[Jackie07]

Marcia,

Remember Andi BB? She's more than 10 years out after having a recurrence just a couple of years after her first diagnosis and treatment.

Check out the 'long-time survivor' thread by using the 'search' button - seems every so often, the same question is asked, so you are really not the only nor the first one to want to know the 'positive' stories.

And Christine - the founder of the Board - has also been NED for many, many years...

It's good (and smart) for you to be careful and keep on surveilance. I (and the doctors) was 'fooled' by the mammogram results for four years before finally got my recurrence figured out. It was always extremely painful having mammogram for me because the glass was pressing on the pebble-like tumor. But there are articles out there stating that 'some' women have painful mammograms without having breast cancer... And the physician who had read my mammo kept on calling the shadow on the film 'scar tissues'...

I couldn't have any children but I understand what you are talking about. My Mother raised six children while enduring WWII, fleeing communism, escaping polio epidemic, numerous typhoons and earthquakes... She always states that had it not been for us children, she would have either walked out of the marriage or had drowned herself... She's turning 87 this fall and will be a 12-year Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma survivor.

And my Father, the man to whom she's had so much mixed feelings, is going to be 95 in the fall...

I know you are probably looking for the stories of those who do not have recurrences. But I really think that it is important to know what to watch for (such as a painful mammogram in my case) and that there's life even after recurrence...