Waiting, waiting and more waiting

Before my Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis in 2017, most of the waiting I can remember was for good things — waiting for holidays or special family events; waiting to get married, waiting on the arrival of the kiddos or for them to open up a gift. There were some not so great things I often waited for such as a ruling from a Judge after a particularly difficult hearing or waiting for a client to get back to me or waiting for someone to pay me for work I completed — some of that work related waiting stress has faded a bit and it’s so very different to wait for information in the health arena. And waiting has taken on a whole other level in recent weeks.

In the MBC Community, we often commiserate with one another around the theme of “scanxiety” or the anxiety that comes with scans and waiting for results. You can read more about my musings about scanxiety in the past here. I defined scanxiety then and would reaffirm my personal definition as: uneasiness waiting for the results of scans after active treatment is completed in order to determine whether progression has occurred. As I’ve explained over and over, when we know what can happen and what has already happened, our ability to manage the anxiety of waiting for results changes; when you have already been told that a diagnosis will end your life, you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The waiting I’m in now is a little different from scanxiety as I’m waiting to be able to get the scans that then I will stress about getting the results from. Per my cardiologist, she wanted to wait a full month between echocardiograms to allow my heart time to recover (specifically the ejection fraction) and for the blood clots to either dissipate or be calcified in place. I’ve now skipped two Enhertu treatments and it’s been over seven (7) weeks since I’ve had treatment — that may not seem like a long time, but it is the longest I’ve ever gone without some sort of treatment since 2017. As much as I urge others all the time to consider treatment “holidays” to maintain their quality of life, I’ve never done it and to be forced into it versus choosing it has some different consequences, emotionally and otherwise.

And while I am feeling pretty good physically and mentally right now because all the fatigue and brain fog and GI symptoms and nausea have faded, I’m always well aware that feeling better isn’t always good because that means the medicine keeping the cancer in check has also faded.

If you are inclined to pray or send good thoughts or juju or whatever, here are the key answers we need tomorrow: 1) that my ejection fraction has improved enough to restart treatment or that I need to change treatments if it hasn’t; 2) that the clots are gone or calcified so I can schedule a surgery for a new port to be placed; and 3) that the clots are gone or calcified so that it is safe for me to hold the blood thinner (Eliquis) to be able to undergo surgery. So much riding on this test tomorrow!! I do have treatment scheduled for Friday in the hope and anticipation that the echo tomorrow will be what we need it to be.