Nothing is Guaranteed
This past week was a big week for me in my cancer journey. On Monday, I had my follow up PET CT and then on Wednesday, I had appointments with both my radiologist and oncologist to go over the results. I had the added bonus of the radiologist doing a scope of my throat to look directly at the tumor site to see if there was anything left. One of the advantages of throat cancer is they can do that without cutting into you! That being said, those scopes are about as pleasant as getting a cavity filled. In other words, not pleasant at all.
Leading up to this week, I was doing a pretty good job of not worrying. Knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do to change the results helped me not to dwell on it when it came to mind. My ability to chase mental rabbits and to get distracted easily helped as well. I was doing really well until the night before my scan. I woke up a couple of hours after falling asleep. Even though I was able to direct my conscious thoughts elsewhere, my unconscious mind must have been active enough to not allow me to go back to sleep. This is not normally an issue for me. In fact, me falling asleep when I shouldn’t is much more of my usual problem than not sleeping when I should!
Despite that, and maybe because of it, the 2nd PET CT experience was completely different than the first. If you remember from a previous post, I was pretty worried about the first one. I was still coughing a lot from my tonsillectomy so I was worried about coughing and ruining the test so they had to start over. Add to that all the firsts: never had a PET, never been injected with radioactive sugar (yes, its a thing), never had a test in a trailer attached to a hospital (also a thing). So I was pretty anxious. For this past Monday, I knew what to expect from the test, I knew I wasn’t going to turn into Hulk from the injection, I knew the building since it was the clinic that was at my radiologist office. Maybe it makes me a snob but it helped that it wasn’t in a trailer. The techs couldn’t have been nicer and better at their jobs so by the time they put me on the table, wrapped me up and covered me in a warm blanket, I was yawning beneath my mask. The machine made almost no noise and I swear I dozed for at least half of the 20 minutes I was in there!
My sleep troubles continued between the test and the appointments so the morning did not start off great. By that point, I was pretty anxious. I kept telling people today was either going to be a really good or a really bad day. I arrived too early for my appointment and as I was waiting in my car, a thought occurred to me, what if the news wasn’t definitive. The more I thought about this, the more I came to to the conclusion that was the most likely outcome. Nothing about my cancer has been definitive! I am so thankful for that thought because it completely changed my mindset. So when the radiologist told me that the scope looked good but the scan showed a little area of inflammation, I was prepared to hear that. Both he and my oncologist think that the scan looks like that because I am not quite healed from treatment. The radiologist said that about half of his head & neck patients have to be re-scanned for this exact reason. They think it’s gone but they can’t say that for sure. So I get another scan and scope in two months and if that is clear, I am good but only to a point! This type of cancer is most likely to recur in the first two years so I can expect to see one of my doctors at least every three months for two years. So not definitive but overall positive! If I was rating it on a scale of one to ten, I would give it a solid eight!
I would understand if that seems high to you. I think the way my oncologist explained my situation had an influence on my attitude. He said that he couldn’t guarantee that it was gone but he said there was only about a 2% chance of me still having cancer. Then he shared that he read an article about keeping your money in the stock market and that article said you had about a 3% chance of losing a significant amount of your 401k over the next five years. He said, “So if you want to worry about something, worry about your 401k, not about cancer. The odds are higher for that.”
It’s a good point. How much time do I spend worrying about things that may never happen. Could it happen? Sure it could. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Nothing is as definitive as we want it to be. I was told that I have to wait two months to find out the next step in my cancer journey. I have a pretty good chance of hearing pretty good news. Based on what I know about others with cancer and just the general state of the world, I will take those odds!
Thanks to everyone that reached out with kind words about this blog. Despite my performance over the last few months, I really like writing it and plan on continuing. I am not sure what it will become and who knows what I will end up writing about but I want to keep going. I hope you will continue to come with me. Until then, try not to worry. And if you must, just worry about your 401k.
