Thanks to all of you for your responses. I agree with all that was said about hope, and I do all I can to consciously, deliberately have it. The question I was trying to ask was more about having flashes of doubt.

A friend and I were talking about our retirement plans the other day - the usual banter about golf and hobbies and travel. After that coversation was over, and I was driving back to campus, a question flashed into my head: "Will I be alive long enough to retire?" Its a question about mortality.

Before cancer, like a teenager, I think I imagined living forever. Post cancer I have considerably more respect for mortality and the fact that life is not infinite. It is less about being afraid of a relapse, and more about being aware that we don't live forever. People die from all kinds of things.

I didn't need to have hope pre-cancer, my future was assured. I didn't hope for things, I pursued them. Being alive ten or thiry years from now never even came up before. Now it does.

Has your cancer made you MORE aware of your mortality? Are you feeling / acting / living differently now than you did before you got so sick? Mine has. I don't fear death, but I don't want to die - I have way too much to do. My plans for my future are now based largely on hope that I'll be here to carry them out. It surprises me - scares me a little - suddenly feeling so mortal. This happen to anyone else??
Tom