I have to agree with Mark, not to mention that the ones who are still here probably need therapy - at least I do anyway;-) It's hard to live in the world of cancer all of the time. But it is typical of any counseling or "people helping" experience, some come and take or get what they need then move on and a few feel indebted for this gift and wish to give back. It makes it all worth while, when occasionally, someone reports back that we made a difference.

It has recently occurred to me that I am suffering from this fear, still, even though I am one of the "lucky" ones - advanced staging, rad/chemo and a complete response to treatment with relatively few side effects. The emotional scars are now starting to surface at 3 1/3 years post Tx (Some mild neuropathy and neck muscle spasms are far as the physical stuff goes). Go figure that one out. I honestly don't know how anyone can drift back to a "normal" life after this. They either must be made out of something that I am not or they are in complete denial. We often speak of the "new normal" and I am still learning just what exactly that means.
From a sheer numbers perspective OCF is still a microcosm in the world or oral cancer and there are 10's of thousands of oral cancer patients, annually, who are not aware of us. There are 30,000 new Dx every year, we average about 1,000 new members per year. How many "lurkers" there are is anybody's guess. There are a lot of hits on the site.

I fully second Marks last line...