What do you consider your anniversary date of being cancer free?

I count it from my surgery date. Which looks like yours was just a day after mine! Hope you're doing well.

My MO counts from diagnosis. I count from my surgery date like the others.

I do not consider myself "Cancef Free or Cured" as there is no 'cure' for BC at this time. I count my 'anniversaries' from my DX date - so 7+ yrs and still NED (No Evidence e of Disease) which is the best we can hope for.

But then, my DX (IBC) is very different from any who have replied so far (as was my TX plan and prognosis) - I beat the odds!

I count from my first surgery date. Other than that, I'm with Kicks. There is no cure for breast cancer. I've already had a recurrence after I made the mistake of thinking I was 'cured' the first time, and my life could go on as before. But for now I'm NED again. I'll take it!!

Everyone I know counts from date they got the word so I do as well. That way I'm consistent with all my docs. But it makes more sense to me to count from when you are done active tx as you assume after all that you are now NED.

My surgeon told me when I asked this very question - from the date of surgery as that is when the tumour was removed.

Good luck to you Ksusan. Hopefully you will keep vigilant and go to follow up appts just to make sure..

The question of cure versus NED was discussed in the 30% thread. Beesie's reply provides food for thought, and suggests that people may reasonably choose to view their situations differently:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/105/topic...

BarredOwl

I'm going to ask my doc tomorrow at my chemo appt, but I'm thinking surgery date.

KSusan- love the avatar! How does one upload? My chemo brain can't figure it out. Lol! Have a good night all!

Now on my laptop, here is the full text of the post from Beesie (text in [square parentheses] added by me). I was also thinking of the fourth paragraph when I linked to it above:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/105/topics/812929?page=31#post_4781009

Traveltext, as I said, "Of course we can never truly know if we are cured or not - there is simply no way to know if all the cancer cells were successfully removed and/or killed off - but since we know that most women who have early stage breast cancer never develop a recurrence, we can conclude that most of these women were in fact cured by their treatment."

Let's remember that this is a thread in the Stage I forum and it is talking about how 30% of early stage [i.e., Stage IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA] women go on to metastasize [suffer recurrent metastatic disease].

Importantly, what this also means that 70% of early stage women do not go on to metastasize. The percent is considerably higher for those who are early early stage (Stage I). Some of these women will develop local recurrences, but most will not. Most were cured by their treatment.

To some of the earlier discussion, to suggest that we are all just in remission, or to imply that those who think or say that they are 'cured' are foolish or fooling themselves or not taking proper care is doing a huge disservice to early stage women. Of course some will recur. Of course some will develop mets. Of course we can never really know if we are cured or not. Of course we all must remain vigilant. But most of us are cured, and to think this and believe this - while remaining aware of the risks - is reasonable and healthy.

Edited to add: Artista, I think there is a huge difference between what a patient chooses to believe for herself and how she chooses to move forward in life, and what a doctor tells a patient. Since we can never know for sure who among us is cured and who will have a recurrence or develop mets, of course any doctor who pronounces to a patient that she is "cured" is an irresponsible idiot. For early stage patients, I am fine however if a doctor says something like "I hope and believe that your treatments were effective and that you have been cured, but since there is no way to know this for sure, it's important that you always remain diligent, come in for all your tests and call should you ever experience any unusual pains or develop any lumps."

BarredOwl

The hospital here counts cancer anniversaries by surgery date. So my 1- yr checkup was in the middle of my Herceptin injections. That didn't make any sense to me, because so long as I had active treatment going on, I felt sort of "safe". My emotional crash came after my post Herceptin checkup, about a month after the last dose. Part of that was due to several recurrance scares, two bad chest colds --- and losing my dear sweet dog of almost thirteen years. Just today I was thinking yeah, I was extremely depressed the start of this year, but I'm finally through that dark tunnel and back into the light. I will never feel cancer-free, but I am NED for the time being, and focusing on other things in life.

So: official anniversary: surgery date 8/2015

My own anniversary: my last dose of herceptin (14 1/2 months after surgery)

Sx date makes the best sense. That's when the tumour comes out. I wish MOs would use that to determine how long on meds and such instead of dx date like mine does.

My anniversary date is my dx, my daughter's is her end of treatment - it's whatever you choose. There's no right or wrong date. We are both NED - DD for 18-yrs, me for 6-yrs, but with every new ache or pain, our 1st reaction is still "cancer".

Sorry, but some of us are cured. I am one. Over 8 years out with TNBC, you are CURED. No possibility whatsoever that same thing can come back. It does not prevent another cancer, but the old one is gone, totally and completely.

My oncologist counts post-treatment date as the official date. I finished RADS in August 2011 so she counted August 2016 as my 5 year milestone.

Diane