Watchful waiting

What worries me, and our listeners need to know this, is I've met so many of our, my fellow patients who get that diagnosis like I did and then are told, especially if it's not by a WM expert, that you've got this very rare blood cancer, but go away and I'll see you in three months' time.

I'm gonna put you on watch and wait.

How must they have felt? How must they have felt when they've, they come out of that room, "Well, he's told me I've got cancer, and now he don't wanna see me for..." or, "He or she doesn't wanna see me for three months, six months," whatever.

I think we're very lucky that we have this, uh, category of healthcare professional called clinical nurse specialists.

There's a whole group of those conditions which actually happen as we get older.

Immune systems might misregister something or produce a small immune response, and then this little protein lingers in the bloodstream and does nothing.

And as you said, you've met patients, a patient who's been on watch and wait for twenty-two years.

So hundred percent, I think WM has so many layers to it, both clinically, molecularly.

We always want to give treatment.

How worried should we be when these families choose a watchful waiting approach? And how do you balance the risks of over-treatment of the disease with the risks of under-treating and potentially a progressive disease?

I actually suspect that the number 20 to 30 disease is not the true rate of quiescent disease.

So these are patients who feel well, and we know that in Crohn's disease it doesn't say much that they feel well.

Yeah.

So we often hear the phrase, watch and wait.

So I guess the first part of this question is what does that mean for patients, right? And then do we think that that's a helpful strategy in terms of management for fibroids?

I love this question.

Yeah.

depending on where they're at in their life and what would be best for them.

With watch and wait, watch and wait means you've been diagnosed with fibroids.

You didn't know that they were there.

Very nice.

Well, the Watch and Wait scoreboard is now up, and I believe it's my turn to do it, so order has been restored.

I did this pretty much the entirety of last season, so I assume I will continue to do it for the entirety of this season.

Welcome back.

Welcome back, Willow, to the Watch and Wait scoreboard.

Trade in a risky premium, and then you'll do it for the rest of the year.

Correct.

I just needed a break and that the chances of survival were not... enticing enough for me to continue with a different round of immunotherapies or go a different route.

So that said, the processing from the emotional standpoint for me began during that period, which I wish we could find a gentler term for watch and wait because it sounds terrible.

Yes.

I would love to sit.

Anyone listening here, if you have a focus group, I'd love to be a part of it because we do need to change the terminology around that.

But it was called Watch and Wait.

And it was during that phase and a little before it that I began to address the emotional component for processing.

And I'm a visual artist, but I wasn't always a full-time professional visual artist.