CC,
There are a few long timers in her that sometime jump in with their wisdom. We do have Pete! He's now entering a wonder new chapter of his life. There can't think of who else at the moment. In WebMD's support group there are quite a few long timers.
I refrain from calling my husband a survivor. I prefer to call him by his name without the desease. After 12 years, he shouldn't be living with a diagnosis hanging over his head nor should his family. For a decade he chose to let a diagnosis attach itself as a part of who he is rather than an illness he had endured. It did nothing more than take a decade of youth away from him. It took me forever it seems to convince him his cancers were not HIS....plenty more have the same deseases. He had...or has if it were the case, a cancer, twice. How he proceeds with his life is his decision. He doesn't attach high coesterol or hypertension the same intimate way and those will kill him if left untreated too. May be the death of him given such a strong genetic history even with treatment. The C word is such an ugly word because we associate it as something more deadly when in fact, heart attacks and slow death from other desease processes are more likely going to be the death of most all of us.
Once Paul made cancer less a part of his being and more a part of something he had happen, he started to change. Two years later..Thank God, he's really able to let his own persoanlity be who he is again.
I'd like to urge you to join as many fourms as you can or better yet, find a local chapter of UsToo, a cancer support group. No condition or desease should be "who" we are. Nothing should ever have that kind of control. You were cured I am assuming?
God Bless and welcome aboard
Swim