Watching and Waiting

As you know from the last entry, things are looking stable -- which is good -- so it looks like I'll keep watching and waiting for another three months.

Which is hard.

I had hoped for a CT scan sometime sooner than February, but Dr R and I talked, and it makes sense to hold off. Things are growing very slowly (if they're growing at all), so the scan would mean a probably unncessary expense and unncessary dose of radiation that won't tell us much of anything new. Maybe in three months, there will be enough of a change. Or maybe not, which will also be nice. But for now, everything is the same as it has been, including the way I've been feeling. Which is good.

This is, of course, what watching and waiting is all about. "Watching and waiting" is the term the doctors use; we patients sometimes call it "watching and worrying." It's come up recently in the support group, as it does every few months: watch and waiters are doing fine, but need to unload. Someone in the group just celebrated her third year anniversary of watching and waiting, which is awesome. And I've been e-mailing back and forth with a woman from Jersey. She's watching and waiting, about 37 years old, two kids. I know where she's at. Sometimes it's just a matter of wanting to know someone else understands and is going through the same things. We've traded some stories.

Probably two months ago, I felt a bump on the back of my head. It didn't go away for a few weeks. I know that lymphomas sometimes present themselves on the skin. If it was just more follicular lymphoma, then no big deal. I knew it wasn't anything aggressive -- I wasn't feeling any B symptoms. But that's how it goes with watching and waiting -- you just need to know. I knew my annual physical was coming up, so I waited and asked the GP to look at it. She said it looked benign. I called Dr. R, and he said it didn't sound like lymphoma -- he wasn't even worried enough to ask me to come in. But he suggested I see a dermatologist, just to ease my mind. Which I did. It was nothing.

But that's how it goes with watching and waiting. I used to think there would be times when I'd be feeling overconfident about how I was feeling. Overconfidence isn't good.

(That's for my brother -- I know how much he loves inspirational posters.)

But overconfidence isn't a problem. My confidence is just fine. I feel good about myself, my health, my doctors, my situation (see all those things I said I was thankful for last week -- I'm in pretty good shape).

I'm doing well. Just watching and waiting.