A Little "Just to Be Sure" Scanxiety

There have been so many times in the past few months that I’ve composed blogs in my head and thought – I should really write that down. And each one of those times I’ve been too busy to write prioritized other things ahead of writing out whatever was in my head.

Today I’ve not much of an excuse. I just returned from a follow-up oncology visit and have just under two hours before I’m back at the medical building for a breast ultrasound. We’re taking a better look at what is likely a lymph node on the side of my right foob. It’s 99% a lymph node but doesn’t have the “fleshy” feel of my other lymph nodes so Dr. L wants a better look.

In a few hours we’ll have confirmed it’s just a healthy lymph node and I’ll get on with the day-to-day but, at this very moment, I’m feeling that familiar scanxiety.

Amusingly enough I was actually completely laissez-faire about the whole affair during the discussion with Dr. L and the scheduling with the imaging department. I was also fairly meh about things for about two hours afterwards. But now, at home, waiting to return for my appointment and trying to get some work done, I’m a little unnerved.

Thankfully I now know better than to waste time and energy rationalizing my emotions and I’ve learned the most valuable thing I can do for myself is write it all out. This is reality. This is reality even after almost five years with no evidence of disease. I’m not a worrier or a hypochondriac. I’m just a woman whose body once betrayed her by growing a mass of rouge cells that, if left unchecked, have the potential to bring down the house.

I’m just a woman who felt like she was following all the health rules and still found herself at the short end of a cancer screening. 

I’m just a woman who is grateful to be alive and grateful to have her health. 

I’m just a woman who is, on a daily basis, cognizant that others my age and with my disease origin, are being devastated physically, emotionally and financially. I’m just a woman who says goodbye to friends at an inordinately rapid rate because of cancer.

I guess that’s what scanxiety is for me these days – going through the “oh shit” and the “what if” all the way to 114 a day die from metastatic breast cancer. Going all the way to Diane and Beth and Beth and Angela and Lori and Janet and so many others. And, most recently April, Dianne and Vicki.

So, when a routine oncology follow-up turns into a “let’s just make SURE it’s nothing ultrasound appointment” there are a lot more things for me to unpack.

Thanks for letting me unpack them in front of you and thank you for letting me react to my reality without judgment.

I am just scanxious and that’s okay.