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Pharmacy Links

AFTER CANCER: RECURRENCE

12th March 2009

Is It Common to Have a Fear of Recurrence?

Almost all cancer survivors have some fear of recurrence. If you rarely think about your cancer or the possibility of recurrence, you are very lucky, as long as you are diligent with the advised follow-up for your cancer. If you are so confident of your continued cancer-free state that you skip advised checkups and tests, you are probably more afraid than confident. Delayed or missed checkups are missed opportunities to stay well.

Most cancer survivors harbor a certain fear of recurrence. For some it is a daily, debilitating fear. For most it is a repressed fear that surfaces only in the face of unavoidable reminders of vulnerability, such as checkups, anniversaries, a new pain, a cough, or a bump.

Fear of recurrence is a fear that can be managed.

Why Is the Fear of Recurrence So Intense?

The intensity of your fear reflects now only how much you believe you could have a recurrence but what it is you fear. The fear of recurrence is very intense because of the impact of the meaning of recurrence, not necessarily because of how strongly you believe you will experience recurrence. People who are usually confident that they will stay well can experience intense fear under threatening circumstances, because the tiny shred of doubt touches on a deep and powerful fear.

Fear of recurrence can be more intense than fear of a first cancer. Most people who have not had cancer feel, on some level, that it could not happen to them. Even acknowledging that they know and believe that it could strike them tomorrow, a part of them feels safe. They have the adaptive, normal, healthy emotional protection of a sense of immunity.

Having had cancer, you know, intellectually and emotionally, that you really could develop cancer again. Cancer is no longer something that happens only to other people. It is easier to believe that you will never get cancer than to believe that you will never have a recurrence.

Fear of recurrence is powerful because you know what it is like to have cancer, to be a patient, to decide on treatment, and then to undergo treatment. You know too well that a cancer diagnosis involves job stress, family stress, financial stress, and inconvenience, at best, or great debility or death, at worst. You fear not just cancer but all the pain and losses that accompany it.