Recurrence roulette

It's a few days until my first mammogram - almost one year to the day since my diagnosis. With Triple Negative Breast Cancer the chances of recurrence in the first two to three years are pretty high - reports settle on between 20% and 40%, and the prognosis is significantly poorer if it comes back this soon. This is largely because there are few targeted therapies for TNBC, unlike the hormone treatments for other types. So, to me, the mammogram is a bit like having a gun pointed at you with three or four blanks and one or two bullets in it. It's scary. There's also the challenge of being told by well-meaning friends and family to 'be positive' when truthfully there's absolutely nothing you can do to change the outcome. It really is all down to chance. So, what can we do to manage this fear? I've done a lot of work on relaxation techniques, read a lot of books on living for the moment (the Power of Now is a good one, as is anything by Brene Brown) and talked openly with friends. My advice is to talk openly to someone who's had cancer. It's impossible for anyone who hasn't been in your shoes (or bra in this case) to understand how you feel, and friends and family want to say something to help you and don't want to think about losing you themselves, so it's hard to be truly honest with them or for them to be truly honest with you. I think that confronting how you feel and being pragmatic without being 'doom and gloom' is probably the best bet. If it's back, you can deal with it then. If it's not, you can celebrate wildly...until next year!

Amanda

It's scary, I'm not going to lie