My Lymph Nodes Are Enlarged – Part 3

Thursday, September 28th, 2023
Today was a humbling day for me, my son has been sick all week, and I usually carpool with him, so I drove to work today (a 45-minute drive) while I’m not feeling well. The morning drive was good, but the evening drive was challenging. But the drive wasn’t the humbling part, that was the meeting I had with my boss, who is some 20 years my younger. Talking with her about me missing so much work recently and explaining my medical issues, ugh. I still have my job, so that is a plus.

Both sides of my lymph nodes are really sore, the right one, which is the one that they did the biopsy on, is swollen about 3x its normal size. Fun times.

Friday, September 29th, 2023

Ugh, I had a very long day teleworking today, but at least I didn’t have to deal with the drive. Tomorrow is hay day but with a twist. Normally we pay a friend of ours to use his big logging setup, but our hay guy is sold out this year, so…. This new supplier will deliver to us, which is nice, but we didn’t get a huge lead time that he was going to deliver tomorrow morning. The problem with that is the Average son is out sick with COVID-19, and the Average Daughter works, so it is just me, Mrs. Average, and the farmer. Normally we have a team of like 6-8 to help. But we will get it done.

Ice cream has been my savior lately, my throat is super sore from the lymph nodes, so ice cream helps as does drinking Coke.

Saturday, September 30th, 2023

I slept for crap last night, and this morning we had to be at the farm by 0830 ready for a day full of moving hay around. The good thing is that moving the hay was fairly quick and painless. However, moving around so much, climbing on the round bales, and pushing them off the truck ended up causing me some moderate rib pain during the evening hours. 

The throat is sore as hell tonight, but it is what it is at this point. I still do not have any further results from the biopsy.

Monday, October 2, 2023

I slept pretty well last night, but I’m dreading going to work. Every time I’m there, I end up leaving rundown at the end of the day. This morning and afternoon the lymph nodes are still swollen and slightly painful. I had a dream last night, well this morning, about going to the oncologist and finding out that it was cancer and that it had spread throughout my body. I have 9 more days to wait until I get further details. I swear doctors love this shit.

I just received notice that there has been an upload to MyChart. Here we go…..wish me luck….

They are officially stating: “Localized Enlarged Lymph Nodes” “There is no flow immunophenotypic evidence of a B or T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder. Hodgkin lymphoma, some large cell lymphomas, and non-hematopoietic tumors cannot be excluded by flow cytometry”

I still need to wait and see what the oncologist has to say and then we head down the path to try and figure out why in the hell my right lymph node is about three times its normal size and the left is about double. Plus they are actually very painful, which is amazing, considering all the pain meds I’m already on. 

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

It was an emotional evening for me, as I tried to hide back the tears that at least I don’t have several certain cancers, but knowing that I can’t truly relax and let my guard down until I know what is causing my lymph nodes to be so swollen. Last night, as if it didn’t want to be left out of the fun, the left side lymph node in my neck started to throb and really hurt. In a period of about 30 minutes, it increased in size to match the right side, which is about three times its normal size. At times it brought tears to my eyes as if it was saying, “Yeah, I’m not lymphoma, but don’t forget about me”.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Things are a dull roar today, the first day in a long time, that I didn’t need to take narcotic pain meds for the costochondritis. My rheumatologist is trying to help me get some relief from the costo, which has been in a non-stop flare-up for two years now.

Rough evening, I think I ate something that didn’t agree with me.

Thursday, October 5, 2023

So far, today has been at a dull roar too. I’m getting things done at work, the pain is very low, and my mood is decent. Waiting for the other shoe to fall, lol