Secondary Cancer ???

Even with all the treatment there is no 100% guarantee that we will never get a recurrence, secondary or new cancer. They do not know enough about what causes the cancer to grow in the first place I suppose. However, most people who receive treatment do go on to live cancer-free lives. Certainly without the treatment we would all have the cancer progress until we died of it. Not an option. Alternative treatments do not have the statistics to back them up. If there was something out there that worked better than traditional medicine, it would be all over the media, and we would all be doing it. In saying that though, I do believe there are things we can do to help ourselves improve the chances of not getting the cancer back. It makes sense to me to live a healthier life. I eat healthier, have cut out alcohol, exercise everyday and use meditation to reduce stress and it's effects on my life. I avoid chemicals and use natural products on my skin and hair (what there is of it). I also had cancer in 5 lymph nodes which means that together with a 3cm tumor, my cancer was Stage 3. My oncologist explained it this way: without any treatment 100% of people with my cancer diagnosis would die within 5 years. With surgery and radiation 33% would not have a recurrence within 10 years. With chemo it improves to 53% and with hormone therapy it goes up to 81% for me. Together with improvements to my lifestyle I feel reassured that I have very little chance of having a recurrence. I choose to use the thought of recurrence as motivation to do what I can to stay healthy rather than let it worry or depress me. Put it this way, I do have moments where I worry about it coming back but I challenge those thoughts with the reality that I have done everything currently possible to stop that happening. I choose to be proud of what I have endured ( mastectomy, 18 weeks chemo, 25 radiotherapys and now hormone treatment for the next 10 years) and feel happy that I have a very good chance of never having cancer again. Not only that but I have a new appreciation of life and how we need to look after ourselves. Hope these thoughts help. Deanne xx