Scanxiety

I'm linking to blog post from earlier today from Lymphoma Rock Star Betsy de Parry. (Betsy literally wrote the book on RadioImmunoTherapy for Follicular Lymphoma.)

Today, she wrote a blog post for the University of Michigan Cancer Center's Health Blogs. Betsy was treated for Follicular Lymphoma there in 2002 (that's over 12 years since treatment, kids). Her subject is scanxiety, that horrible feeling of uncertainty that comes a few days before a scan, and then during the scan, and then whatever time it takes to get the results.

I think most of us have been there, and understand what it means.

Betsy does a nice job of capturing that bad feeling, and of pointing out that it's hard to understand if you've never been through it. It's easy for someone else to tell you to relax. Not so easy to actually do it.

But Betsy ends on hope (and if anyone knows about hope, it's someone who been 12 years out):

And I learned to accept that coping with a little scanxiety for a few days here and there was a small price to pay for the peace of mind that came from knowing that just in case my body ever decided to betray me again, we’d know earlier rather than later, when betrayal was easier to conquer.

Nice job, Betsy. Thanks for sharing your experience.