Kind Like Katey

Today, I got the news I was desperately hoping for.

My scans are clear.

Those are four words I am incredibly grateful to be able to say.

But getting to those four words took pretty much the entire damn day.

And cancer has a funny way of making even really good news feel complicated.

The day started with scan anxiety — or “scanxiety,” as those of us who have been through this lovingly call it.

Except sometimes the anxiety starts before you ever make it to the scan.

This morning, I was driving around a massive hospital trying to figure out where I was supposed to park and which entrance I was supposed to use. Thankfully, today ended up being easier than some of my past appointments. I’ve had other scans where I’ve gone to the wrong entrance, wandered through hallways, and even had a security guard walk me around trying to find where I needed to be.

Patients already have enough going through their heads.

Is the cancer back?

Are they going to find something?

What happens if they do?

What happens if they don’t?

We shouldn’t also have to play a scavenger hunt through a 30-acre medical campus.

Tell me which entrance.

Tell me which parking lot.

Tell me which building.

Put it in the appointment details.

It sounds like such a small thing, but when you’re already carrying scan anxiety, that extra stress matters.

Once I finally figured out where I was supposed to be, the marathon began.

IV.

Injection of radioactive tracer for the bone scan.

Then what felt like a gallon of water before my CT scan. Seriously. So. Much. Water.

CT scan.

Then wait.

I had about three hours before I had to come back for the bone scan, so I walked around the hospital. I went outside. I walked around outside twice. Anything to pass the time because sitting somewhere for three hours thinking about why you’re there isn’t exactly relaxing.

Then back inside.

Bone scan.

And then another kind of waiting.

Waiting for the results to hit MyChart.

Refreshing.

Reading.

Trying not to overanalyze every word before getting to the one part you really want to see.

No evidence of metastatic disease.

Clear.

That is the part of scanxiety people don’t always see. It’s not just being nervous about lying inside a machine.

It’s an entire day built around the possibility that someone might tell you your life has changed again.

And the reason I was doing all of this in the first place was because my Signatera test came back positive.

So we went looking.

And looked.

And today, we didn’t find anything.

That is GOOD news. Really good news.

My first feeling was relief.

My second was…

So now what?

That’s the strange place I’m sitting in tonight.

If the blood test detected circulating tumor DNA, but the scans can’t find cancer anywhere, what happens next?

Do we watch and wait?

Repeat Signatera?

Scan again in a few months?

Does anything change with treatment?

How do you follow something that one test says may be there when every scan says, “We don’t see it”?

I don’t know yet.

And apparently another thing cancer teaches you is how to live in the space between “everything looks good” and “we still need to keep watching.”

But I don’t have to figure that out tonight.

Tonight, I’m on my couch.

I’m tired.

Actually, I’m exhausted.

It has been a long-ass day.

Tomorrow there can be questions about Signatera and appointments and next steps and whatever comes after this.

But tonight?

My scans are clear.

After everything this body has been through, I’m going to let myself have that.

No overthinking it.

No borrowing trouble from tomorrow.

Just gratitude.

Today was a long-ass day. I’m tired. And my scans are clear.

Tonight, that’s enough. ❤️