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MATT: I feel that I am a very positive person and very focused, and I do my best to live
in the present. But I am a human being, and we can't help but be bothered and be stressed
out a little bit with an upcoming scan. I mean that's just the nature of who we are
and how we deal with things. (0:00:27) Cancer has already taken away a lot of time in my
life, and I'm not going to let it have any more time. So whenever I start to have those
anxious thoughts about an upcoming scan, I quickly try to take my mind to a happier place.
My scapegoat is my beautiful little two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, and I'll just start thinking
about her and start thinking about when I see her next and what we're going to -- going
to the park or whatever we're going to do. (0:01:00) It just frees me of any of that
stress. DONNALEE: I want to kind of refer back to
what Matt said about be positive and make the most of each of day and be gratified with
all the good things around you. I really believe in that and I do that. (0:01:21) But I have
to have a scan every 8 weeks, and that week that I'm having the scan there's always
a little bit less enjoyment of life, because it keeps creeping up in the back of your mind
that you've got to face this situation again and not know are you going to get good news
or bad news. (0:01:39) It's just inevitable every time. You are trying so hard to lead
a normal life, a productive life, but you still have to confront this cancer possibility
every time. DUSTY: Frankly, I think it affects everyone
I know who has lung cancer. When I was newly diagnosed I was getting scans very often,
and now I'm so far out I get a scan once a year. (0:02:05) I don't think about it
a whole lot until actually from the time I get my scan until I get my reading. That's
when it's the worst. It's usually just a couple of hours, and so it's not as big
a deal as it used to be. But when I was getting them four times a year, sometimes more, then
there was a lot more scanziety going into it, and there was a longer wait in between
at a previous facility where I was getting care. (0:02:37) So dealing with it, just like
Matt was saying, not being so internally focused but just try to take this experience and see
how I can make it hopefully work out for the good for others.
SUSAN: I guess I would have to agree with what Matt said. Even though I was having anxiety
about things, I did keep myself busy. I have a grandson also. (0:03:01) He's five years
old, and I did things with him. I went out and helped my daughter -- he was in my other
daughter's wedding -- and bought things and planned. I went ahead with all my plans.
I didn't stop my life because I was afraid something might happen, because I got the
results about a week before the wedding. I went ahead with everything I still needed
to do. I got my gift wrap and bought my daughter's present and kept myself busy. I took up swimming.
(0:03:28) My doctor wants me to get a little more exercise and I have a lot of problems
with my bones, so I need to do something that's not hard-impact. But I just kept moving. Even
though some days it was hard to push myself ahead to do it, I did still go ahead and live
my life and do the things that I needed to do and not put things on hold. I tried not
to let that control everything I was doing. Even though I acknowledged that I was anxious
about it, I did still live my life and do things that I wanted to do and needed to do
for the period of time that I was dealing with. (0:03:57)