“Your scans show no change and you are stable. No further treatment is advised. Medically, we should plan a PET scan appointment in six months. Of course, if you notice any health changes before that date please call us.” These are the words I hoped to hear from my oncologist.
While “No Evidence of Disease (NED)” would be preferable, stable has been my situation for the past 16 months, and the longer I remain stable, the less likely that melanoma will eventually progress — stable improves with age.
I know that stable means that treatment is working, because if treatment were not working, advanced melanoma would spread rapidly to other organs, and my central nervous system. Moreover, without treatment, the average lifespan of a person with advanced melanoma is about one year.
As new treatments are developed, living with stable cancer is becoming more common for several types of cancer, including advanced melanoma.
Many or most patients living with cancer experience anxiety about disease progression. Body pain is part of their everyday experience and some of these pains are almost guaranteed to provoke fears of disease progression. A headache might mean a brain tumor, and a backache might indicate a spinal bone tumor. Fortunately, most pains are short-lived and can be interpreted as temporary discomfort due to exertion, minor injury, or nervous tension.
A daily dose of ibuprofen and acetaminophen also does wonders to get me going in the morning. Yoga, mindfulness meditation, and swimming help me stay more pain free and keep my anxiety within manageable levels. It’s also helpful to interact with other cancer patients to express our fears.