Scanziety

It is scan time again. Every six months I go through this ritual of weeks of ‘scanziety’, the full body scan (from ‘eyes to thighs’), then tears of relief that nothing bad has happened, followed by guilt for putting my family through my anxious wait. I have spoken to numerous counsellors and psychologists about my fears, but to-date, have not come up with a reason as to why I go through this every six months, or how to deal with it. Then it hit me….

The flipped coin theory

I was trying to explain to my wonderful husband, Jack, about my fears and why I could ‘forget’ my tumours for almost 6 months, then become obsessed with my scans and the results for the lead up to my scans. During this time I become withdrawn and find it hard to talk to people about anything. My emotions are raw and I am more likely to cry at "Worksafe" TV commercials. It is hard to explain to someone who has never been in this position. Even in my ‘saner’ moments I question why I should feel like this when I know that it is not reasonable. Then I thought about life at the ‘flip of a coin’.

I asked Jack to flip a coin. It was heads. I told him he could live for another 6 months. He flipped it again. Again it was heads. “You get another 6 months”. He did this a few more times until finally he came up with tails. “Your time is up. You’re dead!”

This is how I feel every six months. I can pretend my disease does not exist until the next scan. And every six months I have to wait for them to tell me, “Heads you win" or "Tails you die”.

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Update: 19th Dec 2014 ~
My results are in, and my tumours are all stable and growing slowly. Very happy with that!  :-)

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