Living with the Fear of Recurrence

Because it's never really over

There’s a Sex and the City episode where Miranda, newly pregnant and deeply ambivalent about it, feigns joy when her housekeeper reacts giddily to the news.

That’s sometimes how it feels to be a cancer survivor. People assume that when you’re done with treatment, cancer is behind you. You’re healed! You smile and nod. “Yes, I’m really grateful. Modern medicine, huh?” But inside, what you’re thinking is: “This will never fully be over. Because the cancer could come back.”

The cancer could come back.

And if my cancer does return, it could be stage 4. It could have metastasized, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body—perhaps the spine, the liver, or the brain.

My cancer was stage 3, which gives me a 30–50% chance of recurrence. The first two years after treatment ends are the riskiest, and that risk decreases over time. Most recurrences happen within five years, though some cancers can return decades later.

I get regular scans to check that I’m still in the clear. We all want clear scans, of course. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lone Frankenstein cell still lurking, too small for a machine to detect.

I’m doing all I can to prevent recurrence. I had the mastectomy, chemo, and radiation, blasting my chest and under my right arm to kill any lingering disease. Now I’m taking various pills to prevent any leftover cancer cells from growing. I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, exercise regularly, eat well, and try to meditate most days.

Even so, the cancer could still come back.

As I sit here, looking out the window at the sea, I wonder: Did one tiny damaged cell evade death? Did it manage to escape the poison, traveling blindly in the dark, finding refuge somewhere else in my body? Is it staying quiet while it settles in, until it feels ready to split in two?

I feel superstitious even naming it.

I’m trying to figure out how to live now. I see my future ahead of me, grouped by decades. I hope I make it to 50, when my children are grown. I ask God, the Universe, I’m not sure who: Please give me the chance to usher them through their childhood. Maybe losing me as young adults would be easier than losing me younger. I see a sixty-something actress, and I hope I can look half as good as her when I’m that age… if I make it that far. Reaching 70 feels like asking for too much. But maybe?

Most days, I don’t have these thoughts. I’m caught up in the business of living— standing at the front door, telling my kids to get their shoes on or we’ll be late, laughing at a TikTok video with my husband, running shrieking into the cold ocean with girlfriends.

We’re all living with the specter of death in the background. We will all die, someday. Cancer reaches back and brings forth this understanding, which is both a blessing and a curse. It sits like a black crow on your shoulder, its squawking difficult to ignore.

“You could die,” it says.

“Yes,” I say, stroking its head. “But not today.”