NED

Getting the news that you are NED, (it stands for No Evidence of Disease) is something that all Stage 4 patients dream of. Because cancer can hide in your lymph system, waiting for years before it recurs, once it has escaped the primary site, oncologists cannot say you are cured. Only that the scans are coming back as clear. That there is no evidence of disease. Very small tumours won't show up in scans, so they can't say you no longer have cancer, only they can't see any. It is a fantastic stage to reach, but it also has its own challenges and emotions. Fear for how long NED will last, will it be only months? Could it even be years? Shocked you have survived to this point through all the treatments. Happy that you have made it, but fearful you'll be tempting fate if you celebrate it. People around you may want to try to treat it like the end of the cancer, but you know it is far more complicated than that.