Remission

Around Thanksgiving 2006 – one month after I finished my cancer treatments for Hodgkin’s lymphoma – I had a CT scan to see if the cancer was gone. I was really nervous to get the results of the scan back from Dr. B…but the scan was clear! No more cancer! I was in remission!

Of course, I still see Dr. B and my nurse coordinator every three months for follow-up appointments. At these appointments, they test my blood and do either an x-ray or a CT scan (alternating between the two) to see if the cancer has come back. So far so good!

For the first year or so that I was in remission, I would get really nervous about these 3-month appointments…what if the scan came back showing cancer?

I remember I was the most nervous for my follow-up appointment in June 2007. A week before that appointment, a friend of mine also in remission for Hodgkin’s lymphoma found that his cancer had come back, and he was going to have to undergo a stem cell transplant. That same week, a second cousin of mine lost her battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She had been fighting it for almost four years. These two events had me convinced that my cancer had also come back. I was absolutely terrified to go to my appointment with Dr. B.

I went to the appointment and was ecstatic to find out that my scan had, once again, come back clear! I told Dr. B about my friend and my cousin and how I had convinced myself that my cancer had also come back.

He shook his head. “Ali, there is absolutely no reason for you to think that way. I can understand why those two events would scare you, but you need to remember that what happens to other people has nothing – I repeat nothing - to do with you and the cancer you had. You can’t live your life in fear that it’s going to come back – maybe it will, maybe it won’t – that’s not the point. The point is that you have very little control over whether or not the cancer returns, so why dwell on it? Focus on the things you can control in your life, like your job, your hobbies, and your relationships. Focus on living.”

I haven’t been nervous about a follow-up appointment since then.

I’m in remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but I don’t think about it much. I focus on what’s really important – living life to its fullest.

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