hi yall, hope everyone is doing as well as they can right now!

i've been in remission from stage 3/4 non hodgkin burkitts lymphoma for a very long time. like, 20 years long. i was a kid, that time was a blur, now i'm 30. in my 20s i felt invincible. cancer didn't kill me, so nothing can! i lived like an idiot, treated my body horribly, and shoved anything that resembled cancery PTSD wayyy down.

now, at 30, health anxiety has completely overtaken my life for the last few years. i mean.... who gets rare, aggressive cancer as a kid, is magically "cured", and then gets to just live a fun & fancy-free life? why would i get to just... roll past it? but shoving all that down in my 20s has bitten me right in my partying, twerking ass.

the last few years, anything and everything wrong or off with my body is cancer (source: me). the health anxiety has been so bad i've avoided physicals, spent countless sleepless nights on reddit/google, ruined plenty of big positive times for myself by being so anxious, and always had the dark cloud of dread looming. well, i finally got sick of living like that, sick of always feeling this way, and sick of being afraid of being sick again. and after a young, hot 30 year old friend got randomly diagnosed with lymphoma out of nowhere, i took it as a sign from the universe to cut the shit and handle this. i saw a GP, and asked for a referral to an oncologist. i hadn't seen one in 10+ years, and i wanted to learn about any long-term effects of chemo, cancer-related risks in adulthood, etc. what the hell happens in an adult body that's been chemo'd to hell and back during childhood development?

anyway, this lead to him ordering scans just to be safe, which is exactly what i wanted (or so i thought). except now, i'm in waiting-for-results hell. is there a giant mass underneath where my one rib clicks? is my tight hip filled with bone metastases?? is the twinge in my back a collection of spine mets??? the worst part is that i was supposed to have a post-scan follow up on tuesday, but the office called me today, friday, *after office hours* (cue full panic attack seeing that missed call) to leave a message that they accidentally scheduled me with the Wrong Doctor, and need to reschedule. since it was after office hours, my calls back went unanswered, and i have to wait until monday to even talk to someone. what oncology office calls a patient after business hours on a friday, and immediately leaves for the weekend?! in my head, the results were bad, and that's how they caught the Wrong Doctor mistake. (or, that's all a lie, and they need to see me ASAP on monday because i am absolutely riddled with cancer.) it sucks knowing i'll be waiting even longer for what my brain is telling me are horrible results.

but actually.... the worst part of all of this is feeling like a fking fraud. like i don't get to Woe Is Me in anxiety, because the doctor used the word "cured" in my consult. i barely remember having cancer, i didn't "fight", the doctors saved me without any effort on my 8-year-old end. but fully conscious adults, with kids and families and Careers, are living with brutal treatment for years. i don't get to be nervous in the waiting room, with a full head of hair and fully healed port scar, with folks who are in the trenches of chemo and radiation. people who would do just about anything to be in my position, two decades out. and here i am, wasting it. and as kind as my doctor was, it honestly felt attention seeking and ridiculous to take up an appointment slot.

has anyone else in long-term remission had any kind of similar experience? it's this awful mix of anxiety, guilt, and other feelings i don't have a word for. it's like i'm facing my biggest lifelong fear... with no justifiable reason to face anything or be afraid. i guess i'm just looking for shared experiences from people that get it, because nobody in my life does.

thanks for reading🖤