Positive stories, please come out of the woods

[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...

[Jean]

Marcia,
This was a wonderful request....

As I read the replies each one brought a huge smile to my face! I kept repeating, yes thats what we want to hear....

I too have felt so heart broken over our recent loses.
It has been way to diffiuclt to bear. I hate this disease and what it does to beautiful women who have so much to live for.

We must always remember that more are beating this disease and each day we get closer and closer, do I dare say a cure? I think what we will see in the very near future years ....is control of this disease with women NOT dying...but keeping it controlled. Especially when caught in the early stages. We must continue to not allow the doom of cancer to control our lives. We are always getting another new arrow to put in our quiver to fight this ugly nasty disease.

Greek myths are filled with tales of the Amazon women
Warriors who cut off their right breast in order to gain strength and power to shoot their arrows. They would go to any extent to achieve victory. They are mentioned in the tale of the lliad. There is a growing body of evidence that the Amazons women Warriors were as real as the civilizations who wrote of them. I know this,
they are real for they are here right on this site.

jackie....I had to chuckle like heck when I read about your Mom...she sounds wonderful.