It's gotta be a mistake!

I was working as a medical resident in Pediatrics in 1987. I noticed a lump in my neck, so I asked the Pediatric Oncologist what he thought.

"Has it gotten bigger lately? Does it hurt?"

 No, I answered so he felt like it wasn't anything important. Later I noticed a smaller lump right next to it, so I asked one of the nurses what she thought.

 "Do you have any enlarged lymph nodes anywhere else?" she asked.

I really hadn't thought about that, so I checked, and sure enough, I had some enlarged nodes "glands" in my armpits, too.

"I guess I better go see a doctor", I thought.

Of course I didn't have one, because medical residents never see doctors and don't have time to get sick. When we do, we treat ourselves. So I found a doc, and went to her. She felt that the neck lumps were from when I had Mono in college, and the underarm ones could have been irritation from shaving.

"Just keep an eye on it, and if they get bigger, or change, let me know. Otherwise come back in 6 months". OK, cool, I can do that easy.

The next day, my doctor called me at home (Uh oh, not a good sign!).

"You know the more I think about it, the more I think you should get a needle biopsy of the lymph node in your neck just to make sure everything is OK. That way we can all feel better that it's nothing".

 OK...still sounds okay to me, no reason to worry, right? The biopsy was scheduled.  Not a big deal, a little numbing medicine, a medium sized needle (I couldn't watch since it was on my neck, too bad!) pull out a few cells, wait for results.

She called back in a few days. "The biopsy is suspicious for Lymphoma. We need to schedule an open biopsy (a small surgery where they take out the lymph node to take it to the pathologist for examination) to see what's going on. Suspicious doesn't mean it's Lymphoma, though, so don't get worried yet."

Yeah, easy for her to say. I'm 27, been married for 4 years, no kids. My husband and I wanted children and had been trying for a year. I had a miscarriage the year before plus it's really hard when you are on call at the the hospital every 4th night. I prayed, and hoped that it would all be a mistake. I'm healthy, nothing wrong with me. I had my tonsils out when I was 5 years old, but no other surgeries. Meanwhile, I'm still working as a resident and really don't have time for any of this.

Intro

I've been wanting to write my life story for a while, without much success, then thought maybe blogging would be easier and more "modern". but as an "old Lady" who is not very techno savvy, bear with me. The gist of the story is that I was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1987 and told I had 5-10 years to live. 25 years later, here I still am. Sometimes I think if I can tell my story, it will give hope to those struggling with this particular cancer and cancer in general. I'll post again soon after I've figured out how I'm going to do this.