That milestone is one that survivors hold their breath and hope for. The thought is that if you make it five years beyond your diagnosis, you are less likely to face a recuurrence. But, you also have to take into consideration what stage of cancer you were diagnosed with because that has a bearing on the survival rate as well.
All things are relative. If you were diagnosed with stage 0 or stage 1 breast cancer... there is a 100% 5 year survival rate. Stage 2 has a 86% 5 year survival rate. Stage 3 (that's me) has a 57% 5 year survival rate and stage 4 has a 20% 5 year survival rate. Even with that understanding, we all know that anything can happen and just because you have breast cancer doesn't mean that you will die because of breast cancer. You could get hit by a bus crossing the street. Or something else equally unfortunate. You could die of embarrassment... (laughs) Who knows?
There are no guarantees, no absolutes. I am grateful that my auntie was diagnosed early, treated promptly and is here to hold my hand while I walk this path behind her. She made it. My other auntie died of breast cancer years ago. So, like I said... there are no guarantees, no absolutes. My oncologist told me some months ago that I had a 30% chance of breast cancer recurrence. (living with 30) And I'm surprised that I had forgotten that actually until just now. At the time, I felt that I could live with 30. And I guess I can. But I also feel like I need to do whatever I can do to get that number down to like 10% or less.
Deep in my heart... way down deep... I fear that I may struggle with this disease again. And honestly, I don't know what I am going to do if that happens. But I do know that those things that I can control I will work on, and leave all the rest up to God to take care of. One of my breast cancer sheroes is a 16 year survivor. I am trying to see numbers like that.
