How do you handle the big anniversaries?

I usually don’t do anything on the day, bit  like @Zoffiel.  Maybe in the first year after diagnosis. I was always a bit paranoid about celebrating, sounds weird hey. However I did have a recurrence 18mths after 1st diagnosis. What I do now is wait until my annual surgeon appointment (7 year since second diagnosis coming up). Then I wait until I see if she orders any tests etc, then if she does, I wait until I have results, and then when they are all good or if she doesn’t order any I excitedly text everyone important to me and have a quiet drink in celebration that I am alive and well another year I didn’t think I would be. 
Paula xx

Patti J - Good option! I could be crying over a delicious piece of lumpectomy themed cake instead of old photos, I’m SO making cake tomorrow. 

Kiwi Angel Thankyou, hugs always help :)

Zoffiel, I like your philosophy. It might be a case for me of being too green in the BC timeline...the dates are all still burned into my memory. Somehow even though I completely zone out and forget to go to my bloody Zoladex appointment, I remember the terror of bad days with perfect clarity  :s

I don't. I can hardly remember my birthday, and could not think of anything worse than remembering a distressing date. All my '''anniversaries" are marked in my cancer diary but I never refer to them. I'm still here, time is marked in weeks, months and eventually years as I move on.

Every year on the anniversary of my mastectomy I have made a white coconut cake with bright pink coconut icing. I then take it to work for everyone else to eat. 

I haven't got there yet but I suspect that 5 December (diagnosis) is always going to stay with me.  However, 8 January is a much better one as that was the second surgery that got the bugger cut out.

I hadn't thought of it like that @Rose18. I'm not at the six months since diagnosis yet, but a quick mental survey says while I'll probably always remember that day, I'd chose to raise a glass on the 27th April. That's the day the last of the cancer cells were evicted and I got my new body. Can't see myself doing anything actively celebratory but you never know!

I did something fun on the anniversary and that was my focus. I found I usually forgot anniversaries. Which do you focus on? diagnosis, surgery, chemo, radio or completing treatment. I think it’s good to acknowledge it, then try to move on. It’s not easy. I had a lot of other stressful stuff going on so that helped to distract me. All the best. It gets easier with time. 

@"Holly Prevails" I’m still in the thick of this is something I will be thinking about this time next year. Sending u big hugs for tomorrow though. Maybe do something to treat yourself. xoxoxo