Last week, a woman I know told me that she was really worried about getting her annual mammogram. I asked if she had any risk factors such as family history. She said, “No, but with so many women getting diagnosed these days, she said, I guess my risk factor is being a woman.”

Even though more women die of heart disease, it is breast cancer we seek out. Breast cancer is the only cancer we’re supposed to look for with dedicated regularity. We’re supposed to have a built in search and destroy protocol for our breasts. Every month we’re supposed to examine our breasts. Hey! It’s time to look for cancer. Let’s look for a lump. Who needs that in their lives? After all, our breasts are meant to be about life. But they’re now also about fear. And many of us live with the fear no matter what side of breast cancer we’re on.

But early detection, which we all know, is the key to survival, means looking for cancer. Now that’s scary but it’s also hopeful, because we can do something about it. All of us diagnose, live with the threat of recurrence or metastases, even if we have an excellent prognosis. An excellent prognosis is still a prognosis, which isn’t a good thing. We don’t know if we’re in the 5% or 95%; the 80% or 20%. Living with odds is so bizarre. And ultimately, irrelevant for any single person, because, as one woman said to me, for any individual it’s binary: you get cancer again or you don’t, my personal odds are 50/50. So, we remain vigilant for signs and symptoms.

And there will be things that trigger your fears for the rest of your life. It’s normal. You feel good, you feel great, you’re three years past treatment, you feel healthy and cured. Then you get a backache that you can’t explain and the terror hits like a tornado. Surviving breast cancer leaves you with a fear that the ordinary can become a life threat. We find again a resting place in hope until the next time and then go on with our lives.