Survivorship: Obstacles & Opportunities

Susan Nessim and Diane Shader Smith 
Adapted for the Canadian edition by Richard Hasselback, MD 

When treatment was over and I had to go back to the real world, the world outside the hospital, I thought my life
would be the same. I went about doing things the way
I'd always done them, but nothing worked. You're not
the same person. You can never go back.
    —Anita, 38-year-old breast cancer survivor.

The concept of cancer survivorship is quite new but
is finally being recognized. The 800,000 survivors in
Canada are a living testament to the fact that cancer
is not always a death sentence. Thanks to medical
advances in diagnosis and treatment, we can
confidently look beyond the disease process to life
after cancer.