It's here. That milestone you have read about, which seems so far away that first moment when you are faced with breast cancer survival.

On Tuesday, it will be five years to the day when I was prepped and wheeled into surgery at UPMC Montefiore. It was Jan. 17, 2001.

The good news? I am here to tell the tale, to put the words on paper. So many brave souls who had already survived five, 10 and even 20 years without a recurrence told me I would be.

It's that support you rely on for answers. But if there are no guaranteed answers, just relating your fears or your hopes is good for what ails you.

I made many new friends, women who had been there. Most, but not all, have celebrated anniversaries as well.

Five years is actually a measuring stick for when a cancer patient becomes a cancer survivor. It's not an absolute, but usually you aim for it. If you tolerate it, you take tamoxifen for those five years after radiation and/or chemotherapy. It is a drug that blunts the ability of estrogen to enter cells. Now, at least for me, I've been put on a new drug, Femara, which studies show is more effective than tamoxifen. It works by blocking production of estrogen, a hormone that fuels the growth of most tumors that develop after menopause.

And after that? Well, you are so thankful to have a drug you can take to ward off recurrence. You don't think much beyond that. You take one day, one year at a time, grateful for them all.

You set your mind on the five years without a recurrence and feel you will then be home free, even though that is not the promise, nor is it the rule. It's a goal. It's a hope you have beat this thing. And then you move on.

If you make it there, as the lyrics tell you in "New York, New York" ? you can make it anywhere. Or so you think. Or so you want to believe. It keeps you going.

The feeling is, you are over the hump, the first leg of a journey which began on a cold winter day, Dec. 29, 2000, when I arrived for my mammogram without a thought in the world regarding a problem.

How many women have been where I was that day? Millions. Our experiences are different, and yet they are the same.

The sameness is that our lives change, right there. The future takes on new meaning because we aren't sure there will be one.

We hadn't thought about the future the day before a lump was discovered in our breast. Now we think about it all the time.

The ironic part, for me, is that last Thursday I spoke to a group of survivors in Uniontown, who have banded together as one, Bosom Buddies. I was asked to tell my story.

Topping that, and even more ironic, on Tuesday , I will have my annual mammogram, the anniversary date of my five years since my diagnosis/surgery.

The one thing that has remained constant these past years is the feeling that comes over me for each of the mammograms and examinations that were scheduled twice a year in the beginning, but now are once a year.

Tell me if it isn't true that you are transported back in time, to the day you didn't walk out with a clear X-ray or bill of health. You never enter the hospital or, in my case these past two years, the Hillman Cancer Center, without a concern.

That's because you know it can happen. You know because it happened once. To many women, they know because it has happened twice, or even more often.

More good news is that it isn't a death sentence. Cancer research and treatment are ongoing and much needed.

Unfortunately, my memory of the day I was diagnosed is connected closely to a friend of many years, the late Jan Bohna, who died last fall after years of in-and-out hospital stays and treatments for breast cancer.

It seems that all that could go wrong did go wrong for Jan, although she lived many years reasonably well after her first lumpectomy and eventual mastectomy, when the cancer returned in the other breast.

I didn't always like talking about breast cancer with my dear friend because she often told me, "Mine started just like yours."

That wasn't good news. In fact, the day of my mammogram in 2000 at Magee-Womens Hospital, I had told her I would come and stay with her afterward because she was due for surgery for yet another tumor. I felt she would appreciate company.

I kept my promise but walked zombie-like into the room where she was being prepared for the surgery. It was no time to share my news, but I was watching the procedures carefully, selfishly seeing myself on the gurney in days to come, and, quite frankly, feeling very sorry for myself.

Since then, especially if it is snowing when I leave Hillman Center, as it was the day I exited Magee, still disbelieving, I relive what occurred five years ago, but with renewed hope.

Made it. I'm still here. Snow on my cheeks is appreciated, as are all my surroundings.

I still don't look forward to Tuesday, except for seeing Anthony Harrison, the kind and soft-spoken surgeon who pulled me through to reach this anniversary, if that's what you want to call it. I liked him the moment we met, and I trusted him.

Friends, and people I don't even know, have been as lucky as I, but I know it isn't everybody's story. Still, you have to believe it will be.

One day at a time. Embrace it.