Approaching my two-year milestone with mixed emotions

The highest risk of recurrence for women who’ve had the type of breast cancer I had is during the first two to three years following treatment so it’s clearly a big deal that I’m approaching the two-year mark. I finished treatment at the end of February 2016 and while I don’t want to tempt fate by speaking too soon, the start of a new year seems as good as time as any to put a few thoughts on page.

In broad terms, risk of breast cancer recurrence reduces over time, but it never completely goes away. And – at the risk of folk complaining that I’ve said this a hundred times before – if it comes back away from the original site, it’s treatable but it can’t be cured and it’s therefore ultimately fatal. And I’m at high risk.

With the type of breast cancer I had, the risk falls after two years, and it falls again after five, which is why many survivors (for want of a better term) celebrate their five-year “cancer-free” date. If you plotted it on a graph, however, the “tail” would be never-ending. As many recurrences happen after the first five years as happen before (see Recurrence 1).

Some days I think about it a lot; other days hardly at all. For an example of the latter, take a couple of weeks ago – December 19th, to be precise. It was twenty minutes to midnight before I realised it that was the two-year anniversary of my breast cancer surgery. I was stunned – in a good way – that almost the whole day could go by without me being aware of its signficance.

This was particularly surprising as I’d been thinking at lot “about my breast cancer and me” – the subtitle of my blog – at around that time. Just a week earlier, I’d had the second of the five annual post-treatment mammograms and ultrasounds I’m to have. Everything was normal. When I saw the consultant breast surgeon for the results, we talked about the importance of the two-year milestone. He was clearly very pleased, but it really brought back to me the seriousness of the whole thing.

Almost every night before bed for the past two years – I really have only missed on one or two occasions – I’ve assiduously taken a little yellow tablet containing a drug called letrozole. There’s some evidence that this daily hormone therapy that I’m on to reduce my risk of recurrence should be taken for ten rather than five years.

So are we looking at staying on letrozole for ten years?, the breast surgeon ventured at that appointment in mid-December. I looked at him, my mind suddenly thrust into overdrive as I realised I was finding it impossible to think eight years ahead. I had to answer. Let’s take it a year at a time, I said.

It’s hard to speak in absolutes as no person is the same and, as I’ve said before, statistics are only statistics. That said, NHS Predict, an online tool that estimates how any one woman may respond to additional breast cancer treatment, suggests that taking letrozole reduces my risk of recurrence by almost as much as the chemotherapy I had.

For as long as I can, then, I guess I’ll be taking letrozole. Or rather, for as long as I safely can. It’s complicated. For the moment, I’m one of the lucky ones who seems to have minimal side effects. Lots of women come off letrozole and other similar drugs because the side effects – including fatigue, bone and joint pain, hot flushes – are debilitating.

Importantly, letrozole increases your risk of developing osteoporosis. We’ll be able to what effect it’s had on me on that front in March, when I have my first bone density (or DEXA) scan since starting on the drug in January 2016 (see One down, just 3,652 to go). A scan done at that time showed I had good bone strength, so at least we started from a high baseline.

Nearly two years out of treatment, I look back and feel grateful I’m still here. As for looking forward, well I do that too, if not with confidence, then at least with pragmatism and indeed enthusiasm.

For a while I found it very hard to look forward with anything other than fear. Gradually, though, things got better (see And time goes by). Then things then got complicated again, when I was diagnosed with very early-stage melanoma at the end of August last year (Melanoma? You’ve got to be kidding). At this precise moment, I’m recovering – extremely well – from a second round of surgery I had on my right calf at the end of November relating to that.

Eight years is a long time in anyone’s book, not just mine. I may not manage ever to look that far ahead, but that’s ok. The next few months are busy enough, starting with a big family reunion up in Scotland later this month.

On the sporting front, I’ve signed up to the Hampton Court Palace half marathon on March 18th and to a 66-mile bike ride round Loch Ness at the end of April. I’ve been out of action for a while due to the surgery on my calf (hopefully I’ll be exercising again by the end of this week), so getting fit for these will be quite a challenge. Unlike with cancer though, these are the kinds of challenges I love.

Here’s to the end of February and well beyond. Very best wishes to all for 2018.