Hope Is Where The Heart Is (3)

It has been 6 months since Scott finished cancer treatment, and it's time for the first post-treatment scans.  It's been almost one year since we first heard the word "chordoma."  Life has gotten more or less "back to normal."  Scott is working regularly, and is doing very well.  His strength will take a while to come back, he still gets fatigued, and he still has a deal of pain, but when we think about all that he went through, it's a miracle he is doing so well.

Now we prepare for a return trip to Boston for scans.  I've picked up a new term over this last year, "scanxiety."  Following the chordoma support group on facebook, I've read many stories of the fear and anxiety leading up to follow up scans.  Chordomas like to come back, and that's a scary thought.

In it's own weird way, almost scarier than initially hearing the diagnosis.  Thinking back, once the "C" word was out, all focus, thought and energy went into figuring out what needed to be done next and dealing with setting up treatment, surgery, travel, lodging, caregivers, insurance, financial aid, etc.  There wasn't enough time or energy left over to worry about even the possibility of treatment failing or a return of the tumor at some point in the future.  But now, with all that behind us, I find myself terrified at the prospect of going through it all again.

Having watched Scott handle whatever was thrown at him for 6 months, I can't imagine having to watch him endure it all over again.  I have figured out that when people refer to cancer patients and survivors as warriors, and talk about fighting and staying strong, it's because the cure is hell.  Cancer patients go through hell to come out well again.  To watch them making that journey through hell with grace and especially with a sense of humor, is truly something amazing to observe.  But, they do it because it's what must be done.  Life wins.  But, to knowingly take that same path again, and sometimes again and again...to walk back into hell, with the memory and scars of your last visit there still fresh on your brain and your skin and bones, takes more strength and courage than is right to expect of any human being.  But, they do it everyday.  You do what you have to do to live.  Because life wins.  Still, it breaks my heart for Scott having to even contemplate the possibility of walking back into hell while he is still healing from his last trip.

I know that his scans will be clear.  I KNOW they will be clear.  And, I truly think he believes that they will be clear.  He hasn't expressed a lot of fear or scanxiety, but it must be there.  I've joked that I am more nervous about it than him, but of course that isn't true.  I think his dreams are troubled, how could they not be?

His scans will be clear this time, his scans in 6 months will be clear, and the next and the next, and the next, and so on...  HOPE is strong, HOPE is strength, HOPE is courage, HOPE IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

Hope Is Where The Heart Is (1)
Hope Is Where The Heart Is (2)