Thank you to all who have so kindly responded to my request for feedback. Finding this website and listening to all of you prompted me to call my oncologist today and have a chat about being more proactive regarding recurrance. I only see him once a year now and like Bev's onc, he feels scans are not as reliable as symptoms. Although he did not have data regarding future survival rate at 8 years out, he did tell me that there is only a 2% recur rate for HER2+ at 10 years. So my husband did the math and it looks like I have over a 93% chance of making old bones. I did ask him about late use Herceptin and he did not think it was necessary. Even though I believe Herceptin is a magic bullet and I advocated for it for years without success, he made a comment that made me feel less anxious: "You know, Stephanie, many HER2 women have survived without Herceptin".
I am really glad I made this call because it got him thinking about other issues I have. My mom had cancer at age 62 (and died at 78 from CHF) which did not put me at higher risk, but I had a cousin on my mom's side who was first diagnosed at 40 and died in her early 50's. So he is going to have me tested for heredity genes just in case. He told me he is more worried about me getting cancer in the other breast than he is about a recurrance.
Not sure if that made me feel better or not
Anyway, it got me thinking about how important it is to be able to talk to your oncologist and to feel ok about calling to ask questions even 8 years later. He always returns my calls and never makes me feel like he is rushing to get off the phone. If any of you out there do not feel ok with your onc, I urge you to find a new one. They and the nurses become a serious lifeline to survival. When I went from seeing Dr. Shiftan 4x a year to 2x and then once, I was really scared. It's like when chemo ends and even though you are so glad, it's still scary because you no longer have the feeling that the bad cells are getting zapped and what if they aren't all dead???!!!
Anyway, sorry for being so chatty. All these years I haven't really had anyone to talk to about all this so I guess I'm venting 8 years of concerns. Bless you all, Stephanie