Amazing, what a real vacation can do for the spirit! Despite two weeks of travel out west and now a short trip to Asheville via GSP (where there are nonstops and affordable fares, even considering the rental car) I am relaxed, resting and writing at the Comfort Inn while waiting for Gabriel to nap before I pick him up from school. I feel as though I've taken a turn in the road, and I'm ready to get on with things.

But that’s hard to do, coming up on scans and a visit with Robert’s oncologist in two weeks. I’ve written before about scanxiety, so I won’t repeat that here – nothing has changed, and from reading posts by others on the Melanoma Patients Information Page sponsored by the Melanoma Research Foundation, we are far from alone in this.

This month, though, we had another reason to be anxious. Robert’s dermatologist last week removed a “freckle” from the back of his leg that I’ve been eyeing for more than six months. He did a shave biopsy of it, and today the results came back: it was a benign keratosis. Whew!

Dr. Lipson called as we were checking into the hotel this afternoon to say that he had two radiologists that he trusts look at all the scans and they didn't find anything to worry about. That means Robert has "no evidence of disease" and I'll dance with N.E.D. at Sandy's wedding on Sunday.

Before we left Johns Hopkins Hospital this morning I thought we might actually have some results to report today – but alas, it was not to be. The fellow who made up the CD of Robert’s brain MRI said that if we waited about 10 minutes, he could print out the report for us. Our wait was a lot longer – and then he came and said the doctor hadn’t signed off on the report yet. It was lunch time, and he didn’t want to keep us waiting.

Bummer! But even so, I came home without the anxiety I’ve been carrying around – despite the screw-ups that make me want to take back some of the good things I’ve said before about Hopkins.