Recovery first months

The recovery first couple months was pretty hard.  I had hot flashes and soaks every day and night which finally went away after the 6 week mark.  I went for blood work every three weeks and a CT scan every month.  Had my first scan which is called PET scan soon after the surgery to check for any traces of the tumors because I was categorized as stage 3 with the involvement of 12 lymph nodes  out of 21.  They scanned me from head to toes.  Nothing was lighting up and my oncologist said he even sees arthritis in my back wait what??? Everything looked good on PET scan so I was declared to be in remission….every 3 weeks I get my blood checked for Chromogranin A  levels which tell me if my cancer traces are in my body and if they are climbing or going away.  This is pretty hard to deal with because I am basically waiting to see if it is back and if I need chemo and another surgery.  It is also scary that it can be in my body growing for a while until we actually can see it on the scan. My scan from 2008 did not show anything so I presume it was growing sometime after 2008 until we got it out now.  I have to keep checking and holding my breath for 10 years then if all good I may be declared cancer free.  I walk much better now, also started back to working out! As soon as my surgeon cleared me for lifting I went to the gym but found that it is so hard to do anything without enough food.  This will take some time.  I did get on the elliptical machine and did 8 miles yay it felt so good. Recovery will take a long time but at this time I am optimistic.  The hard part is emotional.