Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mass

Picking up where I last left off…

I ended up going to the hospital Saturday rather than wait for a biopsy appointment on Wednesday.

It’s been quite the roller coaster. I have been at the hospital for over a week. It has almost become a second home and I’ve basically moved in.

My primary doctor made a few calls to get me admitted as fast as possible to a local hospital. Without hesitation, I was hooked onto an IV in the IMCU. It would be easy to consider the doctors and nurses sadists (you want to take a piece of what from where?), but my care has been quite good.

A few mini-breakdowns in front of nurses, doctors, family, and friends were all tears of uncertainty. Each time I thought I couldn’t possibly do another test, I would finally get a break. My sense of humor hasn’t faltered, but I feel so unlike myself. When I look in the mirror, after I drag my dance partner (my name for the IV pole) with me to the bathroom, I’m surprised who looks back. It’s me, but something is different.

Days and nights have bled together and I don’t know the date until I stare at the whiteboard that names the nurses and techs in charge of me. Though the minutes and hours seem to move slowly, as if I stare at the clock, the hands would start going backwards than forward.

This past week, I sat and waited for tests, procedures, test results, and doctors’ visits. Biding my time became a game of keeping my sanity and not getting overly emotional. As I told my family and friends: panicking and getting upset over all of it will not help someone who is coughing all the time.

Since I had pneumonia behind the mass, I was treated immediately for that. As antibiotics have been pumped into my body, I went through routine tests, such as blood work, to discover the identity of the mass.

I had a bronchoscopy, which the nurses refer to as a “bronch.” I was put under anesthesia and a tube with a camera down my throat allowed the Pulmonologist to see anything related to the blood from my lungs and possibly take some cells to test. He found the results unremarkable and saw no warning signs for the bleeding, indicating that the bleeding must be from the pneumonia.

In order to get a good sample of cells from the mass, I underwent a CT-guided biopsy in my chest. The mass is close to the front just left of my sternum. A local anesthesia was applied and it was surreal to see foot-long needles going into my body. Let’s just say, after I saw the first one, I looked to the right for subsequent tissue samples.

The tissues in the preliminary results, in conjunction with my blood work, appeared to indicate nothing special. However, in order to find the tiny cells, called B-cells, that typically surround the healthy ones in cancer, my biopsied cells were sent to a Dallas lab so they could use special dyes.

Over 24 hours later of what felt like the longest wait ever, I received the results:

I have Stage 1E Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma

I really wanted to prevent my mass from feeling a heightened sense of superiority with scientific names and colloquialisms. Hell, I could call it “that thing” and gotten on with my day. Then again, I feel like someone in AA introducing myself: Hi, my name is Diana, I’m 26 years old and I have cancer. Saying it like that gives one the sensation of getting hit with a ton of bricks, as it did with me, despite its truth.

Thus far, I've been amazed how much people can go through and survive and move on. I take this to heart as I go through my own journey to kick this lymphoma despite the chemo treatments, losing hair, multitudes of tests, and putting my future career on hold (for only a little bit).

This is my journey I share with you.

To be continued...