Waiting for my scan

I'm sitting at home, with precisely 25 minutes to go before I have to leave the house. Today is the day of my three month CT scan, the shadows, shapes and contours of which will reveal whether the trial drug Axitinib has worked on my sarcomas. The aim has been to shrink or soften them... has it? I thought I had lots of 'things' to do before I left, and of course I do, but I find myself sitting in front of my computer just staring at it. Tick tick tick, tap tap tap... it appears I am interested in nothing. I have no distractions.

I feel so much better it's impossible for me to imagine that the drug isn't working. My pain levels are minimal, I'm sleeping through the night and I'm not even using laxatives! It's like the good old days of chemotherapy. But, while I'm processing this good news during the day, at night my mind is elsewhere. All week, once I'm asleep, I've been involved in murders, mysteries, confusions and bloody battles. Subconsciously I am not at all relaxed about the scan outcome. I am unable to fool myself.

The feeling of waiting for the scan takes me back to being a teenager and having to sit exams. So it's not a very sophisticated feeling - unlike moi, of course. It makes my stomach churn, which doesn't help when you have to drink two pints of water. It isn't a painful scan, or an uncomfortable experience, but it's completely loaded. It's part one of two. Next Monday it's the meeting with the doctors. Sadly Professor Judson is away, so I won't see him. Nobody has a bad word to say about that man, quite a statement in an area where bad news is routine.

Dread is common among people getting ready for an important scan. I bet it's a conversation starter when I go to the Sarcoma UK dinner tonight with B. It's an annual buffet at the cancer charity Maggie's Centre and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of other people who have sarcomas, or who love and care for someone with a sarcoma.

Anyway, it's time for me to go. Keep everything crossed...