When you feel ill, when you have pains, when you're constantly tired and your skin itches, when you're sweating yourself awake at night, when your lymphatic glands are swelling and staying swollen and when you start sounding to the doctor as a deranged hypochondriac — and when the only point of reference for the beginning of the majority of symptoms is your 2 weeks business trip to Texas - this is when the option of "an exotic Texan virus" comes to your doctor's mind.
And then you are being referred to an internist — to have them run the additional tests (like a full blood work, chest x-ray etc.) and to stop taking up precious time from those regular people with flu.
The internist follows your family doctor's indication and sends you to do all sorts of tests to look for this rare exotic virus us Europeans can only get when we travel as far as Texas - or perhaps to rule it out and send you home.
And after 10 days of self diagnosis with the help of your dear friend google, when you are absolutely certain that what you have IS cancer, and you even have a specific cancer that fits the full detailed set of symptoms, and you are getting all mad with fear for your life and thoughts of chemotherapy, and god forbid — death — just then all the test results come back negative.
You get the news that should make you thrilled - but you are upset - because you know something is VERY wrong with you.
And then you have the following conversation with the internist:
INT: That's good news, isn't it?
YOU: Well, yes, but...
INT: What did you think?
YOU: Well, in the past weeks I've been googgling my symptoms, and the results were all sorts of Lymphomas... or lupus...
INT: So to rest your mind - I can order some more specific Lupus tests and get a biopsy of one of the glands, if that's what you want.
YOU: let's go for it.
So after another 3 weeks you have a gland removed. The gland is attached to your neck and likes its place so it's actually painful through the anesthesia - but eventually the surgeon wins and manages to cut it off and send it to the lab.
Another 2 weeks of waiting for the results - you go abroad to celebrate your brother's wedding, you still feel like shit, but you are happy and based on the previous blood tests - you are positive the next ones will come clean as well.
And you go to get the results.
And the internist calls your husband to join you in the office.
And the internist tells you that the gland, which looked like a harmless pale pink Jelly Bean when it came out of your neck and was placed in preserving liquids — is actually a Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Yes, your friend google was right.
There is no Texan Virus.
If there were — it would have had a name. Like Hodgkin lymphoma has a name.
YOU have cancer.
And this is how suddenly your life turns around.
What do you do with cancer? — This is one of the questions I will try to answer as I go through the magical journey of beating it.
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