It's all just a guesstimate, and they're always better coming from your own treating doctors. There's people on here that have lived close to and over a decade on from their stage 4 diagnosis. Your treatment seems to be doing its job and keep the cancer dormant to a certain extent. When that stops, you'll probably be given something else to try and slow it down again. It all depends on your individual response to the drugs you are taking and it all sounds to be going fine at the moment. Hoy's cancer isn't your cancer. But these stories and stories from people you met along this journey do shake the ground underneath you for a period of time.

Also, you don't need to ask the question if you don't want to. That a very personal choice you can only make. If you want to live in ignorance, live in ignorance. You're not a coward for not wanting to really know. I'm sure the treating doctors would tell you if things were imminent as to allow you to get your affairs in order.

Hello Welsh_Elaine and thanks for your post,

Prognosis (how long someone has got) is a difficult thing to predict and a question best answered by your doctors.

Whilst the drugs are controlling the cancer and you are leading a relatively normal life it is a difficult thing to predict how long this will go on for. There may also be other drugs that the doctors can offer you if the drugs that you are having are no longer working.

Your doctors are in the best position to tell you more but even they can't accurately predict a time line in case some one lives for a shorter or longer time. You can talk to your doctors about this if this is something that you would like to do. You may find it helpful to talk to your 'care nurse' if you see her on a regular basis.

Everyone's cancer is so different so it is difficult to compare one person with another.

Try if you can to take one day at a time and not think too far ahead.

You are very welcome to ring and chat any of this through with one of the helpline nurses. The number to call is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

All the best,

Catherine

Thank you both of you.

It's the Chris Hoy news that has unsettled me. If they can they predict things so accurately for him (2-4 years), they might be able to do so for me?

Even Hoy's figure is just stats. They don't really know. The reporting on cancer is terrible. Most science reporting is. They can predict better when it really is end of life and they can see the rate the tumours are growing and where.

My partner's friend had a brain tumour and it was just in the worst location at the brain stem. He had hardly any time after diagnosis. Thing is, that can happen to anyone. Living with cancer shortens your odds but doesn't completely deplete them. And they change all the time as new treatments get trialed and approved.

My partner's odds on pembrolizumab have improved by scientific reckoning vastly in the two years since he started treatment and that's just because it was so new the figures hadn't been collated enough.

He's stage 4 so we fear the day it starts advancing again but it's easier to live with hope x