Paige: I’ve got a 90-day scan in about 3 weeks as well, and looking at our signatures there’s at least a little similarity between our situations. I am in a “watch & wait protocol,” so I have scans and exams basically all the time. I have been able of late to mostly cabin anxiety to the drive over to get scanned (though it builds up a little in the days before). Here’s what works for me, in no particular order (hope one/more of these helps):
(1) Exercise—I’ve gotten back to real running (though I’m only up to 2-3 miles a day). Huge help mentally, the harder the better. Afterwards I feel like I can deal with whatever comes. For a little while. Before I could run I walked lots, which also helped (but took longer);
(2) Distraction/“living life”: I have hobbies of playing guitar and fiction writing. I make sure I make time to do both. I’m halfway through two novels
and I tell
myself I’ll focus on finishing them if I enter a Stage 4 situation (for some reason that’s comforting); I’m also lucky and blessed enough to have two teenagers, and I spend as much time with them (one has to “engage” with teenagers) as I can; finally, work helps;
(3) I try to remind myself that I’ll have many anxious times and many better times before my next group of scans, and I try to just accept them both, knowing that they will come and go;
(4) (this one is probably not for everyone) I try not to consider life “after cancer.” I want to die many years from
now pleasantly surprised that something else got me
I am well aware that Stage 4 is a whole different thing, and much tougher than what I’ve dealt with so far, but I was pretty close to it before my last scans (VATS was offered), and I still don’t have an optimistic attitude about my long-term future, but I’m more than grateful and happy to enjoy every day now, if that makes sense. I feel like if I let myself hope for a cancer-free future, I would have a lot more anxiety now;
(5) I remind myself that stress increases the likelihood of metastasis—at least in mice, and yeah “mice lie and monkeys exaggerate,” but still—no thanks! That’s even my excuse for a drink now and again (still rare, maybe averaging 1/month since diagnosis, before it was 2/day);
(6) I try to focus on today (and perhaps tomorrow). 21 days is an eternity. The dude in the scanner will be an entirely different dude than right now. I’ll let him worry about it, not me.
Good luck to both of us!