause. (My IDC is HER2+.) Due to severe abdominal adhesions, they were unable to locate my one remaining ovary for removal back when I was originally diagnosed with MBC de novo. The surgical notes read like some sci-fi space exploration seeking alien life: "no visual contact was established..." but I digress, my main question is this weight thing now.

Has anyone else heard from a reputable source that we might escape the bonds of hormone therapy after menopause with weight management?

{TMI: I ballooned up to 285 pounds on Truqap. I already lost 90 pounds since. I lost 50 on my own, but then I plateaued, and with my blood sugars spiking while on Truqap (which caused type 2 diabetes) at the time, doctors recommended a GLP-1. I lost another 40 pounds since, but severe nausea made me quit for a while. Now I reached another plateau while back on the GLP-1 again. I'd really love to ditch the HT side effects even though I'm only on Lupron for now, but I've got anther 40-50 pounds to go to reach a healthy weight for my height. They just lowered my dose of Enhertu (chemo) because I've been in NEAD status since April. I don't want to increase my GLP-1 dose too much because a higher "more therapeutic" dose of Mounjaro interacted very badly when I started Enhertu and caused an unholy amount of nausea. But it would be so awesome to get off hormone blockers for good!!}

I wish someone had explained to me about this fat cells connection to estrogen sooner. I'd never heard of this before last month, but I've been at this MBC thing since 2020. Maybe it's my fault for not researching more myself, but there are only so many hours in a day and only so much reading one can consume without inducing anxiety or getting snagged into some misinformation rabbit hole. You'd think someone coulda shot me a notice about this before now.

I feel kind of alone in this. Anyone else dealing with type 2 diabetes from cancer treatment? Anyone else told that hormone blockers could be halted with menopause + weight loss? Is any of this news to you too?

My Sim has been dating Father Winter for a couple of seasons, and he proposed!

If she marries him, is this gonna be like when I befriended the Hermit of Granite Falls only for them to be replaced by a new hermit?

If I have a baby with this guy, is it gonna be one of those magical Father Winter babies, or now that he has a regular name (Clement Frost) is he just a regular townie??

The thing is, he called my Sim for their first date. I refused to meet him, and she kept dying of laughter (too many playful moodlets), so I loaded the game again and went to meet the stranger with a crush on my Sim, and it was HIM! The laughter stopped, and they've been dating since then.

The game wouldn't ruin Father Winter before winter even starts in my game, would it? Will he remain Father Winter if my Sim marries him?

Lastly, how long can a Sim engagement last? I thought a summer wedding would be pretty, but it's fall now. Or maybe a winter wedding would be better with Father Winter? I've never gotten a Sim married before. Must Sim spouses live together?

My husband and I haven't played tabletop Dungeons & Dragons in years, but we've been dying to do it again. Not online, but in person around a table if that's still a thing. (Is that still a thing?) If so, where's a good place to start looking?

First, sorry for this massive rant. I just need to get some of this off my chest. (Pun intended for the MBC community, you're welcome!) Thanks to anyone reading this. I know time is precious with metastatic cancer, so every moment you spend supporting others is a more valuable gift than anyone can fully appreciate. Thank you! 💝

Yesterday I had a talk with my oncologist, and I'm digesting some of that info today. I have a highly treatable HER2+ case of MBC with grade 2 IDC, diagnosed at stage 4 de novo in 2020. I was given the same outdated 3-5 year prognosis most of us get when diagnosed, and this is my Year 6. I'm currently on my 4th line of treatment, Enhertu with Lupron. I began Enhertu infusions (every 3 weeks) late last July 2025.

Exactly 2 weeks after my first Enhertu dose all my hair fell out. I still have a few diehard eyelashes hanging on for dear life, but even my eyebrows are gone. I've been clinging to the hope of "it's just hair" and "it'll grow back eventually." (Meanwhile, Amazon sells some very realistic, reasonably priced temporary eyebrow tattoos that go on with a wet cloth in under 30 seconds, they last about 2-3 days, and they come off instantly with a bit of rubbing alcohol or baby oil. Some of the brands are a little shiny, but a bit of powder fixes that. Nobody can tell they aren't real.)

I figured hair loss was the price I had to pay for my life, and it'll grow back someday, right?

In April I learned I'm NEAD, and onco warned me then, "Don't get too excited because NEAD changes nothing for your treatment, though we may consider lowering your Enhertu dose this summer if everything looks this good until then." My chemo dose and frequency remained exactly the same until yesterday when they lowered the dose for the first time.

I also asked (advised by some Redditors in the subreddit), "if we lower the dose and my mets start returning, will raising the Enhertu dose make them disappear again?" Nope. It would mean a whole new treatment. Lowering the dose is to help make the drug less toxic to me for longer term use. It should be just as effective without as intense side effects.

My lung/bone mets are gone!! There are signs of bone healing in my spine, rib, and pelvis where the bone mets were, so the Zometa infusions are working too with no noticeable side effects! This is all really wonderful news.

I don't want to undermine any of these great results by everything I have to say next...

Let me start with my hair. I was a natural redhead. I've always been quite average in every way but that. After several of my formative years being tortured about it through school, it eventually became the one thing that made me feel pretty in my later adolescence and adulthood.

I learned yesterday that my hair is realistically never coming back. This was made clear in a very frank talk with onco about whatever drugs may come after Enhertu. Lowering the dose is very unlikely to help hair regrowth because the lower dose isn't that much lower. We're only talking like a 20%-30% reduction in side effects.

I still don't show my uncovered head in public because the little regrowth I've got is very thin, patchy, and uneven; not to mention the right side isn't growing at all.

The idea of hair forever being a thing of my past has me absolutely CRUSHED. "It'll grow back" has been the mantra holding off severe depression for the better part of a year since it fell out. A couple of close female family members confided in me when my hair first fell out that they'd rather DIE than have total hair loss. "But it'll grow back" was the one concession that made them rethink that stance.

I know I can eventually overcome this sadness, but wigs, beanies and headscarves just aren't the same as my own hair to run my fingers through it or to pull it back into a ponytail without worrying it'll fall off. Most people take hair for granted. It's a bigger part of my identity than I ever realized, and I have to reinvent myself now more than I'd ever expected hair loss to require. I really hate it.

I have a few wigs. Health insurance paid for a nice Jon Renau wig last year since I went to a salon in network. I got approximately the same length, density, and color I had before cancer, but I suck at the wig-life that so many people seem to genuinely enjoy over at r/wigs.

On top of this, I was so happy when I was told in April my lung and bone mets 100% vanished. I was looking forward to less pain meds, more activity, and much better sleep! Right? Wrong. The scar tissue and nerve damage that cause the bone pain in the first place are almost certainly permanent. I'd been berating myself like, "It's just in your head, there's nothing there to hurt anymore, stop being such a baby!" for the past month and a half only to discover yesterday that this bone pain is not only indeed real, but that it's most likely permanent with no relief in sight unless I wanna try Fentanyl patches, which I don't feel I'm ready for at this time in my life.

They describe Fentanyl patches to me as a 3-day patch of mental haze, and I like my current pain management because I can allow myself to come down sometimes between doses on any given day. I can gage my pain to determine whether I think I need a full dose of medication for it or maybe just half a dose, which you can't really do with patches.

Maybe I have it wrong. Any fenty patch patients here wanna set me straight? I'm open to being corrected.

Personally, I'd prefer to simply up my dose of oxy just to feel more in control of a situation that offers so little control at all.

The crazy thing is, the hair loss makes me sadder than the pain!! I keep having waves of tears overcome me. I'm trying to let go gracefully. I don't cry often when it comes to cancer, but yesterday took me back to when I first learned I had MBC in 2020, coming to realize life would never be the same, knowing I was gonna have to do some serious metal work to accept this diagnosis. Mindfulness and gratitude have been mainstays of my survival since then. I'm trying so hard to tap into those strategies for coping, but it's just not coming to me today.

My husband's response was super sweet after he came home from work last night. I told him all the above, and he said, "They were wrong about you never going into remission, and they were wrong about saying you had a 3-5 year life expectancy, so they could be wrong now about your hair growing back." I told him that if this makes him feel better, he's welcome to see it that way. I love him for his optimism and would never wanna change that about him!

I'm almost sadder for him than for myself. He asked me on our first date because of my red hair. I was always "my redhead" to him. I kept my hair long for most of my adult life because he enjoyed my hair so very much more than I'd ever seen any man admire any woman's hair. Even the suggestion of temporarily coloring it made him kinda sad. I figured he was the person who looked at it most, so I happily obliged him for the past 34 years until it fell out last summer - on his birthday, no less! - I tried my best to hide it from him all day to keep his b-day special and cancer-stress-free, but he caught me in the bathroom with a massive clump of hair in each hand, and we both cried and hugged it out.

He tells me everyday how beautiful he thinks I am. He's such a great sport! After telling him last night, he just kept reminding me, "they've been wrong about some things before. They even told you Enhertu wouldn't take your hair; they were wrong about that too." He's one of very few men in my life who seems to genuinely get my anguish over losing my hair.

For my own mental health, however, it's best for me to make peace with this as realistically and gracefully as I can. Nice unexpected surprises may come, for which I can be grateful if that day ever occurs without making myself feel disappointed if it never happens. Keeping my expectations realistically low has been a big key strategy in maintaining my mental health through my cancer "journey." I'm not trying to be negative, just pragmatic in my approach.

But right now these new revelations are lower than my already rather low expectations. I mean, no one's telling me to put my affairs in order yet, so there's that!! But processing the notion of a hairless lifetime with often excruciating spine and pelvic pain is an overwhelming gut punch for me at the moment. It's like yesterdays news went from "we're lowering your dose," and then all the rest of the news just kept getting worse.

I dunno what to expect here. I'm just grateful to have somewhere to vent with people who can probably relate to at least some of this.

Feel free to reply with a vent of your own if you're in need today. Big virtual hugs to everyone here!

I recently discovered my cowplant can dance. I placed her into a locked room (to "feed" her) where my Sim's club members were dancing, and she started dancing along with them! I haven't had the heart to turn off the stereo since.

Are there any other things my cowplant can do that I don't know about?

Here's What I Know So Far:

• Cowplant berries (Laganaphyllis Simnovorii) are obtained through reaching level 5 of the gardener (botanist) career, grafting strawberry with snapdragon then dragonfruit with snapdragon, fishing, buying rare plant seeds, exploring space in a rocket, digging with a treasure map, a few packs now come with special places to find/purchase cowplant berries, and (of course) cheats.
• Eating the cake from a cowplant gets that Sim eaten. (This generally isn't lethal.)
• Devoured Sims will be "freaked out" for 2 days after the cowplant regurgitates them.
• Eating the cake again with this moodlet will kill the Sim. (Not possible for pregnant Sims.)
• Toddlers and kids can't eat the cake or be devoured.
• Cowplants can be "milked" for the "essence" of the Sim they devoured.
• Drinking the "essence" will cause the drinker to develop the last emotion of the Sim before being devoured.
• Cowplants will die if no one eats their cake for a day.
• "Feed" your cowplant every 12 hours if you don't want them to require Sims to devour.
• Dead cowplants leave a skeleton decoration behind.
• Dead cowplants can be revived for 100 Simoleons, at which point it can be replanted from a berry.
• Cowplants can be enchanted by fairy Sims, which can result in developing pixies. (Pixies make it impossible to tend one's garden or harvest from the plant.) Cowplant pixies are pretty for screenshots, paintings, and photos, and they can be solved normally.
• Placing a cowplant near a working stereo on a dance floor will cause it to dance.
• A Ghost Cowplant (Undead Cowplant) can't die from neglect and is obtainable in a few ways with the Life & Death expansion pack. These are rumored to protect nearby plants from the Grim Reaper.

What else do you know about cowplants? I'll update this list as I learn more, but check the comments for better understanding and other details.

I got the usual "3-5 years" prognosis when I was first diagnosed with stage 4 de novo, grade 2, HER2+ IDC. I was told not to even consider remission as part of the goal. Treatment so far is only meant to slow disease progression, nothing more.

I'm currently in Year 6 since diagnosis on my 4th line of treatment: Enhertu infusions every 3 weeks + Lupron injections every 4 weeks. As of April this year I learned that I'm NEAD, "no evidence of active disease."

My lung/bone mets are gone. Lymph nodes are clear. My original tumor is shrunken to the likeness of a tiny, shriveled pea.

It feels like I should be turning over a whole new chapter in my life and dancing a jig every morning, but nothing's changed. I still have pain in my back/pelvis where the bone mets were even though onco says the spots show signs of bone healing, likely due to Zometa infusions every 3-4 months. I don't feel any different, and treatment has remained at the same dosage and frequency as before.

Adding insult to injury, Enhertu took my hair (even my eyebrows) last August, and it's clear now that it's not growing back while I'm on this treatment. It's not known to do this to patients. Only one other person in our entire regional cancer center lost their hair on Enhertu. It's known to cause some "light thinning evenly all over." Nobody warned me this could even happen. I've seen a very small handful of others here on Reddit who've had this experience with Enhertu, but not many.

There's been some talk of maybe lowering my Enhertu dose this summer, but if this is the magic potion that's keeping the NEAD thing going, then maybe we shouldn't mess with it? I love the idea of fewer side effects and maybe even more hair regrowth (been almost a year with only about an inch of patchy regrowth), but I don't wanna jinx it either.

What would you do? Would you agree to lowering the dose?

How long can this even last? I kinda see it as a break, nothing permanent, but it's not even a break from anything really.

The cancer center where I get chemo has entire tables dedicated to jigsaw puzzles, and there are magazines throughout the waiting rooms. I think this is kinda normal because even when I went to Mayo Clinic for a trial, there were jigsaw puzzles and magazines in a few offices.

I never used to indulge until rather recently, and now I have a chest cold that's lingering longer than I want. I know it sounds stupid to say in a cancer subreddit, but I almost never get sick! Healthy people should be jealous of my white blood cell count even (so far) while I'm on chemo and/or targeted therapy. I keep thinking back to that damn puzzle...

Do you do the puzzles or read the magazines at your cancer center?
Are they even available where you get treatment?
Is there any other stuff your cancer center does that makes you go, "huh?"

We have a 10 year old female boxer/terrier mix (35 pounds) and a 8 month old male bichon/poodle mix (10 pounds). Both are "fixed."

Both dogs are very affectionate and sweet, and I don't want either of them to lose that.

When our older dog comes for snuggles, puppy wants to inject himself into the middle of every interaction. Before I can correct him, she's gone.

When I actively exclude him, he cries, and she leaves.

When I include him, sometimes she stays if I can keep him from overwhelming her. But the moment he does anything too much, she's out. I've been teaching him to "play gentle," which means quiet/soft play, and that helps some, but he's still learning.

She lets him snuggle her as long as he doesn't climb on her or try to "hug" her with his front legs. She's "told" him (vocal, never physical) not to do those things, and he's respecting her rules so far. But he's still a pup and his enthusiasm is a lot for her at times.

All puppy wants to do is whatever she's doing. He thinks she's awesome.

She can get away to our bedroom upstairs where he can't follow because he hasn't figured out stairs yet. But I worry she's spending more time there now than before.

Is there anything else I could be doing to help her keep her sweet social side intact? I don't want her to become shy. I also don't want her to give up her doggie "rank" to the new puppy. I like how she gently puts him in his place and how he reacts to that. She's very patient with him.

Are we doing alright with this?

I'm a stage 4 breast cancer patient on chemotherapy, and I've been getting a clear gel overlay to keep my brittle chemo nails intact. I'm particular about not getting any product on my skin. I provide my own Madam Glam products, which I trust because of their HEMA-free, non-toxic formula. I have a Madam Glam UV/LED lamp if needed. My overlay is back-filled every 3-4 weeks with color on top.

Not being a nail tech myself, I did a bit of research about how to save my chemo nails and discussed the risks with my oncology pharmacist, which is why I settled on the Madam Glam brand.

I love my current tech at the local salon, but she often won't even try some of the popular designs I want when I show her a picture and even produce a quick tutorial. I'm willing to schedule a 2-3 hour appointment for occasional extra fun looks, but my last appointment ran long just because she spent most of the time answering phones and signing in new clients, which meant she was rushed, so I didn't get the cat-eye design I asked for.

Someone mentioned I should look into pricing for a local private nail tech. So here I am. Anyone got a portfolio they wanna share with me?

I've had major depressive disorder with suicide ideation for a long time, and I was maybe even kinda less freaked out by my stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis in 2020 than most people might be. In year 5 of the average "3-5 years" prognosis, I did a little "farewell tour," visiting friends to subtly say my goodbyes, nothing overly dramatic, just seeing people one last time before I figured I'd start getting sick and dying since I've entered Year 6 of this in 2026. I am more or less prepared to die now, so to speak.

I've been a pretty good sport trying to stay upbeat through chemo and hormone therapy, but treatment has taken all my hair and most of my energy. It's completely destroyed our marital sex life. I don't work a job, so I feel like a burden. Husband assures me I make him happy, blah, blah, wants me to remain on cancer treatment, so okay. They told me from the start to put the word "remission" outta my head, so I hadn't even considered it as a possibility.

Then 2 weeks ago my scans came back, and there's this thing called NEAD "No Evidence of Active Disease," aka "remission," and I'm suddenly there. The cancer is suddenly responding crazy-well to treatment, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but WTF!!?? I find myself occasionally crying, feeling lost, distracted, zoning out, staring at walls, and isolating again. I don't wanna talk to people. I feel myself going back into my shell.

The same way my original diagnosis registered kinda like good news, my remission is sorta registering like bad news. I didn't expect to feel this way at all. On top of that, my treatment doesn't change at all. No difference in dose or frequency, so it's "good news" without any kind of break from the "bad" stuff. Like, really, I've never been uglier! Or more tired. Or less interested in anything. Even food tastes gross.

We got a new puppy a couple months ago before this remission news. I was training him to be a companion for my husband because we don't have kids, so I wanna leave him with someone to love him. We're looking into a buying a house, I thought so he'll have some equity when I'm gone, and that's when he kinda snapped at me, "Gone?!? Where are you going?! Why are you talking about leaving?" We're really not on the same page here at all. I reminded him that remission doesn't last, but he insists mine will.

But his reaction got me thinking: is this maybe just my depression returning? I haven't been on antidepressants or had any talk therapy in over a year. I felt fine without them, but now I'm not sure. I don't even know if I want them, though I'm aware that's potentially not a good sign either.

I'm uncertain what I'm asking for here. I don't know what to do with myself. My interests are gone. I'm having trouble even mustering the emotion to snuggle our dogs or talk to my friends. What's wrong with me? Why can't I kick this? I should be ecstatic. My life is great. I have family and friends who love me. I feel like such a jerk for being like this.

Palliative care prescribed Compazine for the nausea while I've been on Enhertu for the past 9 months. When I began treatments 6 years ago for stage 4 breast cancer, they gave me 3-5 years to live and told me to remove the word "remission" from my vocabulary. Now I'm suddenly in remission (NEAD) as of last week, completely unexpected, totally seems like good news, but it doesn't change anything.

I don't get to quit treatment or even reduce the dose. I'm still on chemo and hormone therapy. Still nauseated. Still fatigued. Still mostly bald. Still miss our old sex life with my husband. Yet all the bone and lung mets are gone. Big mixed feels, but mostly relieved, I suppose. I was supposed to be dead by now, so there's this existential meh... Not sure what to call it. I'm grateful, but also not sure what to do next.

Did a big "farewell tour" over the past year to visit friends in various places "one last time" before I figured I'd start getting more sick and start dying and whatnot. But now I feel mostly fine with a little anti-nausea medication and a nap.

How's your treatment working compared to where your head is at?

Hi. Our new puppy is a 10-pound Bichon/Poodle mix, 7 months old, and we're experienced dog owners who've never had this problem before: Today I went to get treatment (chemo infusion every 3 weeks), and my husband says puppy cried and showed distress even though I left him home with "daddy," not even kenneled. He was easily distracted, but I wanna nip this in the bud before it's problematic.

We've been coming and going without fuss, no big "goodbyes" and no big "hello" when we return either. Puppy still doesn't like his crate, but we're doing small increments of time from a few moments to several minutes at a time when we're home. We consistently leave him in his crate when we aren't home or when he can't be supervised. We've never had much trouble crate training with our past dogs. This is just part of the crate training phase, I assumed, but now I wonder if we're doing anything wrong.

The thing is, I'm a stage 4 breast cancer patient with this puppy, and I don't often leave home anymore. It was different with our other dogs in the past. We walk the dogs (we have 1 other dog who's about 10 years old and has never had any separation issues; she's awesome), and we have a fenced yard. I've also been socializing the new puppy at stores that welcome dogs on weekends when my husband is available to accompany me.

He's very smart. We've been playing a lot, teaching him basics like "sit," "lay down," "leave it," and so on. He willingly participates in training and is very eager to please.

I admit it's flattering to feel so adored, but I don't want him to be scared when I'm not here. I mean, I may not always be around for him, so I want him to be well adjusted regardless of who he may be with.

How can I help him overcome this over-attachment to me? What would you do?