I have a scan tomorrow. And I'm writing this the night before — not because I'm lying awake gripped by terror, but because I think this is worth saying honestly, in real time, for anyone who knows exactly what this feeling is.
Scanxiety. It's a real word now and it deserves to be, because it's a real thing. If you're living with cancer and you've never heard the term, you've almost certainly felt it.
Living three months at a time
When you have a stage 4 diagnosis and you're on active treatment, life gets organised into cycles. Scan. Wait. Results. Repeat. Every three months, the same loop. And somewhere inside that loop — usually in the days before the scan, sometimes in the long stretch after it waiting for results — the anxiety arrives.
It's like an emotional rollercoaster you can never get off. You don't choose to be on it. You don't choose when the drops come. You just learn to ride it.
My relationship with scans has changed a lot over time. A year ago it was genuinely awful. Back then there was a gap of almost two months between the scan itself and the results appointment. Two months. That is a monstrous amount of time to carry that kind of uncertainty. I've since asked for the results to be moved closer to the scan and they've done that — which helps enormously. But even so, the anxiety doesn't disappear entirely. It just has less time to build.
How it actually shows up
I'm reasonably good at hiding it. On the surface I get on with things, don't talk about it much, keep moving. But Catherine always notices. Before I've even clocked it myself, I'll have become a bit snappy — short tempered over things that wouldn't normally register. That's usually the first sign that the scan is close and my subconscious is doing its thing.
After the snappiness comes a kind of numbness. Not sad, not happy — just nothing. Flat. Like the emotional dial has been turned down to protect me from something I'm not ready to face directly. I just exist for a bit, going through the motions, waiting for the day to arrive.
Is this the scan where it starts to grow again? Is this the one? That question is always there. I don't always hear it clearly but it's always there.
When good news isn't simple
You'd think good news would fix everything. And it does — for a moment. My last scan three months ago showed my main tumour had shrunk significantly. Catherine was on cloud nine. Everyone around me was ecstatic and I was too, genuinely. But it was short lived for me in a way it wasn't for the people around me.
Good news can have an unexpected effect. When the people who love you hear that the tumour is shrinking, it can give them hope that tips toward believing this might be curable. And watching that hope in their faces — hope that you know has limits — can bring the enormity of the whole thing crashing back down.
The joy is real. And then the weight of the diagnosis hits you like a ton of bricks. And then it subsides again. And you return to normal. Whatever normal is now.
Where I am tonight
I have a scan tomorrow and — honestly — I have very little anxiety about it. That's not bravado. It's just what happens the further along the journey you go. Cancer is always in my thoughts but it isn't always the first thing I think of anymore. With every scan that comes back positive, the next one gets a little easier to face.
There is still a thought in the back of my mind. A quiet one. What if this is the one that turns the wrong way? I don't dwell on it — dwelling is a choice and I choose not to make it — but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't there. And I'm aware that if the news ever did change, it would hit like a second diagnosis. All the plans, all the forward momentum, all the cautious optimism — gone in a moment. That's the reality of the rollercoaster.
But there's a whole world out there waiting. And I've never been more certain that spending what time I have dreading the next scan is not how I intend to use it.
Results in three weeks. I'll let you know.
— Nick