24Jul 2022 by Ronny Allan No Comments

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Ronny Allan

Award winning Neuroendocrine Cancer Patient Advocate. Diagnosed with Metastatic Neuroendocrine Cancer in 2010.

It’s hard to be positive when you don’t know how you’re doing. The only way to know how you’re doing is to get professional surveillance. This is precisely why I see getting surveillance (scans and other imaging, tests, etc) as a positive. Even if something isn’t quite right, at least you know, your doctors know, and they can watch it or do something about it. They simply can’t do that if you’re not getting surveillance. This is precisely why it’s a positive thing, i.e. if you don’t get it done, you don’t know how you’re doing – that is a more worrying situation in my opinion. Surveillance is meant in the widest context, it can range from a telephone appointing asking questions and getting answers, all the way through to scanning.

Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it

Testing needs to be done. There’s an old saying that I truly believe in – “Don’t cross that bridge until you come to it” and it decodes in various contexts to something like “don’t worry about things in the future you cannot control”. In terms of test results, those will be what they will be, and no amount of worrying will change that fact. It’s wasted energy. Sit tight, wait and focus on other things until your doctor gives you the results.

I wrote some tips to try to avoid this fear by turning surveillance into a positive. You can read that here or by clicking on the heading or picture.

Living with cancer: 5 tips for facing things you can’t control

I realise not everyone is wired in the same way to handle fear and worry. But worrying about things you cannot control might be wasted energy. Try these 5 tips: