Scanxiety

I get the same feeling every time I have a scan. It could be an MRI, PET, or a simple CT scan. No matter which, the feeling of fear and sickness fills my stomach. When I enter a hospital on the morning of a scan I am placed back to the person I was at the peak of my sickness. I start to put myself back to the days where I needed a wheelchair and I could barely lift my head. Why? Because every scan I have to check if my cancer has increased or decreased. Will I be that sick again or will I live to walk another few months without anxiety or fear, until the next scan?

I get that feeling because I am sick, whether I like to say that or not. I have always been sick, even on my healthiest days. I will always have cancer or be in remission from cancer, or be cancer free. But notice how all those still have the word 'cancer' in them. Well, that is because I can never forget I have this disease. It follows me like a lost puppy trailing behind me until I find home and it begs me to let it in. It is a tough pill to swallow, but it is one that I take daily.

I have always believed in a higher being. Someone who controls the universe whether that be God or not, I am not sure. Whoever that is, every time I lay in the machine, I talk to them. I usually just make conversation about my fears and if they could help me out at all. I'm not a person who prays a lot, but I feel prayer most in those 10 minutes.

Scans have always been the hardest thing for me. I fear them because they are foreign and unknown. Most of the cancer world is unknown as well, so for someone who fears that idea, they can have a hard time with this. Furthermore, cancer is unpredictable. I could be feeling extremely healthy and still my scan will show a centimeter growth and then my world crashes. It is hard to tell if something is out of the ordinary for a cancer patient because most of our life already is. So, for me, I start to get paranoid. Feeling my neck for lumps, thinking a cough is more than that, believing that every little ailment I have is another cancer cell knocking on the door crashing the party I never invited them to.

We, in the survivor community, call this scanxiety. A mix of the words scan and anxiety. It is a fear of what the picture will say and a fear that life as we know will change with one look. It is not an easy thing to overcome and I don't know if it will ever get easier. As long as I live I will have to go to scans, whether they are weeks, months, or years apart, scans will come and go. And every time I will get that same feeling of fear, but this time seated beside me, a feeling of hope too.