Thank you so much @Donna2510
I know you are 100% right with this:
I can’t sit around waiting for something bad to happen - seems silly when I write it out but so hard to conquer in real time… I admire your and your friend’s courage - I want to get there! 
Thank you for your offer of support, as well. (The women here have all been so lovely, I feel lucky to have found this place.)
Be kind to yourself and make time for YOU! X
Hi, i dont have any advice to add. Just wanted to say what people have wrote has helped me. Im waiting for test results in case the cancer has come back. The waiting is making me very anxious but the tips & advice on here have helped. There is no point over worrying as there is nothing i can do. Just wait for the results, ‘face that bridge when i get there’ like was said.
Also i forgot, i like doing mindfulness & meditation. Will try to do it more to calm my mind. Reading poeples advice has made me feel calmer & lighter (if that makes sense). thank you so much. Sending love hugs and postive vibes to everyone.
@mirkwood42_1 Sending the best energy as you go through this. ))) Lots of hugs and strength for you 
Hello there - I was crippled with anxiety about recurrence over the summer and have been attending the Managing Stress course at Maggie’s in Manchester which has been excellent. Every week we are offered different techniques in a kind of ‘pick and mix’ way. It has really helped me be more positive and deal with the anxiety. As others have suggested we can’t control everything. Change what you can’t accept and accept what you can’t change. Know the difference between the two. If I can’t change something I now don’t waste time worrying about it. Good luck and all the very best to you.
Hi, I’m also at the 5 year point and although I was initially told it was Tamoxifen for 10 years I was told I could stop after 5 due to changes in the risk calculation. (Didn’t fully grasp this) I was TERRIFIED of stopping it & my health anxiety I have about recurrence /secondaries went sky high. I’ve struggled with the anxiety & fear for the whole 5 years, made worse by the medically induced menopause following ovaries removal (zoladex injections were a pain to keep having & my mother died young with ovarian cancer so I wasn’t taking any chances) which has been hellish. Sometimes I go to the GP really anxious about a new pain or breast changes They are always helpful and never make me feel I’m wasting their time. Recently I started Sertraline for anxiety & low mood which has helped a lot but antidepressants aren’t for everyone. I’m a mental health nurse and even ‘knowing’ all the psychological stuff doesn’t protect me from any of it! I’m a bit eyore -ish by nature and find some of the relentless positivity messages around BC annoying at times cos we don’t all feel that way! I felt embarrassed and a bit shamed that I feel so anxious and fearful about the cancer returning and that I wasn’t ‘celebrating surviving enough’ but now I have a better perspective on this and realise my feelings are just as valid and we can’t all be the same! I’m trying to limit the effects of the anxiety on my life now and accept things for how they are. I’ve never posted before so hope this isn’t a lot of drivel! Sending you best wishes for your ongoing recovery! X
Hi myfavecake, glad you posted.
I’ve found being more active on this forum has helped with my anxiety. So hopefully it’ll help you too.
But as you have said everyone is different & its find to have different emotions.
Sending hugs
Hello @sl43
You are definitely not alone with this, I reckon every cancer warrior out there has the fear of recurrence in their head. It’s how they deal with the thought, if they let it submerge at all, to me that is the key to conquering the fear.
I’m the opposite of you, my cancer was triple negative. Had six months of chemo then mastectomies, one risk reducing as I am BRCA 2. Then nothing, just checkups every 6 months.
I did google but didn’t go into rates of recurrence as who knows which part of the statistics I would fall into and I wasn’t prepared to consider myself in the bad part. So rather than that I googled about cancer and how it can be affected by what we do, eat, put on and into our bodies.
After the surgery there was no other treatment I was set free and that was scary as. I signed up for the Breast Cancer Now Moving Forward course. It was worth doing but it did throw me into a spiral of anxiety as it opened my eyes to things I didn’t know, other people’s perspectives, situations and ideas of how to move forward. To settle myself I had to investigate the things they were talking about, am I missing out on meds, therapies etc. I realised that the route I was on was the best one for me. There were other reasons for people to be on other treatments reasons that didn’t fit with my situation.
Anyway I find knowledge is power, and power gives control and control gives confidence. With this confidence there is relaxation which helps take away the fear leaving freedom to live.
My knowledge comes from books and people. These can be found online:
Allan Taylor of Middlesbrough, who survived terminal cancer for over 10 years with an alkaline diet. Even putting one thing into place from his routine could make a difference. Here’s a link to his interview.
A book called Breaking The Cancer Code by Geronimo Rubio and Carolyn Gross. I read this over and over and took out of it some strategies that I still use today
Chris Wark Square One Program. He does his full program for free every now and then, it is worth a watch
Melissa Merchant get your fight back method, I follow Melissa on Facebook, she can be contacted and talked to directly.
Holistic Centre. Talking to therapists and counsellors.
Mindfulness, meditation, reiki, massage, sound baths. All help with deep relaxation and mental well-being.
I changed my way of life after the diagnosis, the way I had been living was destructive. Now I live my life trying to follow the path I learned through these resources which all back each other up. This is my way of being in control, doing the things that matter to me most and letting go of the fear. The fear is still there at times, it actually helps me stay on track with what is important to me day to day.
Coming up to Christmas is another annual milestone, I’ve been there on the fear side of the holiday and that’s awful, so now see it as a time to enjoy and live, being with family and friends. Be in love with yourself and those all around. That glowing feeling inside is self healing, a dopamine hit goes a long way to feeling good.
A little mantra I wrote for myself
BECAUSE I CAN
It pops up in my diary on a regular basis to keep me on track. It’s another seize the day.
You can be happy
You can have fun
You can do something daring
You can push yourself to another level
You can love everyone
You can LIVE
So what’s stopping you
You have had such great replies already and hopefully are already on your way to conquering your fear. Hope this helps too and maybe you will find a natural replacement for the Tamoxifen as a bonus too.
Wishing you another 50 fantastic years of being cancer free, reach for the stars my lovely, set yourself free, have fun and enjoy life xxxxxxxx
Apologies to all for not replying for a while. In the most inconvenient turn of events, I had a lung CT scan about 2 weeks ago for a lung cancer screening and they incidentally found liver lesions instead. I went into a spiral as they said they could not exclude metastases and that I needed an MRI follow up. I got news today that the lesions are benign.
I can’t believe the way things turned after posting to this forum - it’s all given me a lot of time to reassess my life and I think my perspective on things will need an overhaul…
Thank you so much to every last one of you who’s posted to this thread and been so very supportive. I hope my experience now in this realm might be of help to someone else in the future who is in the same boat.
Much love to all
I think maybe you are in different ways trying to force/convince yourself not to have the reaction that it’s actually perfectly reasonable to have. You can only have your own diagnosis and you’re perfectly entitled to feel rocked and afraid - the fact that other people have different diagnoses is neither here nor there. I’d gently ask if ‘reading continually’ about cancer prognoses is going to do much good - you will never find the one medical paper out there that ‘proves’ that you’ll be OK. I think you’re working very hard trying to find evidence - perhaps to legitimise your worry to yourself or your friends. Rather than trying to prove or disprove that your own cancer will come back, maybe just explore and allow your fear of recurrence. I’ve found that just admitting it and sitting with it without trying to fix it or change it is much more soothing than endlessly trying to ‘prove’ once and for all whether it will come back or it won’t.
I think you’re right, I’ve driven myself crazy worrying about a recurrence or secondary cancer. I’ve read everything, which has made me even more anxious. I have my 3 month telephone follow up tomorrow, when I will advise my oncologist I have decided not to take Tamoxifen & am going to try really hard to take each day as it comes & face whatever the future holds, as constant worrying is doing me no favours at all. Family & friends think you’re all right, had the surgeries, the radiotherapy & been given the all clear, unfortunately, they don’t understand the fear of a recurrence never goes away.
i have been on this two day course organised by Breast Cancer Now at West Kent. I met some great women all at the same stage of treatment as me. We had many shared emotions and had some laughs and some insights. It was brilliant enlightening and lovely to have some people so close to where I live.
I hope you find a recovery group near you. I went this year, two years on from surgery.
Seagulls
Can I gently suggest not taking Tamoxifen will greatly increase your risk of having a recurrence. I have been taking Letrozole for five years with another five to go , the daily tablet is a great anxiety reducer and I am very grateful for it . No major side effects at all my big problem is Lymphodoema which is relatively mild but will never go away you learn to live with these things