In my personal experience as a 10-year breast cancer survivor and from watching others, it seems that as time passes after a cancer diagnosis the worries and fears about a recurrence lessen.
Ten years out, I now only find myself triggered and fearful again when a friend or loved one has a recurrence, I develop a mysterious symptom or just before my yearly mammogram.
But if you're a little closer to your original diagnosis, it's not uncommon to still be afraid.
It's like you're doing the limbo, between the world of the living and the world of the dying.
It's a dance that requires all the agility that doing the limbo does.
It asks us to maintain an optimistic belief in our future, yet not deny that death will come one day.
And it takes tremendous courage to plan for a future that still feels uncertain.
If practiced, the following tips will help you reduce and lessen your fears about a cancer recurrence.
They're given with the personal knowledge that it can be extremely challenging to manage this fear.
But it can be done and has been done by many, the same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.
The first thing to do to reduce your fears of recurrence is to monitor your thoughts.
As a life, business and results coach, I encourage everyone I meet, survivor or not, to monitor their thoughts.
Because success in anything in life comes from how we communicate to others, but more importantly how we communicate to ourselves, by the thoughts we routinely think.
Brain scientists tell us we think 60,000 thoughts a day and most of them are the same ones we thought the day before.
Are your thoughts repeatedly about your fears of a cancer recurrence? If they are, you're reducing the quality of the life that you have left, no matter how long.
As John Milton said, in our minds we can make a heaven out of hell, or a hell out of heaven.
It's our choice.
It's important to monitor our thoughts, because thoughts create emotions which lead to behaviours.
For example, if I am obsessing about a recurrence, my thoughts are going to make me feel bad.
And if I feel bad, I might not take advantage of some of the wonderful opportunities my life has to offer right now.
Another reason it's important to monitor our thoughts is because scientists tell us that when we think positive thoughts, those thoughts flood our body with positive neuro-chemicals, which make us feel good.
They're like endorphins that are released after exercise.
Conversely, negative thoughts release negative neuro-chemicals, which make us feel bad.
While it might initially seem that it's impossible to reduce the negative thoughts about a recurrence, neuroscientists tell us that over time, by repeating our positive thoughts, they will become our fallback and the ones we originally think.
The metaphor I like to use to illustrate how it's possible to lay down more positive "track," than negative is the road after a fresh snow.
While the first car finds it hard to carve out a path on the snowy road, by the tenth driver, the track is laid and the driver automatically drives in the established lane.
It's the same way with your thoughts, over time the positive path will predominate, if you keep thinking it, and the negative thoughts will dissipate.
Another way to reduce your fear of a recurrence is to identify what triggers your fears.
Many of the more common triggers were already mentioned, a doctor's appointment, an anniversary of diagnosis or surgery, the death of someone close.
Identifying your trigger sets a freeing process in motion.
Once you've labeled the trigger, you can see your reaction as logical and normal.
The next step is to ask for support from your loved ones and close friends, who can help you talk it through to the other side.
Having said that be aware that those within our immediate circle may be triggered themselves and so be of little use to us.
A skilled therapist can fill this role if your family and friends can't.
Another way to reduce your fears about recurrence is to know what soothes your anxiety.
For some it's a massage, having a warm bath, exercising, or seeing a movie.
Anything that takes you out of yourself and stops the repetitive cycle of worry works well.
The examples listed above are some of the ways I've found to lessen my fears as well as others' fears about recurrence.
If your diagnosis and treatment was recent, be loving and kind to yourself as you practice the suggestions listed above.
Getting to the point where cancer isn't the first thing you think about when you wake up is possible and has been done by millions before you.
Remember, it's a process that takes time, so be easy on yourself if you don't get there as quickly as you would like.
Know that it can be done and that there's a wonderful life after cancer!