Waiting for the results of scans is an experience full of conflict. Of course, we were anxious to hear the news, so the week of limbo was frustrating. On the other hand, if the results were bad – if the scan showed Corinne’s cancer had advanced – we were in no hurry to get the news. We waited.

We later found out that we could have called much earlier to hear what the scans
showed. But even if we had known that, I’m not sure we would have made the call. We stayed at home, in the snow, each of us trying to not think about what we were thinking about.

The next week, when we saw our doctor, he was completely relaxed and not in the slightest surprised that the scans had found no sign of cancer. Emotionally, we were wrecks. He set up an appointment for us to meet the radiation oncologist and begin radiation treatments.

While we knew that the scans not “seeing” cancer didn’t mean that there was no cancer present, we were both unsettled at the prospect of radiation treatments. We understood very little of radiation therapy technology, and what we knew scared us.