Hello Cheryl 2109,

I'm sorry to hear about how you're feeling. 

When you’re worried about cancer, it can be natural to think the worst, but this can end up increasing anxiety rather than making you feel better. And the only person that can diagnose you is your doctor. While you are waiting for your results, please try and focus on other things for now. I can imagine it's difficult, but you've mentioned that you're scared so this could be affecting your wellbeing. There is some advice on coping with waiting for news on our website.

I hope this is helpful,

Moderator Anastasia

Hi Cheryl. Easier said than done, but try not to over fret about things.

My wife went through this 2 years ago. A tumour around 5cm, and another one behind it around 2.5cm were found in my wife's left breast. Two of her lymph nodes were also positive. Before her diagnosis, she had awful fatigue, a horrid cough (which i had nagged her for ages to go see about), and back and leg pain. When she got her initial cancer diagnosis, but before the scans, I was bricking it. I assumed all the other things meant only one thing. After her scans, it was staged as locally advanced, which meant it was all local. Her cough was allergies, her back pain was mechanical and her fatigue was put down to stress. She was working full time and running around after her very elderly and infirm parents.

The human body is complex, and the chances are, you have separate things going on. Anxiety can give you all those chest symptoms and more. You tense up when stressed. It's a well documented and common symptom of anxiety. When your chest is tight, you get breathless because you're not breathing properly. It's a vicious cycle.