[Jackie07]

Good advice, Harrie.

I think anxiety mostly comes from our past experience. I remember when my neurologist's secretary called me at work just after my CT scan (back in 1990 because of my chronic and insertion headaches), my boss got all hyped up: "You just had your CT scan, and they called you right away for an appointment tomorrow. You need to ask them what's going on."

Of course, the secretary would not tell me anything. So we waited for another 24 hours and saw the doctor in the afternoon the next day. And I was actually quite happy to learn about my huge brain tumor - it proved that I was not 'lazy' as most of my family members and my coaches had thought about me sometimes. And I certainly did not need a referral to a psychiatrist as my first family doctor had suggested (We switched to another doctor and pressed for more exams and finally found the tumor 7 months later.)

After being excited for a couple of days - showing my CT scans around and looking up medical journals on my rare type of brain tumor - I finally experienced a few sleepless nights, mainly because I started to imagine how the surgical knife's going to cut into my scalp...

So, when I was told about having breast cancer and needed to have lumpectomy (and four years later, I opted for bilateral mastectomy when the cancer recurred), I took the surgeries in stride. Also, the second time I had chemo, I was actually working full-time...

Knowlege is power. Even though sometimes too much knowlege causes us unecessary worries, in the end it is often knowlege that eases our fears.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for you.