Scan anxiety and the wait

daveinwoodland
daveinwoodland Member Posts: 16
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
A couple of weeks ago I had a soft tissue CT scan of my neck and the reading noted some "bumps" "possibly post surgical" etc. etc. so a folow up P.E.T. scan was ordered. SInce I hadn't had one since last November this was over due anyway.

So the scan comes on a Thursday with a three day wait after that to get the results. Needless to say yours truly was a wreck for the entire time that you have to wait for the results. If someone could invent a legal drug to make you forget that time they would reap the benefits.

To make a long story short the results came back in on Tuesday of this week and were all good and nothing to be concerned about. I guess this will be better next time if it is done as a regular diagnostic tool and not to see if something else is wrong. Maybe?

Comments

  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    #2
    "The waiting is the hardest part"
    (Tom Petty reference)

    There is no doubt that waiting is difficult, but please be thankful for your apparently outstanding results!

    It seems that cancer is quite the fad and this keeps our doctors and other professional caregivers very busy. The best we can do is to keep our edginess to ourselves and try to present a positive, even humorous, front to these people. The better we treat them, after all, the better we will be treated by them.

    In the meantime, those scans are meant to assure you and your doctors that you either are clear of cancer at the moment or that the cancer has returned or remains. It is as simple as that. Your doctors cannot change the reasons for your scans, just as they cannot change the results of them (although they CAN, perhaps, change the results in the long term, luckily for us).

    It will always be both a 'diagnostic tool' and a procedure to see if 'something else is wrong'. Eventually, hopefully, the scans will be reduced (from, say, every three months to every six months) and finally stopped altogether.

    Until that day, they are important facets of your treatment and prognosis, i.e., your FUTURE.

    Do the happy dance, friend! It seems you have earned it!

    Take care,

    Joe
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #3
    It Doesn't
    It doesn't get any better...the waiting, and anxiety... At least it hasn't yet for me and I'm over two years post treatment.

    JG

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