The Cancer Survivors Network (CSN) is a peer support community for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, families, and friends! CSN is a safe place to connect with others who share your interests and experiences.
Hi All!
It's been a long time since I've visited, and I find myself very nostalgic and missing you ladies who kept me company on this journey. I'd love to hear from my beautiful "old-timers" who are still here on the boards, and hear news about those who aren't.
I also want to encourage y'all that miracles really do happen. I celebrated 8 years NED last month, from Stage IVB, Grade 2 endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma. What a blessing.
Let me hear from you!!!
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Armywife and Forherself - I’m very happy to read that both of you are still doing well years after your treatments ended. I, too, am still NED nine years after diagnosis and eight years after treatment ended. I hope that other long-time members with equally good news have just been too busy with daily life to post an update (a situation I also found myself in the past couple of years!).
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You really have been through the ringer with your recurrences and many different types of treatments. But I’m glad that you checked in with us and let us know that you are still moving forward (even if they're small steps sometimes!).
Your experience reminds me of my mother. Her story started as cervical cancer in the early 1980s, for which she had surgery and chemo. As a nurse’s aid for many years, she had seen the injuries that radiation in the 60s and 70s caused, so she declined that treatment.
But over the next decade or so, she had several recurrences, more surgeries and more chemo. Although she had finally decided against any more surgeries, her new oncologist wanted her to try a recently approved chemo. All these years later, I don’t remember the drug’s name, if I ever even knew it. Obviously, there was no internet in those days and no paperwork like you get today from doctors and hospitals.
But fortunately, that last chemo worked when so many others hadn’t. When she died some years later from a bowel obstruction, she was still cancer free, which we know from the autopsy we had done.
So I hope that advances in cancer treatments will finally be able to put your recurrences behind you as well.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It's so nice to hear from members we haven't heard from in quite a while, especially around this time of year! Wishing you all the best. I find it reassuring that the negative experience of receiving a cancer diagnosis can come with many positives, including crossing paths with a great group who are willing to share and support each other!
Be well all,
MoeKay
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Hello, everyone! This is my fifth year as of July 2026—-and so far, so good! I was the 83% myometrial invasion /LVSI girl with Stage 1 / grade 1 (b in old terms) endometrial adenocarcinoma. Giving all of you a huge hug and a heartfelt hello! Glad to see so many of you still doing okay—and Jan, 11 years—you're a trooper with all that you have had to go through. I know it is exhausting, so applaud you for your fighting spirit <3
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Hello,Friends!
It’s so great to hear you are all doing well! It”s wonderful to see the names of old friends here!
I, too haven’t been on this site for ages, but I’ve been through a lot recently, AGAIN. I’m actually doing well for now.Very happily, I’m still NED from my Stage 2b Fallopian Tube cancer for 5 years! But, as some of you may remember, I was diagnosed with another primary cancer in 2023 (Stage 3b NSCLC) . I recovered quite miraculously from it…..3 rounds of chemo & immunotherapy and surgery to remove my right middle lobe. I was NED from that until November. I had one tiny symptom (some drooping on the left side of my mouth) and CT revealed a brain tumor. I had a successful craniotomy in December to remove it…. It was the size of a ping pong ball, so too big for radiation. I also had 4 other minuscule (M D Anderson’s word, not mine!) tumors. They did Gamma Knife on those and stereostatic radiosurgery on what they called my “tumor bed.”
The REALLY good news is that I am still NED everywhere else!! There is no discernible cancer anywhere else!! So, no drugs! ! I had another PETCT and brain MRI just a few weeks ago and the PETCT was clean, the minuscule tumors have shrunk, and there are no new ones! So that’s the plan for now…..scans every 3 months and no treatment unless/until something pops up.
We bought some property and are building a little ranch in the north central Texas Hill Country. We have 3 horses now, so the dream is to watch sunsets with them grazing in their pastures every evening. Heaven. It”ll just be a couple of more months now before we can make the move.
If I start to worry about my cancer coming back….and what that might mean, I remind myself that I have been living with that possibility for almost 6 years and yet I’m still OK! I CAN’T worry about it!
Love to All,
A
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Hello Ladies!
I, too, am sorry that usage of this platform has slipped to the point they are closing it down. Coming here since 2012 kept me sane during my fraught periods. I thought I would return for a final report and farewell.
For the record, I was originally Dx'd in 2005 with (old)Stage 1C, grade 2 endometrioid adenocarcinoma. Tx was total hysterectomy and EBRT. I've recurred several times, each time successfully treated (external radiation twice, progesterone therapy, chemotherapy, and wedge resection and "gamma knife" to the lungs). Then in 2023, I was dx'd with colon cancer. Had right hemi-colectomy, and did not require anything further. It's been 5 years now since my last treatment for UC. I've survived 20 years, and I'm still kicking! Yes, I am somewhat diminished by neuropathy but, all in all, I'm in excellent condition: gym 5x a week and personal trainer to build upper body strength and core stability, limit sugar intake, eat lots of protein and watch my weight.
The one cautionary note is that 20 years on, pelvic radiation effects have made me prone to sacral insufficiency fracture. I engaged in group exercise classes that involve lots of plyometric exercises, and that, together with my weakened pelvis, caused me to tear my hamstring at my sit bone (a very painful and inconvenient injury). I am at the end of a 12-week course of PT. This is a nasty injury to deal with. I'm still not 100%. I would urge all ladies who have had EBRT to keep up with your DEXA scans, and make sure your Calcium and Vit. D3 levels are adequate. I thought I was in pretty good shape, but I've learned that I really did not have great core strength, and that my injury occurred because my hamstrings and other muscles were compensating for my weaker core until my pelvis couldn't take it anymore. Core strength has been the focus of PT, and I can tell the difference. Now I know I will have to keep at this work for the rest of my life.
I am starting to feel my 72 years, and I need to be more careful as I age. But I never expected to live this long, and I'm thrilled, deficits notwithstanding. As we've always said, each of us is a statistic of one, and there is every reason to be hopeful of curing/controlling this disease. Things have changed so much in the last 10 years!
I'm happy to see a bunch of us oldtimers have checked in. This has been a wonderfully supportive community. I hope for continued good days for us all.
Best wishes, Oldbeauty
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Every time I see a name I recognize, I am delighted. Oldbeauty—thank you so much for checking in. I am currently doing training so I can be one of the ACS volunteers, but I absolutely hope to maintain some sort of relationship with those of us who have checked in for so many years. Thanks for educating me about the importance of core strength.
I was also the old 1C too, with my 83% MMI and LVSI. I am okay—so far so good!—but it's only been 4 y 9 m and we all know how sneaky and persistent cancer can be. Knock on wood.
I'm impressed with your courage and tenacity, and you are still here, after all that recurrence? amazing.Sending Love.
On another note, I began a FB group for this group of women, but am not finding it doing very well—-maybe we're all just so healthy! so have deleted it.
Deb
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