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Dr. Gail Saltz: So, it's really normal to have fears, fears about, for instance, surgery;
what you might look like afterwards; how your life might change; whether your treatment
is going to work; whether you are going to be cancer free at some point; how this will
affect your family; how this will affect your life. Those are all really normal thoughts
and feelings, not that they don't need to be attended to because they do in terms of
sharing that with people who can support you, but some people will go on to have, say, lot
of difficulty sleeping, maybe a change in their appetite, maybe they are worrying all
day long, what if this happens or that happens, such that it affects their ability to function,
function at work or function within their relationships. If those kinds of things are
happening then what might be going on is more than let's say a normal reaction in a sense
that you might need some treatment because it might be real depression if you are feeling
hopeless and helpless and having trouble with sleep or appetite or anxiety if you are worrying
all day long, having sort of these panicked feelings and unable to function because that's
really all you can think about.