“The Results of Your Scan Are …”

The word I didn’t expect to hear

My response to my growing “scanxiety” before the oncologist appointment included trying to prepare myself for what we might hear. If I could anticipate the bad news in advance, it might take a mite out of the sting when I heard it. I could be ready with follow-up questions. I could be ready to think about next steps. I could start composing how I would tell the news to loved ones and friends. I might not cry as much in the doctor’s office.

And if the news was good? Well, then, yippee! I tried not to think too much about this possibility, but I could imagine Dave and I falling into each other’s arms in relief and then racing home to call our parents and text our siblings and friends. I could imagine sitting in my chair as waves of relief washed away the weight of weeks of worry.

I did not anticipate how the appointment actually went.

We sat in the chairs in his office, arranged exactly as we had been just over five months earlier when we first met with him to get test results. He had my folder on his desk, and looked both kindly and concerned. And then he said:

Your scan results look fine. [Almost dismissive tone, pushing away the closed folder. Then with eye contact and more interested tone:] How have you been feeling?

Fine? FINE?? That’s it? My scan results look fine? I would really like more information! What does “fine” mean here? I was not prepared for fine!

My oncologist—who one of my friends has started calling “Dr. Eeyore,” in the best way of course—is also very patient and listens and tries to answer all my questions, even the annoying ones. To summarize a much longer conversation, I had assumed that scans would be much clearer. Progression or no progression: those were the options. The wonder of sliding through a tube with dye coursing through my body would clearly reveal, almost literally in black and white, whether cancer was spreading or halting or receding. This does not seem to have been an entirely accurate assumption. It’s not clear on my scans.

What is clear is that my tumor markers have fallen considerably. Even Dr. Eeyore finds this encouraging. As he said, it is very rare for the tumor markers to be falling and the cancer to be spreading; therefore, he feels comfortable interpreting the scans as . . . fine. He doesn’t see any reason to be alarmed, and more practically, no reason to change my treatment regimen.

This is good news. He will continue to monitor my tumor markers every month, I will continue taking my treatment and trying not to hurt my bones, and we will plan another scan in about five months. We’ll revisit the plan sooner if there are any changes. It all sounds . . . fine.

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Moving from Acute to Chronic

This appointment also felt like a significant mile marker in this march with cancer. Not only did we get the first results to gauge effectiveness of treatment, but also we left feeling like we had transitioned from the peaks and valleys of the first six months—an intense roller coaster of diagnosis and radiotherapy and scans and declining mobility and biopsy and treatment and low blood counts and nurse visits and hospital stay and improving mobility and more low blood counts and more radiotherapy and more scans—to a plateau where we are managing treatment. This will be a different space, demanding different things of us.

As almost anyone who lives with a chronic condition knows, it continually takes up space in your mind, body, and spirit. You are constantly problem-solving: Can I eat this? Can I manage this trip? Will this cause a flare-up? Is there a contingency I need to plan for? What accommodation do I need? Will I be embarrassed, or constrained, or injured?

What will be the contours of our new normal? Moving from acute to chronic is a blessing—the relief has felt less like waves than like droplets, but it is still a gift to think that I will need a single trip per month to Dundee and that we might have a stretch of stability. It is also a strange recalibration. The effects from the spinal cord compression continue to have the most effect on my daily life, from where I can sleep to where I can sit, from how long I can stand to how far I can walk, from how quickly I fatigue to what activities I can consider. I’m thankful to be better than I was a few months ago; I’m disappointed that I’m unlikely to improve much beyond where I’m at now.

This chronic time and space is not static, however. It feels like an ongoing series of experiments: Can I build more endurance for my muscles without hurting my bones? Can I try sitting in different types of chairs? What is the balance between pushing to do a little bit more and pushing too far? Sometimes even considering these experiments feels exhausting. I feel frustrated that cancer treatment and spinal cord compression continue to take up space in my mind—isn’t it bad enough that they already take up so much space in my body?

An incurable condition denies us that relief. When our thoughts are tempted to evict this tenant, our bodies remind us that it’s a permanent residency. (For example: occasionally I get ready to stand up and forget that I need a crutch. Thankfully I’ve haven’t fallen over yet when my body reminds me that it can’t balance its own!) As difficult as incurable cancer may be, it does not have sole ownership of either my body or spirit. It might dictate the limitations on my life now, but it will have no say in the life to come—a life with a resurrected body and a renewed mind and a revived spirit. One day our chronic and incurable conditions will themselves die, with no more power to distress or destroy.

And for now, I will limp with my crutch. I will lean on my friends and loved ones. I will learn gratitude. I will listen to the Holy Spirit. I will live.

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Prayer Note

We’re back to praying for my blood count. I’ll have more blood tests this week in advance of targeted therapy next week. I’m already on the lowest expected dose for the targeted therapy, so I would really like these blood cells to cooperate! Pray that both white and red blood counts will be where they need to be to keep treatment on schedule.

When you get home from your oncology appointment, one delight is slipping into your happy yellow slippers made by the incredibly talented Ruth!