Health Forums Online.

Almost everyone looks forward to finishing treatment with feelings of joy, relief, and celebration. Indeed, there are reasons to feel joyous and celebratory. Side effects will diminish, energy will return, expectations of freedom from disease are cherished, and life will begin to return to normal.
Larry Coffman, five-year survivor of SCLC, is ready to live:
The emotional scars are the worst for cancer patients, in my opinion.
The discomfort of the treatment side effects fade rather quickly, but the emotions that one experiences during that period remain for many, many years.

I have never asked "why me?" because it doesn't matter. I enjoy talking to and hUgging my kids, watching the flowers bloom in the spring, and the misty rain that falls from time to time. I have adjusted my lifestyle to my condition and am thankful for each and every new day that I see.

I concentrate on the positive aspects of my position.
Kathleen Houlihan describes her joy when finishing chemo:
I'm mostly recovered from my last round of chemo! I spent an extra day there doing all "the scans"-brain MRl, bone scan, and CT scan of the chest and abdomen, as well as a chest x-ray and the usual blood work. Everything looks good! My CEA is still in the normal range at 1.5. The Original tumor has shrunk down to 2.5 x 3 centimeters (from 7 x 8 centimeters), and is presumably all dead scar tissue by now. The CT scan showed a new spot behind the Original one, which scared me, but my doctor thinks it is most likely scar tissue resulting from the radiation treatments, not a new malignancy. "The cancer is gone, for the most part," says he. I gave him a hug, a few tears, and a bouquet of fall flowers to thank him for saving my life.

I am now a former cancer patient, a lung cancer survivor. My hair is starting to grow back, I only have two more Neupogen shots to go, and my white cell count should return to normal in a month or so. Life is good. In the latest issue of Coping with Cancer magazine, Bernie Siegel recommends figuring out what you would want to do if you had only fifteen minutes left to live, and then doing it for the rest of your life. Anyone care to dance?
However, many people also report at least some ambivalence at the end of treatment. Side by side with the expected good feelings can be other, more painful feelings.
The remainder of this section talks about negative feelings that might unexpectedly arise at the end of treatment. These feelings, and all of the feelings described in this chapter, are completely normal. Some of them may not strike you as useful reactions, but they are nonetheless normal reactions for the circumstances surrounding cancer survivorship and should be honored as such. If you decide to join a support group, for example, you'll likely hear many people describing these kinds of reactions and offering very good ways to turn reactions into useful acts.
Keep in mind as well that many lung cancer survivors have long periods of feeling happy, sound, capable, productive, and blessed. For many, the positives outnumber the negatives.

Max Baldwin describes his spiritual evolution since diagnosis:
I believe that after the initial shock of learning you have cancer, you then adjust your thinking and actually become a bigger and better person. I have an enhanced appreciation of friends, family and increased enjoyment of Simple things like rain, green grass, and on and on and on ....