Scanxiety is defined as “the stress and anxiety that cancer patients feel when waiting for scans and the results of those scans.”

I joke about the slang with my cancer community but at the end of the day, when I’m laying in bed and counting down the days until I have to go in for a scan, I feel sick. And I know that they do too.

Laying there on that gurney with heavy machinery hovering an inch from your face can be enough to cause anyone anxiety, but it is especially triggering if you know personally the depth of pain that those scans can bring with it.

The question that comes to mind isn’t “What if..?”, it’s “Remember when..?”

Remember when this “just-to-be-safe-it’s probably-nothing-scan” diagnosed you with cancer?

Remember when it showed you the cyst in your breast? Your ovary? Your neck?

Remember when you could see the blood coursing through your cancerous tumor, showing that what was growing inside of you was alive?

The frigid waiting room. The hideous gown. The familiar gut punch that hits when you walk into the “Nuclear Medicine” department.

It all contributes to the dread associated with scan days.

I have my one-year scan this Friday. It’s been silently lurking in the back of my mind for the past month and a half. I find myself numb one day then an emotional wreck the next.

Will I have great news, Friday? Or terrible news?

And as I go to sleep tonight, I am hit with that overwhelming dread in anticipation of stepping foot back in that hospital. Back with those nurses. Back with those scans. And back to face those results.