Mental Health and Wellbeing

Hi Mr4820,

Firstly, congratulations on your 4-year anniversary. That's actually a huge milestone. I am nowhere near that yet - had my partial on 1st April this year so cannot as yet relate to what it will be like 4 years down the line.

However, something struck me and I am wondering this: you know they tend to say that if you are clear for 5 years you are deemed to be cured/in remission/whatever? Perhaps this 4-year anniversary is making you a little anxious because you are so close to that 5-year hurdle now? Just another year to get through and then you will have made the 5-year milestone...but, thinking about how I think I will feel as I approach that stage, perhaps it's kind of more worrying because you are so close to that 5 years? and are you perhaps feeling more aware now that if anything should go wrong in this last year, it will have been so close? 

That's just a thought, and I am going only on what you have said in your above paragraph. 

At the moment my 1st April is kind of right in the past, as if it never happened. That's just the way I dealt with it and we are all different. I have my first follow-up scan due in November and I'm not yet even thinking ahead to that. I expect I will be a bit scared when I get to it. However, I've got a few months to enjoy before then, as well as two holidays, so I am just kind of chilling and will deal with my potential November anxiety once November shows its face. 

I think any health issue hits each of us hard emotionally as well as physically. I had been totally healthy for 62 years until my first cancer which was endometrial, and they discovered the kidney issue when scanning for the other. With hindsight, I spent the first half of 2023 in a state of bereavement: grieving for the loss of my six decades of perfect health! Once I came through that, I had a kind of disassociation which has remained with me: the person who was healthy for 62 years, is not the same person who had two cancers removed. And I am now the person I was for 62 years, again. The person who underwent two major surgeries in two years, is not me. Again, that's just the way I cope with this traumatic life-changing event...I guess, really, by doing my best to ensure it actually doesn't change my life.

I hope your GP will be able to suggest what might help you. If you have been fine with previous anniversaries and it really is just this one, maybe you will feel a lot better once you pass that 5-year mark? You've done great for four years, which is something very positive - hang onto that knowledge!

Unfortunately kidney cancer is very unpredictable so my specialist told me and they dont work on the basis of being cured after 5 years as it can come back anytime  even 10 years 

I think it varies from health authority to health authority, and from consultant to consultant. My gynae oncologist told me I was cured before even the first two years were up!!! My kidney surgeon only told me I was in the lowest possible category for it ever returning. In both cases, I took the "cured" with a pinch of salt as regardless of what cancer it is, I know that it is likely to return, or even to have metastasised with no warning, in two years, five years, ten years, or even twenty years. However, the general message that is going about - and I'm not sure if this comes from the medical profession or the media? - is that there is a 5-year 'goal' after which, if you are still cancer-free, you can breathe easier. However, for me personally, I will never let down my guard. My mum was breast-cancer free for 5 years as per her scans. At year six, it returned unexpectedly and with a vengeance.