CT Scan Day

I don't know if you can every truely appreciate scanxiety unless you have experienced it first hand. Sure, you can sympathise with someone experiencing it, and you can try to understand, but the intense feelings are really something else.

Scanxiety is defined as "for people who have had a cancer diagnosis, undergoing imaging scans can lead to feelings of stress or worry in the period before a medical test, during the test, and while waiting for test results" - cancer.net

It can be quite common for people to stop eating, become very irritable, short tempered as scan day approaches. I spend my time telling anyone who will listen how nervous I am. I'm not nervous for the scan, I find it a relatively pleasant process. I'm nervous for what the scan might find - the what ifs. What if it has come back, what if it has spread, what if I need new medication, what if I can't afford the new medication, what if, what if, what if? This nervousness consumes my life in the week leading up to the scan. It's never far from my mind, I find myself subconsciously picking at my nails, I dream about the scan, a million different scenarios run through my mind and every little twinge, ache, pain I feel, I convince myself is the cancer growing back.

Now, I am in a completely privileged position, I am well aware of this and so deeply grateful for it. Once I have had my CT scan, I text my oncologist and she keeps an eye out for the report, once it comes through she lets me know the outcome. There's not a lot of waiting involved for me, I usually hear the results a few hours later.

What is a CT Scan? A CT scan, also known as a CAT scan is imaging that "uses special low-dose x-ray equipment combined with powerful computing technology to create detailed 2D and 3D images of the body. The CT scan is painless, and takes images in ‘slices’, which give insight into the structure and workings of the area. A safe contrast agent– a harmless dye – is sometimes given intravenously to make the images easier to read" - arg.co.nz

This me, today, ready to be scanned...

As you can see you get a lovely gown for your scan. I need to fast before my scan, have an iodine drink 1 hour before, and an iodine contrast injected during the scan.

Today we take the win, the outcome was a good one, clear scan 🌟🌟🌟 This means we continue to current course of treatment, and next scan will be March 2023.