3 Ways a Survivor Manages Scanxiety After Metastatic Breast Cancer

Scanxiety — a term patients and survivors of cancer use to describe the anxiety experienced before cancer scans — can take a toll on the body, physically and mentally. So, it’s important to find ways to help ease some of this anxiety, explained survivor, Annie Bond.

“Any time I feel overwhelmed with [metastatic breast cancer], or if there's some kind of scare happening, or I’ve got scanxiety, I just remember it’s all a big adventure,” Bond said during an interview with CURE®.

Bond is a comedian, metastatic breast cancer survivor and cancer advocate who shares her experience with cancer with thousands of followers on social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok.

For others who may experience scanxiety, “I would say don’t be afraid to voice those fears to somebody you love, to your safe space,” Bond said. “Don’t be afraid to tell your doctor if you’re very anxious because you want to get through your scans with ease.”

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Bond sat down with CURE® to discuss three ways that help her manage some of the scanxiety that others can try too.

Transcript:

I love yoga and I feel like yoga gets a bad rap for people saying that it's going to cure your cancer. It's not going to do that. But yoga breathing exercises [can be helpful and] you can find a lot of them on YouTube for free. I found those extremely helpful when I'm in a scan and I know I have to stay still. And if my song memorizing isn't working, nothing's working. If I can really focus on those breathing exercises and especially practicing them at home, you can kind of remind yourself that you're safe. It's just a scan, it doesn't mean anything's back, and you just try to breathe through it and get through the moment.

But the other thing, if nothing is working, I learned this from the show “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” which is you can get through anything for 10 seconds. So get through it for 10 seconds. And once you get through that, well guess what? You can get through another 10 seconds and just get through it.

Or pretend that you've been abducted by aliens and that you've got to just go with it. These weird aliens are walking around, putting me in their tube. All right, I gotta go with it so that they'll go teleport me back home. Use your imagination. That's the real way.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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