When your physical treatment ends, the health care team moves on to their next patient and you are left living in a changed body. If your cancer was detected very early, you may have little or no outward physical reminders of cancer. Even so, you will have faced the terror of being diagnosed with a dreaded disease. You will have lived through the devastating uncertainty of wondering whether you will die, lose your breast, or whatever other frightening images the word "cancer" suggests to you.

More likely, your body will carry a scar to remind you and those who are intimate with you that you once had cancer. You may have minor or significant disabilities resulting from your treatments that you never were limited by before. You live with the knowledge that cancer may return again sometime.

This is really difficult. Having breast cancer is not what any of us would choose. It takes strength of character, perseverance, a lot of soul searching, and good support from family and friends to go back to living normally. Life goes on and you need to find a way to live it. Many women find a new awareness of the joys of life after going through the diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer.