Watch and Wait

When patients with serious diseases are being cared for expectantly, they often scoff at the standard medical discriptors: "Watch and Wait" or "Wait and See." For them, a phrase that better captures the experience is "Watch and Worry" or "Worry and See," circumstances not conducive to Healthy Survivorship.

What's a patient to do?

If cool-headed logic leads you and your physicians to choose "Wait and See" as the best course for you, then a change in perception can help calm any anxiety and allow you to live as fully as possible.

Here are some mantras that have helped me and might help you:

• At times, the best course of action is inaction.
• Not taking treatment is not "doing nothing" to get well. Eating/resting/exercising well can help your body while not in treatment.
• Every month you are not being treated is a month during which researchers make some progress toward more effective and less toxic treatments (and better support therapies); you might have better treatment choices in the future.
• Enjoy the freedom from treatment; don't let worry steal otherwise good time.

Perhaps the most useful mantra is the simple reframing of the offending phrase. Don't "Wait and See." Instead, try this: "Live and See."

Comments

[Kairol Rosenthal]

I'm doing wait and watch. I've been searching for a better name for a long time and finally thought - eh, I can arrange this in my head with nice names and what not but it is what it is. It's hard, scary, and still I move on and learn how to adapt and get used to it. It becomes a part of my life the same way cancer did.

But, I might need to start using "live and see". I really, really love that phrase. It energizes and otherwise stagnant outlook.

Kairol
http://everythingchangesbook.com/

[Kelly Murray]

7 years ago I was diagnosed with indolent NHL at the age of 33 and told I needed to watch & wait. It was terrifying at first and I had never heard of such a thing. Since I was recently married, we decided to focus on having children instead of my disease. I was in w&w for 3 years prior to needing my 1st treatment. During that time, I was blessed with twin girls who are now 5 years old. What was terrifying at first ended up being a blessing in the end for me!