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Damocles Syndrome is the name sometimes given to the fear that cancer will return.  The name comes from the fact that fear of recurrence can feel as if the sword of Damocles hangs over your head, suspended by a thin thread.

According to Wikipedia:

The Damocles of the anecdote was a courter in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a fourth century BC tyrant. Damocles exclaimed that, as a great man of power and authority, Dionysius was truly fortunate. Dionysius offered to switch places with him for a day, so he could taste first hand that fortune. In the evening a banquet was held where Damocles very much enjoyed being waited upon like a king. Only at the end of the meal did he look up and notice a sharpened sword hanging directly above his head by a single horse-hair. Immediately, he lost all taste for the fine foods and beautiful boys and asked leave of the tyrant, saying he no longer wanted to be so fortunate. Dionysius had successfully conveyed a sense of the constant fear in which the great man lives

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How To Deal With The Fear Of Recurrence

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