firsttimepanic
18-09-18, 17:01
Good day everyone. First time poster here, been reading a lot of different threads on this site. Let’s cut to the chase. I’m in full blown panic mode.
My story: two months ago I noticed an enlarged lymph node behind my left ear. It is right behind my ear (posterior auricular), a single node. I really didn’t think much of it until I started googling. What a curse that was. Until now, I have had no such health anxiety.
The node started off as being roughly the size of a nickel, now it’s the size of a dime. Because I hadn’t been sick or anything I decided to go to my doctor. He felt around, and dismissed it and said “everything feels symmetrical”. I disagreed so I went to urgent care and the doctor there said “yup it’s definitely a lymph node”. I explained to him that I wasn’t sick or sick recently and it didn’t hurt. He said “that’s a red flag, but since it’s soft and moveable I wouldn’t worry about it. But if it’s still there in a couple weeks I’d get an ENT to look at it and possibly biopsy it for possible lymphoma”. I pretty much freaked at the thought of that.
After those appointments I started to really poke and prod the node. So dumb of me. Because I felt like it wasn’t resolving, I made an appointment with the ENT.
The ENT looked me over and she said she feels head and necks all day long and what I’m feeling is a small lymph node but I’m also feeling the SCM tendon.
I felt good about this for about a week. Then doubt crept back into my mind. So... I made an appointment with another ENT. Someone I’ve seen in the past for an unrelated issue that I really liked.
When he examined me he said “definitely a lymph node. But since you’ve said it’s gotten smaller I wouldn’t worry too much about it”. He said it’s most likely due to bug bites because it’s summer and sometimes lymph nodes take forever to go down but to come back if it gets hard or bigger.
Naturally, I poked and prodded the node for a good two days after the appointment convincing myself it was getting bigger. The next day, it was HUGE. Big as a very larger grape. And rock hard and it hurt. Bad. Panicked, I let the ENT know and he said it might be wise to just take it out since my great grandma died of lymphoma and the node is changing shape/consistency. I did not tell him I was really poking and prodding it couple days before.
He scheduled me for surgery on 09/19/2018 - which is tomorrow. The lymph node has since gone back to dime size about and not as “pointy” as it once was. It no longer hurts either. Oddly, the lymph node seems to really go down when I apply heat to it, which he advised me to do at my first initial appointment.
So here I am. Surgery tomorrow to remove this node that’s been tormenting me for two months. I have never been put out before so a little nervous about the procedure.
However, what I’m more nervous about is the result of the pathology report. I am panicking for some reason. Normally I wouldn’t worry about stuff like this but for some reason it’s really been controlling my life for a couple months now.
I’ll let everyone know how surgery goes and what I find out!
Thanks for reading everyone!
My story: two months ago I noticed an enlarged lymph node behind my left ear. It is right behind my ear (posterior auricular), a single node. I really didn’t think much of it until I started googling. What a curse that was. Until now, I have had no such health anxiety.
The node started off as being roughly the size of a nickel, now it’s the size of a dime. Because I hadn’t been sick or anything I decided to go to my doctor. He felt around, and dismissed it and said “everything feels symmetrical”. I disagreed so I went to urgent care and the doctor there said “yup it’s definitely a lymph node”. I explained to him that I wasn’t sick or sick recently and it didn’t hurt. He said “that’s a red flag, but since it’s soft and moveable I wouldn’t worry about it. But if it’s still there in a couple weeks I’d get an ENT to look at it and possibly biopsy it for possible lymphoma”. I pretty much freaked at the thought of that.
After those appointments I started to really poke and prod the node. So dumb of me. Because I felt like it wasn’t resolving, I made an appointment with the ENT.
The ENT looked me over and she said she feels head and necks all day long and what I’m feeling is a small lymph node but I’m also feeling the SCM tendon.
I felt good about this for about a week. Then doubt crept back into my mind. So... I made an appointment with another ENT. Someone I’ve seen in the past for an unrelated issue that I really liked.
When he examined me he said “definitely a lymph node. But since you’ve said it’s gotten smaller I wouldn’t worry too much about it”. He said it’s most likely due to bug bites because it’s summer and sometimes lymph nodes take forever to go down but to come back if it gets hard or bigger.
Naturally, I poked and prodded the node for a good two days after the appointment convincing myself it was getting bigger. The next day, it was HUGE. Big as a very larger grape. And rock hard and it hurt. Bad. Panicked, I let the ENT know and he said it might be wise to just take it out since my great grandma died of lymphoma and the node is changing shape/consistency. I did not tell him I was really poking and prodding it couple days before.
He scheduled me for surgery on 09/19/2018 - which is tomorrow. The lymph node has since gone back to dime size about and not as “pointy” as it once was. It no longer hurts either. Oddly, the lymph node seems to really go down when I apply heat to it, which he advised me to do at my first initial appointment.
So here I am. Surgery tomorrow to remove this node that’s been tormenting me for two months. I have never been put out before so a little nervous about the procedure.
However, what I’m more nervous about is the result of the pathology report. I am panicking for some reason. Normally I wouldn’t worry about stuff like this but for some reason it’s really been controlling my life for a couple months now.
I’ll let everyone know how surgery goes and what I find out!
Thanks for reading everyone!