THAT time has come again. Time for me to be reminded that I do still have cancer however much my life activities might make you think otherwise.

Time for me to find out what the cancer is up to. My body and brain gets scanned roughly every three months to make sure the treatment is still working or if a new plan needs to be put in place.

This time I delayed my scans by a couple of weeks because they didn’t quite fit into my schedule.

This might sound a bit strange to you, but I know when I can deal with the anxiety of waiting for scan results and when I absolutely can’t.
Last week I was working on one of the most important days of the year, our annual festival, Festifeel. I was “work mode” Kris, not Kris who can deal with cancer at that time.

Over almost 11 years I’ve worked out different coping strategies and this is certainly one of them. Cancer works to my time, not the other way round.

Since it takes a couple of weeks for the results to come in from scans, I hot-footed it to my cancer clinic in London, in between various meetings, very happily aware that I wouldn’t be receiving the results until well after all my attention was needed doing my job. On Friday I got “the call”.

I know it’s going to be a hospital person on the end of the line when my phone simply says “UNKNOWN”. And I would be staring in to the unknown, awaiting my fate as I answered the caller.

My nurse gave me the good news that my brain is still nicely clear of any new active cancer and that the previously treated tumours (all 54 of them) were still dormant.

Imagine hunching your shoulders for years and then someone releasing them and allowing you to relax.

That kind of gets you close to the release of tension I feel when I’m told good news. Not having any new cancer in my brain means that I’ve now had a cancer-free brain for a full year.
This time last year everything looked very different and I was getting far too familiar with the four walls of the brain treatment unit.

As much as I love them, I don’t miss seeing the brilliant people that work there.

I’m also glad and grateful that my news can be delivered to me over the phone avoiding potentially very un-fun trips to London.

Now I wait to hear the news of my body scan, but I’m staying positive and upbeat because there’s no reason not to be.

It also helps that my mind is busy awaiting the arrival of my nephew, which could happen any day now!

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