How did we get here?

Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Stage 2A. How did I get here? 

It had been about 7 months since Mae was born and I was ready to lose that baby weight I was still holding onto. Jillian Michael's to the rescue! I started doing her videos a few times a week and after a few weeks I started having some pain in my neck.  One evening after my workout I was explaining the pain to Bradley, thinking it was related to the new workout routine, and reached up to touch my neck. There was a lump there! Hmmm, what could that be? We did a bit of Googling and decided it would be best to make an appointment with the doctor ASAP.   

The next morning I visited the nurse practitioner at my doctor's office.  After consultation with the doctor she decided to order an ultrasound of the area.  The ultrasound results then led to a CT scan.  I had the CT scan done on the literal eve of my 30th birthday.  I remember laying on the table thinking, "What a way to ring in a new decade of life!" The next day I anxiously awaited a call from the nurse with the result from the scan.  When I talked to her she assured me that the scan showed a collection of swollen nodes but that they weren't overly concerned and thought I should wait it out a month or so to see if it would go away on it's own. Relief! It can't be a big deal if I am advised to wait around for a month, right?

So I waited... three days. I talked to an ER doctor friend of ours about the situation and he suggested not waiting, I should get it biopsied right away. Though he is typically one to under-react to these types of things after spending so many years in the ER, his sense of urgency wasn't enough warning for me so I still didn't do anything about it.  I then ran into the same friend a few days later and he more strongly suggested the biopsy. OK, OK, I will do it.

I made an appointment with a general surgeon for a biopsy consult on Tuesday, June 17th. I didn't think the consult would be a big deal, turned down offers for people to accompany me and went by myself.  However, it did turn out to be a big deal.  The surgeon was fantastic (Dr. Kevin Grannan at Group Health if you're ever looking for someone).  He was kind but honest. He told me after reviewing my chart that we should consider it to be lymphoma unless the biopsy could prove otherwise. Whoah. I had been Googling "swollen lymph nodes in the neck" for a few weeks now and knew this was where it could be headed but isn't Googling medical conditions really just an exercise in worst case scenario anxiety? Nobody ever actually has what those medical blogs suggest, right?  We wouldn't be sure for two more days.  In the meantime we did some crying and some worrying. Two of the things I resist the most in this life, for those that know me well. 

Thursday rolled around, Bradley took me to Good Sam early in the morning for the biopsy.  We thought we wouldn't get a result until after the weekend but Dr. Grannan graciously walked the removed node down to the lab himself and personally waited for it to be tested. Within 30 minutes of coming out of surgery he was able to confirm... lymphoma... Hodgkin's. It wasn't one of those big shocking moments with lots of tears. It was just a matter-of-fact statement by the surgeon taken in by us as a matter-of-fact.  Thanks to Dr. Grannan for being honest about what suspicions his experience had taught him so that we could digest the probability for two days before the actual diagnosis. But, now here we were. It is cancer, it has a name.

By Monday we were meeting with Dr. Brennan, my oncologist. It is still weird to say, "My oncologist." The typical course of treatment for Hodgkin's is 4 months of chemo with treatments every other week. Then, a PET scan. If the PET scan shows no cancer, then 2 more months of chemo and done.  If the PET scan shows the cancer is still around it will likely mean some radiation.

The remainder of the week I went through a series of tests to confirm the diagnosis and get some baseline measurements of lung and heart functions to be used as a reference further down the line in my treatment. As a result of all of the testing, Dr. Brennan confirmed Hodgkin’s stage 2A. 2 because it is found in two or more lymph node groups (in my case the left neck and left underarm).  A because I am not presenting with any symptoms.

I received my first infusion on June 30th, exactly one month after my 30th birthday.  That experience is also deserving of its own post so I will save that for a different day.  My hopes with this blog are to: (1) keep family and friends up to date on my physical and mental progress, (2) provide myself an outlet for processing my thoughts on this new journey, and (3) provide a history for my kids so that I have something to give them when they ask me what it was like 15 years from now.
 

Lots of love.