When do you call yourself a survivor?

I use my surgical date as my anniversary date so I am a 2 + year survivor.  Since I am on Tamoxifen I can't really start from end of treatment unless I want to wait 5 years.

My surgeon told me that they consider you to be NED (no evidence of disease) when you finish all of your standard treatment (chemo, surgery, radiation).  I had chemo first, then surgery, and then radiation, so my date is the last day of radiation.  I'll be NED for one year tomorrow (May 13th)...I'm so excited to celebrate it!!!!

I have heard all different ways to determine it. I think whatever date you choose to use...after tx, or day of dx...go with it.

brst26...congrats tomorrow on your one year of dancing with NED!!! You go girl....live a LONG and HAPPY life!!!

For me, the day they took my lump, I survived the surgery, and there was NED elsewhere is my survival date. 

If I go by the end of treatment, I'm a ONE MONTH survivor!!!!!  At this stage of the game, that sounds great after all the treatments, etc. 

I don't like the term "survivor" either. I don't call myself a BC survivor. I say I had BC and went through all the garbage to get rid of it.

 I have "survived" many things in life 3 car accidents, an emotionally abusive relationship and a c-section. But, I don't use survior in the same sentence as any of those life experiences.

I will be 1 year out of treatment next month, and 2 years out from diagnosis in September.

It's not that I generally dislike the term "survivor" as it applies to breast cancer, but I just don't think it applies to everyone just because they've had breast cancer.  I don't mean to upset anyone who feels differently about it - just my opinion.  Undoubtably, some with BC have been through the fight of their lives with the disease, but not all of us have. I've had literally no treatment other than a lumpectomy and SNB for my BC and so I really don't feel like I'm a "survivor" of BC at all. My life went on as normal soon after the surgery. 

I've had and still have other medical problems that were/are much more likely to be the death of me than the breast cancer I had. I lost a kidney to a huge stone with pyelonephritis some 20+ years ago, and that infection could have easily killed me if it had gone untreated much longer - yet I  don't consider myself to be a kidney stone/pyelonephritis "survivor". I have a heart valve problem from taking weight loss drugs 10+ years ago - bad enough that a drug company paid me over half a million dollars, yet the only treatment for that has been yearly echocardiograms and keeping my B/P normal. Again, a medical problem with a potential deadly consequence but still not something I feel entitles me to think of myself as a "survivor".  

If  I someday actually find myself down for the count and manage to come out the the other side still alive, that's when I'll consider myself a survivor. Until something like that happens to me (and so far it hasn't),  I consider it all, and specifically my brush with breast cancer, just another bump in life's long rocky road.

I think we should all just consider ourselves Amazon Warriors!  We are one kick a$$ bunch of women just to get out of bed in the morning when facing this thing!  Even when treatment is over, fear of "the nasty" is still somewhere in the background threatening to come back and bite you.  Will it come back? Who knows, we all hope not and do everything humanly possible to keep it from happening. 

Just never forget you are all an awesome, amazing, heroic, strong, fabulous, group of INCREDIBLE women!!!!!!!!!

Love to all

Robyn 

I also don't think in terms of survivor, but I do think in terms of the years because my risk of recurrence decreases as time goes by. My BS told me that my risk decreases two years after my bilat mastectomy, at which point she will begin seeing me every 6 mos. instead of every 3 mos. It will be two years in June. Hallelujah!

I love this!

You give me hope @msphil.

I've struggled with this particular question myself. I don't know if I'm a survivor from March of last year when I was diagnosed. Or Aug when I finished chemo. Or Sept when I had my mastectomy. So I did what I always do. I googled it.

"The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) pioneered the definition of survivor as being any person diagnosed with cancer, from the time of initial diagnosis until his or her death. This expansive definition of "survivor" includes people who are dying from untreatable cancer."

So with that definition I guess I am a one year survivor as of March 6.

I started considering myself a survivor right after the mastectomy last August, but really I like the broader definition of it that was googled above!

Hugs to all.