My Three Favorite Letters
N E D
Three little letters that might not mean much to many people. Unless you’ve walked your own cancer journey, or helped someone you love along theirs, the letters N E D might slip by unnoticed. But to me, they are pretty damn important letters.
In my world, N E D stands for No Evidence of Disease. And as a cancer patient, these letters are kind of everything.
On a day to day basis, I almost always feel like I’ve conquered this thing. I FEEL like my body has no evidence of disease…like I am truly HEALTHY. While I try not to think about cancer every day, I never get to turn it out of my mind completely, because, let’s face it, I have to stay on top of things. But, for the most part, thoughts of cancer are like a dragon sleeping quietly in the back of my mind, while I tip-toe around, trying not to wake him up. I find that it is much easier to let him sleep soundly, and almost unnoticed, when I focus on being grateful for my health, for my family, for my LIFE. Gratitude is pretty awesome that way.
But, having scans and waiting for test results have a way of letting the dragon back into my thoughts. The time between a PET scan and the results is the time the dragon tends to get a little restless. He tries to wake up and wiggle his way into the front of my mind, no matter how hard I try to push him back. He becomes much harder to ignore.
So, I try to spend a little extra time being grateful for my health, in hopes that it will lull the dragon back to sleep. And when he becomes more forceful, I grab the nearest stick and beat him back as best I can.
And then the results finally arrive, and I am happy to say that I am then able to shoot that dragon with a tranquilizer dart and send him back into a deep deep sleep.
N E D
A little over a year ago, I began treatment for stage 4 breast cancer.
11 weeks later, I received my first clear scan…a miraculous and much sooner-than-expected moment where I first heard those three magical letters: N E D.
Three months later…another scan, and another chance to hear those lovely little letters: N E D.
And now, a little over 6 months after that, I just got to hear those three magical letters for a third time: N E D.
No evidence of disease.
I don’t like thinking about cancer. It has already taken so much from me, and I don’t like to give it any more of my worry or my time. But sometimes I have to face it, simply so I can make sure it is really gone. Thus is the life of a cancer patient. But every time I get to hear those three letters, it takes me one step closer to the letters I REALLY want to hear: C U R E. It will take a lot of time and a lot of patience before I get to hear those letters…five years to be exact. So when I have to, I’ll look cancer in the face and risk waking that pesky dragon, because each time I get to hear N E D, I get one step closer to C U R E.
I’m one year in, and today I have NO EVIDENCE of DISEASE.
I am so grateful 🖤