This week I turn 39 years old and it will also be 2 years since Stage I melanoma diagnosis. It’s been a very difficult 2 years to say the least. In some ways it seems like an eternity ago, and when I think about the fact that you still have to worry about recurrence in 8 years 10 years, 15 years, it sometimes seems mentally daunting to think about still having to worry that many years out. I know the diagnosis could have been much worse and I hope I don’t ever have to deal with melanoma again physically, even though mentally it will always be with me.
Congrats on two years! Thinking about our mortality is never fun – but it’s a fact of life that we have to worry about all kinds of diseases in 8 years, 10 years, 20 years. And risk of other terminal diseases get greater with age too – so much so that they might even trump your melanoma dx. So I’d just focus on the now, because you are healthy NOW!
I predict that your children will all live for a century or more and that you’ll be there to see every one of them not only graduate from college, but retire from their jobs, as well.