Almost 5 years NED, scanxiety and thank you

Hi everyone,

I know I crave these type of updates for hope, so will try to pay it forward.  We had scans and appointment at MD Anderson yesterday and today. Scans were clear.  It's hard for me to believe.  8 hours ago, you couldn't have convinced me that we would hear good news. I've got just enough research knowledge to be dangerous and when my husband was first diagnosed in early 2014 and handed me the pathology, he had EVERY bad prognostic indicator:  22 mm once it was removed  (even though they  don't know if it was primary or metastasizd tumor).  Dr. Amaria said she thought it was Stage 4 and thought it was metastasized, high mitotic rate, clark level V, etc etc.).   It could be any stage, it no longer matters to us since.

MelanomaMike I was thinking of you today.  In my 20s I was diagnosed with pretty severe panic disorder, so I feel like I'm LITERALLY  not built for this type of stress. And my husband chose wait and watch which for people with anxiety is basically undoable for us with anxiety.   If you would have seen me today before the results, you would have witnessed a pretty severe panic attack.  Sobbing in the car, sobbing in the shower, crying in the waiting room and I'm not the one with cancer.  The thought of losing  my husband and my daughter losing her father is pretty overwhelming.  This stuff is anxiety producing by definition.  I ended up leaving to pick up my daughter before we met with Dr. Amariaand my husband calmly got the good news and was relieved I was gone 🙂  And this is all from someone who works with statisticians on a daily basis that talk about survival models, cox regression, yada yada .  That all flies out the window with scanxiety.

I can only say one thing for certain that I've learned through all of this, we need community during these times.  I like to say and think that I can handle it, but I can't, hearing from this group and people in it has been the single most important thing to me, thank you Amie Taylor!, and sometimes has been the only thing that has helped.  The other thing I learned is that if it progresses, we have a better shot at this than before, that's a big deal. I repeated that mantra today.  And finally, I just don't shine in this area of getting results and that's ok.  My talents lie more with after the results are in, let's get a plan of action. 

Everytime I'm at the MD Anderson Melanoma and Skin Center, I look around and see if any of you are there.  then i think about Josh, Artie, Adriana, etc and think they were sitting right here too a in the past several years and I miss them and I try to be strong for them.

Thank you everyone and special thanks to Amie.  I'm literally at my best communicating with you all.

Many thanks

Jackie