How to Manage Anxiety and Depression When You Have Kidney Cancer

When Katie Coleman was diagnosed at age 29 with a softball-sized tumor on her right kidney and a host of smaller growths in her liver, she was stunned. That astonishment quickly gave way to feelings of hopelessness. “I felt like my entire world was being pulled out from under me,” Coleman, now 32, says. “I went into a very dark spiral.” Though her surgeon removed all the tumors, it wasn’t clear what her long- or even short- term prognosis was. What she found on the internet just freaked her out more. “One night I spiraled so deep I didn’t know whether life was worth living anymore.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Coleman knew she needed help dealing with her depression and anxiety, but she didn’t form a strong connection with any of the therapists she met with. “I never found one who really understood what it was like to be 29 and looking fate in the face,” the software engineer from Austin says. At her darkest point, Coleman started browsing Instagram posts, “looking for anyone who had what I had,” she remembers. “I needed to see someone else who was still alive.” She eventually found a match, a man in the U.K. She wrote to him: “I’m sorry to be a random stranger on the internet. I was hoping you would share your story.” The next morning, she discovered a stream of voice memos from someone with a British accent. “First, you need to ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance healthscienceclimate Source Type: news