Gnelson makes a very good point. I am sure for many here that the diagnosis, resulting shock, fear and numbness prevents many from either researching or making key decisions until it is too late to do so. It is all too easy to be swept up and overwhelmed by the medical system. I had like three days to decide whether or not to have all my teeth pulled, 14hr. radical neck disection/pectoral flap surgery & radiation vs. radiation alone (with or without chemo), accept standard XRT vs. IMRT, etc. I had to go into practically 24 hr a day research to figure out all of the treatment possibilites and risk/benefit of each. It was a daunting task. I already had information links due to my longtime association with the radiological medical devices industry and I have friends who are oncologists. I had to put all of my feelings on the back burner which I paid a price for later on. If I hadn't had my wife transcribing notes at all of the doctors visits I am sure I would have missed half of the information they were giving me. And then there was the task of finding the most qualified doctors and treatment facilities. To further complicate matters, I had no medical insurance when I was first Dx'd. I am also self employed so had no disability insurance either, so in addition to all of the medical decisions, I had to put together an emergency financial plan as well. I needed to get these things out of the way because I knew that my focus would have to be on treatment, surviving the treatment and eventual healing.

I know what you mean about never feeling safe. Last night I had a "death dream" - my first ever. I dreamt that the cancer had spread to the point where I needed euthanasia and I then had to decide whether or not to die in my wifes arms. It was one of those "reality" dreams, in high definition and Dolby Digital sound track. It was very creepy. I had drinking dreams when I first became sober so I would imagine that this is just a spin on that. I'm not going to let it ruin my day.

I do pretty well with the followups now, I don't think about them too much. It's "in and out". I remain pretty much neutral about it - no fear but no gloating afterwards either. I certainly don't have the attitude that I "beat cancer". I think that we're all walking around on eggshells here and that is part of the "new normal" as well as the physiological changes. I would give anything to go back to the precancer state-of-mind, but as has been said "acceptance is the answer to all my problems today". Easily said - difficult to execute.