Lymph Node Revisited

As you all know, I started with a swollen lymph node two weeks ago.  I emailed my doctor last week and she said that if it didn't resolve over the next week to come see her.  It was still swollen (particularly in the mornings) so I made an appointment for Friday.  Yesterday, though, I started feeling pressure in the left side of my neck.  It felt like something was pushing on my throat from the inside.  It didn't interfere with swallowing, but it didn't feel normal.  I called the doctor and was able to move my appointment up to today.

My ever-helpful husband is, of course, on the other side of the continent.  That didn't help my stress level.  I went off to the doctor this morning with the very real feeling that this could a life-changing day.  I just knew that whatever I was feeling shouldn't be there.  I actually contemplated packing a bag and having it in the car since I was sure there was a good chance they were going to throw me directly into the hospital.  (Now before you think I am 100% insane, I did have an incident about 12 years ago when they sent me off to have an MRI of my brain and then threw me directly into the hospital.)

I got to the doctor's office and was so on edge that I literally jumped and yelped when the nurse called me back.

When my doctor came in, I told her my story.  She listened carefully, while typing notes into my chart.  I love my doctor because I can tell her things like my two self-diagnosis theories: 1. A spider bit my neck and now there is an egg sac growing there which will soon burst open with tiny spider babies and  2.  Clearly Lymphoma.

She got up and started to feel my neck.  She finally got to the gland I was concerned about.  She stopped to feel her own neck for comparison.  She felt my neck some more.  She then told me, "I am not even close to freaking out about this".

Her plan of action was to give it another week or so and she suggested I take some anti-inflammatories.  I couldn't believe her spectacular lack of concern.  Why was she not rushing me off for bloodwork or a CT scan?  For God's sake, she just gave me another variation of "it's probably viral".  Seeing that I was not yet willing to give up my grasp on a dramatic outcome, she did refer me to ENT.  She suggested I schedule an appointment with them and then, if things resolved, to cancel it. 

As I went to leave, she gave me one last piece of advice:  I was forbidden to touch my neck.  No poking, no pressing on the gland, no feeling for swelling, no nothing.  She then went on to tell me how she once went to her own doctor with (and she used air quotes here) "breast cancer" which was really a pulled muscle in her chest wall that she aggravated and irritated by poking and jabbing to feel the "tumor". 

I thanked her and assured her that I'd be the first to tell her "I told you so" when the baby spiders were born.  She offered to take one as a pet when that happened.  I left and I have no doubt she finished off by adding the "crazy munchausen hypochondriac" code to my chart.