Deb and I just got back from a check-up visit to our E/N/T doc, the guy who initially diagnosed my cancer and did the major surgery on my neck. Great guy, and we feel extremely fortunate to have him on the "team."
And what he did today was exactly what the radiation doc and the chemo doc have done in the last month. Which is to set our next appointment for six months instead of three. I don't think you can get a clearer signal that these guys are feeling better and better about my prognosis.
What I noticed during the visit is what seems to be a reluctance to use the word "cancer" on the part of my docs. This is something I understand a little, as I avoid the word myself. (I find myself using terms like "my illness" and "my treatments" to avoid the "c" word.) What triggered this thought was that the E/N/T doc today said something along the lines of: "Well, that experience is fairly common among folks like you who've had... had a malignancy."
And thinking back over the last several years of doc visits, I think I recognize the pattern: we simply don't want to use the "c" word unless it's absolutely necessary. In addition to "malignancy," they also seem to prefer using the word "tumor." So I understand that we do this avoiding thing, I just don't understand why.
On the other side of the equation, I don't think I've ever heard any of my docs use the other "c" word -- that is "cured" unless it's carefully couched in tentative terms.
Maybe if I start hearing my docs use the word "cured" when describing me, I will be able to start using the word "cancer" without flinching.
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