There is a particular kind of waiting that only shows up once you’ve been inside cancer long enough.
- It isn’t fear.
- It isn’t denial.
- It isn’t even hope in the cinematic sense.
It’s anticipation sharpened by numbers.
Two weeks from tomorrow, on January 12th, I will undergo a CT scan and a liver biopsy. Together, they will answer a very specific question: has the trial drug made enough of an impact for me to stay in the study?
- Not progress in the abstract.
- Not “how do you feel.”
- Not optimism.
Impact.
- The scan will map the terrain.
- The biopsy will interrogate the tissue itself.
- And the data will decide whether this path continues.
Cancer, at this stage, does not respond to narratives. It responds to evidence.
The Space Between Infusions
My next infusion is scheduled for January 15th, but this round of testing has pushed my usual two-week cadence out by a full week. That delay isn’t incidental. It matters.
Every treatment cycle creates a rhythm—chemical, physical, psychological. You learn where the fatigue lives. When the fog lifts. When your body returns to baseline. When the numbers begin to whisper instead of shout.
This pause disrupts that rhythm.
- Not in a dangerous way.
- In a deliberate one.
The system needs time to measure what has already happened. The drug has been delivered. The cells have been exposed. Now the question is whether the outcome is strong enough to justify continuing.
- This is not a setback.
- It is a checkpoint.
Living in Measurement Time
Cancer does not move forward in calendar time. It moves forward in measurement time.
- Scans.
- Biopsies.
- Markers.
- Comparisons.
You live from data point to data point, not day to day. And the space between those data points can feel unusually quiet—not empty, but suspended.
- I am still walking.
- Still training.
- Still eating with precision.
- Still fasting with intention.
But I am also conserving something more challenging to quantify: emotional bandwidth.
Because anticipation, unlike fear, requires discipline. It’s easy to catastrophize. It’s easy to fantasize about outcomes. It’s easy to run simulations in your head at three in the morning.
The hard work is to stay restrained.
- Waiting without projecting.
- Observing without narrating.
- Letting the evidence arrive on its own schedule.
What January 12th Represents
January 12th is not a verdict on my future.
It is a validation point.
If the scan and biopsy confirm a meaningful response, I stay in the trial and resume treatment on January 15th. The path continues. The strategy holds.
If they don’t, then the answer isn’t failure—it’s information. It’s a signal to adjust, pivot, and re-engage another line of attack.
This is what living with advanced cancer actually looks like: not dramatic collapses or miraculous reversals, but repeated negotiations with reality.
- Each one precise.
- Each one consequential.
- Each one survivable.
Holding Steady
There is a temptation to treat moments like this as emotional climaxes. To assign them a weight beyond what they can carry.
I’m resisting that.
This moment doesn’t need theatrics. It needs clarity.
- The drug has been administered.
- The body has responded—or not.
- The scan will show it.
- The biopsy will confirm it.
Until then, my job is simple: stay intact.
- Physically.
- Mentally.
- Strategically.
January 12th is coming whether I dramatize it or not. January 15th will follow if the data supports it. The calendar keeps moving. The city keeps waking up before dawn. The steps keep adding up.
Cancer does not pause while you wait.
But neither do I.
And when the next big moment arrives, I’ll meet it the same way I’ve met the others—grounded, informed, and ready to move forward based on what the evidence guides me to do next.