As my loyal readers may remember I went in for my second annual PET Scan on October 2nd.
Here in France the results take about 10 days and they send them directly to the doctor who prescribed the scan. Therefore the results should have been sent to my ENT (ORL in French) specialist around October 14th. I therefore start getting nervous around October 16th.
The way things work in the doctors' minds is radically different than how it works in us cancer patients' minds. In the doctor's mind he will call the patient if the results show a problem which needs immediate treatment or verifying as something needs to be done. However if the results show everything's clear well... then... there's no need calling the patient right? On the other side the cancer patient, me, is sitting here nervously waiting confirmation and reassurance that the cancer has not come back somewhere else in my body. The doctor has no idea how important that tiny bit of reassurance is. He has no idea that, as a survivor, I live with the constant, not quite omnipresent but regular, abject fear that the cancer is going to come back. It was such a surprise in the first place that I am constantly suspicious that it will come back and I will not know about it. Probably the most debilitating handicap cancer survivors have to live with is psychological and emotional: we live with the eternal fear that it may come back.
After quite a few days of waiting and getting more and more anxious I finally called his office two days ago (25/10) and left a message asking if he had received the results. He has a new assistant so I had to explain what a PET scan was, that it involved cancer, and how important it was that I get a reply. I then called again yesterday (26/10) and left a message. I hoped that my annoying persistence would get through to the receptionist that this was important to me. I sent an e-mail to my (wonderful) general practitioner last night.
At 20:30 last night my ENT called me and faintly apologised with the standard explanation that if there was any problem he would have called me immediately. He told me all of the results were negative. Just like last year I had that momentary heart skip of negative... that's not positive... that's not good. Then I asked for confirmation and he reassured me that they found nothing and everything is fine. He offered to fax me the results. I explained I don't need to see the medical information, this time, I simply needed those simple words: "there is no cancer anywhere in your body at this time".
TOUT va bien. I can relax a bit with the reassurance that my body is cancer free and I can make some plans longer than a couple of weeks ahead with the notion that I will not be stopping everything to start long and obligatory cancer treatments again any time real soon.
WHEW!
Life is good.
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2 comments:
Mazel Tov!
As always, I am so happy to read those words from you. Congraulations once again on a favorable report and we here in PA, USA along with all your friends and family celebrate along with you. Now go out there and buy those green bananas knowing full well that you will get to see them ripen.. I love you neph and don't tell you that enough so this is as good a time as any. Thanks for the update.
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