In August 2018 I found a lump in the left side of my neck one morning as I was getting ready to go to the gym. I didn’t think much of it but asked a couple of friends what they thought at work, the general consensus was that it was probably a raised gland. I was then feeling my neck and found another smaller lump on my right side and then became slightly concerned. A few days later I decided to go to the GP.
She checked me out and referred me for blood tests and to see a specialist Head and Neck doctor at Guys Hospital. The specialist was reassuring, saying it was likely to be nothing as I put the tiredness down to early gym sessions and my busy job, and no signs of weight loss, night sweats, but he referred me for a biopsy a few days later none the less. Within minutes of my biopsy I was diagnosed with Classical Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, right before the August bank holiday weekend. I was extremely glad I’d been taken seriously straight away by my doctors, and had taken my mum along with me to that biopsy appointment!
I had to wait an excruciating week for the hospital to call me with the confirmed results, which of course remained the same diagnosis and an appointment to meet my team for a plan of action.
I met my Oncologist and Clinical Nurse Specialist who talked me through my diagnosis and next steps. I was to go for a PET-CT scan to find out my staging. I found out I had Stage 2A non lumpy. This meant I was able to go through the process of freezing my eggs, two weeks of injections and internal scans followed by an egg collection to freeze some eggs in case my eggs were to be effected by the chemo.
I started chemo the following week, at the beginning of October 2018. I had 8 rounds of ABVD chemo every other week, followed by 17 sessions of radiotherapy every day for 3 and a half weeks. I finished treatment at the beginning of March 2019 and I’m currently in remission, hoping that this is the end of a bad chapter in my life.
