Noun:

1. A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.

2. The action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.

 

Recovery will mean lots of things to different people.  Physical recovery can be slow, and sometimes people never get back to their pre-cancer health.  Whereas some go on to do great things; run a marathon, climb a mountain, swim the channel.  In my book if you can go back to more or less how you were before; enjoy holidays, go back to work, raise your family, then you have won!

 

Mental recovery is a whole different thing.  In my experience, all cancer survivors carry the ordeal with them to some extent, and live in fear to some degree of having to go through it all over again.

 

Easier said than done, but I try not to think about it.  It was a horrible time, but I was one of the lucky ones to come through the other side.  Some people have PTSD and anxiety for years after.  I think of it as an illness that I recovered from.  Where so many people have to live with illnesses they will have for the rest of their lives.  I had cancer.  Cancer didn’t have me.