CANCER

                                                  

In July of 2004 I awakened one morning to feel a soreness in my neck. Upon rubbing the area I noticed a lump about the size of a nickel in the upper part of my neck towards my ear. At first I thought well, my gland was swollen or maybe it was an infection from my ear or an abcessed tooth. Then I decided I'd better make an appointment and go see my doctor. You see cancer runs in both my parents sides of the family. I have lost many relatives due to cancer, I was'nt taking any chances with my health, especially since I had a small child and a grand daughter. I lost my own mother in 1970 to cervical cancer. So, I made my appointment and I was lucky enough to get into see the doctor 3 days later. I was weighed, had blood pressure checked, and had blood taken, 3 tubes. The doctor came into the room, and after a dozen questions he checked my neck. He had no idea what it was at that time. He said it could be a cyst, or some type of infection so he gave me a prescription for an antibiotic that has a medicine in it to dissolve cysts. He then wrote a referral to an Ear Nose Throat specialist, and wanted me to make an appointment to go see him. I called the specialist the following morning and a week later I had my first visit with him. When I first arrived I filled out a bunch of forms, gave my insurance cards to be copied, and paid my 15.00 co-pay. I was given a hearing test, blood pressure checked, and then put into a room with a big chair and a huge machine with a tv on it. Well, I knew it was'nt a tv, I just said it looked like one, lol. Doctor comes in, says results of my hearing test show I am using only 67% of my hearing in that ear. He then checked my throat, my ears with his gadgets, and sprayed the inside of a nostril. It made it numb. He put a long wire which had a yiny tiny tiny camera on the tip of it into that nostril and down to see if he could see anything, I watched it on that tv screen. Ewww, you do not wanna know what's inside your nose, yuck. I told him when I first noticed the lump, it was the size of a nickel, now it was thesize of a quarter. He said he fels as though it could possibly be a cyst, and was gonna give me a stronger medication to try and dissolve it, and in 2 weeks for me to come back and see him. I got the medication on the way home, 2 pills a day for 12 days. I thought ok, 2 doctor's have told me now that it looks to be like a cyst, so most likely that is what it is. I felt better hearing that. I took the medication faithfully, never missing a dose. But it was'nt working, the lump was now double the size of a quarter and you could see it sticking up from my neck. I felt so embarrassed going out to the store, people staring at my neck. I felt like a total freak. Why me? I kept asking, Why me?

Part 2 I'll post tomorrow morning.