I got my scan results back.

They’re stable. No progression.

This is when you would think the natural reaction would be joy, happiness and relief.

When you have early stage cancer it’s happy, you are relieved! You are one step closer to the end.

Not with Metastatic (Stage 4) Part of me is relieved sure. But stability means something very different in this world. It means I continue on the same path with no progression and no changes. You are probably thinking “I don’t get it! That’s good news.” Yes and no.

In the beginning you get excited when scans show tumors getting smaller or staying the same. Then your next scan may have some progression. And then back to stable. The rollercoaster of emotion and keeping up is exhausting. Then one day you realize what stable actually means and doesn’t mean.

Here’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

“Stable” doesn’t mean cancer is gone. It doesn’t mean life goes back to normal. It doesn’t mean one step closer to being finished with treatment. It means the same cycle continues: treatment, side effects, blood counts, scans, waiting, adjusting, worrying — repeat. No movement forward. No clear resolution. Just staying on the hamster wheel.

And that gets exhausting.

The longer things stay stable, the less visible cancer becomes to the outside world. People stop checking in as often. The urgency fades. The assumption becomes that you’re “doing fine.”

But I’m still living with this every single day.

I still wake up not knowing how I’m going to feel. I still have limits that didn’t exist before. I still have to measure everything I do because I pay for it afterward. I still have fatigue that isn’t solved by rest. I still have pain that doesn’t go away. So when scans say “nothing changed,” my day-to-day reality hasn’t actually gotten easier.

There’s also something hard to explain unless you’ve lived it: even progression would mean something different is happening. Decisions. A change in direction. Movement. I’m not wishing for things to get worse — I’m worn down by the limbo of nothing changing at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to die.

What I want is for the constant waiting and situation to end.

Living with stage 4 cancer isn’t one crisis — it’s an ongoing state of vigilance. You’re always monitoring your body. Always wondering what a symptom means. Always balancing what you want to do with what you’ll pay for later. And when you live like that long enough, it can start to feel like life is happening somewhere else while you wait on the sidelines.

There’s also grief — not just for health, but for identity.

I miss the version of myself who could make plans without hesitation. Who could dance, stay out late, say yes without calculating the cost. I still want to experience things, travel, be part of the world — but unpredictability makes planning feel risky, so I often don’t bother at all. That’s not because I don’t want to live. It’s because disappointment hurts. One day I may feel good so I make plans and have all my brilliant ideas just to be pulled back down to my reality.

People assume stability is the goal. And medically, it is. But emotionally, stability can be heavy. It asks you to endure without a finish line. Imagine running a race that never ends.

The whole thing is just bullshit. You get back on the hamster wheel until the next lab, infusion, scan, being in pain and fatigued with a smile on your face.

I’m writing this because I know I’m not the only one who feels this way — and because so many people stop talking once they’re “stable,” afraid they’ll sound ungrateful or like they’re asking for sympathy.

This isn’t about attention.

It’s about honesty.

You can be grateful to be alive and still mourn the life you lost. You can be relieved by stable scans and still feel trapped by the reality they represent. Both things can be true.

If you’re living in this space too — stable but struggling — you’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re not doing cancer “wrong.”

You’re human. And this is hard.