In a few weeks I will go for a CT scan, followed a week later by a visit to my oncologist. At my follow-up that took place a month after I finished my radiation treatments, the oncologist had said that she'd see me in a year for follow-up. I panicked. I told her that the radiologist wanted a three-month follow-up (true) and I also told her that I felt like I had a kind of PTSD. As I explained it to her, it is a feeling that cancer is going to sneak up behind me and hit me again. With this being my second round with cancer in two years I admitted to being paranoid. I told her I had been having dreams, nightmares really, that I was diagnosed again.
With my body having suffered through so much pain already, I feel like I can't trust what it's telling me anymore. I'm not sure I'm interpreting twinges, etc. correctly. Because of my plea she said we'd have follow-up in mid March.
Now as the time for my CT scan looms, I'm starting to get paranoid again. Every little twinge scares me and I am having nightmares again that the scan will show cancer back in another part of my body. I've been lucky so far that surgery and radiation seems to have eliminated it. I'm hoping that luck holds. The good news in the meantime is that aside from the twinges (and paranoia over them) I feel really good. I'm feeling healthy, relatively pain-free, and the weight loss has been fantastic on my overall health and self-esteem. I'm down a few sizes and hope that trend continues for all the right reasons. It might take a bit of a while before the paranoia goes away though.
