Do you observe your diagnosis anniversary in any special way?

Do you observe, remember, commemorate, celebrate, mourn, or whatever your anniversary date of being diagnosed? Do you just try to forget that day?

Mine is coming up in a few weeks, and I sort of swallowed hard when I saw it on the calendar. I was wondering about doing anything special that day, if anything. I'm feeling a bit celebratory since a year later I'm doing very well, albeit still in treatment (ADT2).

So, do you folks have any special observances on your special day? Just curious....

no. the anniversary I "celebrate" is my post-treatment anniversary dates. e.g., Monday I saw my uro and I am in remission 3.5 years after the end of my treatment. tomorrow I leave for el portal, which is 20 minutes from the valley floor of Yosemite, for a couple of days of photography.

ed

thanks Jerry. I think I am finally starting to breathe just a little easier .

ed

no

I did watch my 3 year treatment date by getting a PSA test from my primary care provider around that time. Don't think much about diagnosis date.

The anniversary of my first biopsy is the forth of July. I don't do too much to commemorate that day, but you guys seem to be pretty exited about it - judging by the fireworks you set off.

Redwing57,

Great Thread and glad you're doing great.

Like I was telling you last night, I'm very good with dates of special events of my life and very often, replay the phone call I received from my urologist (after receiving my biopsy report) on Monday, Oct. 1, 2012 around 9AM (home alone)! For the first time in my life, I couldn't breath and had to call my son in love to come get me and take me to my daughters home. In the afternoon, had my wife to come there and told her, our daughter and her family (the flood gates opened, as we're ALL very close).

Then two days later, (Oct. 3rd), had the original appointment (after full body BS and CT), at 3:30PM, was told of the scans. I left the office, went home and told my wife and then drove 30 minutes to our kids home and told them......and the dam opened.

Don't observe it, no celebration at all! Mourn...well, just can't get it out of my mind, and every day, thanking God for LIFE.

Dave in Bartlett, TN

I know when it was, but most of the time it just goes by and I don't even think about it.

If I do, I only remember it because of the circumstances surrounding it.

I had just come home from being with my wife at the hospital when my doc called about 6pm with the results of the biopsy. She had been there for a couple of days with what we thought was another pneumonia. She had a weak immune system from a stem cell transplant.

I didn't call her that night and the next morning as I got there the nurses were preparing her for a move to ICU. Her oxygen saturation levels were at 40%. They put her in a drug induced comma and on a ventilator.

She was there for the next 8 weeks. about 2 weeks into it they finally figured out that she had contracted Swine Flu.

So by day I was with her and by night I was researching what to do about Pca.

That is when I found HW.

about 3 days after she came out of the comma, she remembered to ask me about the biopsy. I told her that they were going to keep her for two extra days so I could fly to Detroit to interview a surgeon.

The rest is history.

I have just been living the hell out of every day since then,

Sonny

I don't celebrate the anniversary of diagnosis, but I definitely plan to celebrate my upcoming 1 year anniversary of RALP, by donating blood!

I've always been a regular blood donor, but I wasn't allowed to donate from the time of my diagnosis until 1 year of "full remission" passed.

-Gedman

It is not a date I want to honor, commemorate or remember but it is a day I will never forget, one of the worst days of my life...ranking up there with the deaths of my mom and dad. It is kind of hard getting those three words out of your head, "you have cancer". Your whole world changes. At age 58, mortality wasn't in the forefront of my mind, but when you hear words like that you quickly come the realization the end is closer than you think.

Redwing - congratulations. Enjoy your upcoming anniversary.

I had a myocardial infarction at 36 and I have been celebrating the anniversary day for every year since. I was just a couple months short of my 10 year anniversary when I was diagnosed with PC. Like some of you, my PC diagnosis day was amid a flurry of labs, bone scans, MRI's, PetScans, appts, research, worries, tears.....

So I know the approximate day I was diagnosed but I was focused on recovery from chemo and prepping for surgery at my 1 year anniversary. I will be celebrating each year hereafter as a separate holiday from my MI. I am always looking for a reason to pop open a nice bottle of wine!