Coping with Cancer Recurrence Fears: A Podcast

All of us who have had cancer worry about the possibility of a recurrence. Over the past few weeks, this conversation has been even more active than usual in my practice. The coronavirus pandemic may be partly to blame. As the whole world is thinking about vulnerability and risk of illness and even death, maybe those of us living with cancer are thinking more about it, too. For us, of course, the cancer risk has been there since our diagnosis, and learning to manage the anxiety takes time and practice.

My experience has been that our personal statistics may not matter much when it comes to worrying. If you were diagnosed with a Stage I cancer you may be just as anxious about your future health as someone who received a Stage III diagnosis. The truth is that none of us know for sure what the coming months or years will bring, and our doctors can never promise us that we will stay well. In Cancer World, this sentence is rarely heard: You are cured. The best we can hope for is something along the lines of: You are doing fine.

Last year, I recorded a podcast for Cancer.Net, the patient information arm of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), about managing cancer recurrence fears. I have referred several people to it over recent days, and want to share the resource with you, too.

An excerpt from Coping with the Fear of Recurrence podcast:

Hester Hill Schnipper: Cancer recurrence is a return of a cancer that was previously diagnosed. When all of us initially have a cancer diagnosis, part of the conversation includes what the general statistics, what the odds might be, how much we need to worry about a recurrence. But the truth is nobody ever knows with certainty what is or what is not going to happen, and all of us who have been through a cancer diagnosis and treatment live with some level of concern about the possibility of a recurrence. A recurrence, generally, not just for breast cancer, but generally for cancers is even scarier than the initial diagnosis because the initial diagnosis may well include the probability of treating for cure, whereas a recurrence generally means that the cancer is no longer curable, and the individual can anticipate just being on treatment for the duration of life.

Greg Guthrie: So this is a really common occurrence?

Hester Hill Schnipper: Well, it's more common than we would like it to be. Certainly, everyone wishes that you get through it the first time and you can truly be done with it. But none of us get a promise about that, and so all of us worry about the possibility of recurrence.

Greg Guthrie: And so most people are afraid of cancer recurrence, then this is kind of a frequent emotion?

Hester Hill Schnipper: I think so. And a very important thing for everyone to remember is this is a normal worry. I mean, cancer recurrences happen. It's not like being worried about, "Is there somebody hiding in my closet at 1 o'clock in the morning?" I mean, this is a genuine authentic thing to be concerned about. It's not a neurotic worry. It's real.