Is it or Isn't it Lymphoma?

    On November 16, 2009, the journey began ... I had gone to  put the foot part of the reclining chair down, and all of a sudden under my right arm pit, I got a sharp pain, like a pulled muscle or something, so I felt under my arm, and there was a large lump there.  I had my regular Doctor appointment for that Thursday the 19th, for my normal checkup for my spine, blood pressure, etc, so I figured I would just tell him then...my appt. was at 11:45am...
     When I got in to see my Doctor, we had gone over everything we normally do, and noticed when I had stepped on the scale, that I had lost some weight, which of course made me excited, and luckily my husband goes to the doctor with me at all times, because normally I forget either to ask him questions that I want to ask or I forget the answers he has given me, so Steven is my ears, besides my backbone in life in general.  Well I almost forgot to tell him about the lump, and Steven had said don't you have something you want to show the doctor?  Well I showed him, he felt it, and he said you need to see a "Surgeon" immediately!  Well I made a phone call to the surgeon who took my husband's gall bladder out almost 2 years prior, and he took me in the very next day.  After his examination, he said I really needed to go for a series of tests, a CT Scan, Mammography, UltraSound, and bloodwork...he also wanted an MRI, but since I have a medtronic stimulator in my spine, from my last spinal fusion surgery, I cannot have any tests that have to do with magnetics.  Well within the week that all the testing was done, the Surgeon called me and told me he needed to see me in his office as soon as possible, so Steven and I had gone right over... We waited for a few minutes before he called us into his office, and of course I was a nervous wreck to begin with, what I was about to hear was even scarier...

     We sat down, and the Surgeon said to me, I am sorry Ruthi, but there is nothing I can do for you, this is something that is totally out of my hands, and I am going to have to send you to another doctor that specializes in something like this. Well I asked him, what he thought it was, and he said he didn't know, he's never seen anything like this before, and I asked him if he thought it was cancer, and he replied, he didn't know what it was, all is he knew that he couldn't touch me. He said he would contact the other specialist that he wanted me to see, and his office would call me to set up the appointment.  The very next day, I get a call from the "CANCER INSTITUTE OF NEW JERSEY", asking for me, and I told them I thought they had the wrong phone number, well they didn't have the wrong number needless to say, and an appointment was made to go there on December 23rd, 2009...Merry Christmas right? So I went to the appointment, and Doctor August came in and examined me, and he told me that after reviewing my test results, that were taken by the original Surgeon, it is either Lymphoma, OR Neck and Brain Cancer!  Well needless to say my heart went deep into my stomach... he said he had called over to the main hospital (Robert Wood Johnson) for a pathologist to come over to help him to do an "Aspiration Biopsy", which they did and it came back inconclusive!  I had told Dr. August right from the beginning, I was not a medical text book patient, and clearly I'm not... In the weeks to follow, I seen another Doctor from his Oncology Team, and went through more testing, blood work, another CT Scan, then leading up to a "SLICE BIOPSY"... The 2nd CT Scan showed something the first didn't, and that was a "HOT SPOT" on a lymphnode on my lung, that is when the decision was made to do the Slice Biopsy.  After waiting almost a week and a half, the results also came back inconclusive, no cancer cells were showing, but Dr. August explained that doesn't mean that there is no cancer, because I had so much inflamation, it was the only thing showing up in the biopsy.
     Now here we are 3 months later (February 17th,2010) and today I am prepping to have a PET Scan done tomorrow at 1:30pm, which will hopefully tell us what is going on with me, after many sleepless, and restless nights, days and everything in between.  I am so very blessed to have such a loving and supportive family and friends to help me get through this bumpy road I've been going down.  I go through my days whether I even want to know what is going on with me and just forget about everything...then I think about my family and my precious grandbabies that are just my heart and soul of my life, and want to be here for them forever.  Believe me when I say this is one big long roller coaster ride for sure, but hopefully after the PET Scan tomorrow, when the results come back we will have the answers, and know for sure what the problem is, and if it is any type of Cancer, treatment will be started right away... Both my parents had died of lung cancer, and my sister is in remission of lung cancer for almost 21 years, so you can see my concern...
     This will be continued as my journey continues, and anyone that reads this, who has Lymphoma or has gone through something similar I would really love to hear from you and hear your story... As soon as I get the results from tomorrow's test, I will continue this Blog... And I just want to say Thank you to my family and friends for all your love and support...and apologize at the same time for shutting down at times when I have my little pity parties, where noone is invited, you are all always here for me no matter what, and I don't know what I would do without you all...I Love you all with all my heart!