My name is Lottie. I am a 26 year old sarcasm factory of joy and in April I was diagnosed (eventually) with lymphoma.
I had grudgingly accepted the ugly cyst I'd been growing on my arm for nearly 18 months was clearly not going anywhere and asked my GP to 'whop it off' which he duly did but it turned out not to be a cyst. It was actually pretty large and after 3 labs had stared at it for a few weeks my GP called me to suggest I pop in to see him, following this up with 'don't worry it's not cancer'. Imagine my surprise when my lovely doctor told me it was in fact cancer after all when I visited the following week.
It's fair to say my reaction has been a mixture of denial and sheer panic but I imagine this is pretty normal. I quickly informed my manager at work who very helpfully compared growing a tumour to an episode of Men Behaving Badly when Tony got athlete's foot and was thrilled that little fungus had chosen to grow on him. Tact not one of his strengths. I told my best friend who declared I should face facts that I would likely die. Apparently looking on the bright side isn't her strong point. I told my mother who went on and on, and on a bit more about how much this was affecting her. I'll be honest, I have got a bit sick of the awkward reactions you have to put up with but it is a little amusing. More on that later.
My GP told me very little when I was diagnosed except that it was pretty rare, really interesting and came on a 'very long, complicated report that he didn't really understand'. I like my doctor but this didn't fill me with confidence. So he decided to refer me to a dermatologist and explained I would have to wait around 8 weeks to be seen. This freaked me out a little since he'd been as informative as a french language course taught by a kitten, so I called the dermatology department who broke the news that my GP had sent me to the wrong clinic and I'd need to be seen in an oncology clinic. I called him and worryingly he asked me what he had to do about this. I (quite obviously I thought) explained that clearly he needed to refer me again correctly which he promised to do.
This situation only got more frustrating when my GP called me a week later to say the dermatology consultant had contacted him to explain that all lymphomas are treated by the haematology department and as such, 4 weeks after diagnosis I would now be referred to the correct department. Unfortunately my GP rather sealed his fate in my incompetency scale when he went on to tell me I didn't actually have cancer, then I did have cancer, then he didn't really know what it was but it was so rare he was thrilled to see one for the first time and then finally that it wasn't cancer 'in the classical sense'.
My haematology consultant isn't an idiot and was unsurprisingly very annoyed by the advice I had received. He told it is cancer; it's rare but not necessarily worse. The cancer I have usually appears in the lymph nodes and mine had decided to sprout up in patches on my arms. He gave me a helpful book on Non Hodgkins lymphoma and circled the sections applicable to me. He was very practical and funny and is a bit of a legend.
So now I know I have lymphoma but not the stage of it so on Wednesday I have to have a CT scan combined with some other jazzy chemicals. Depending on this I'll then need a bone marrow biopsy. I will in likelihood need radiotherapy or chemotherapy but I probably won't die any time soon of this disease. I'm really scared but dealing with this in typical fashion by working hard and taking the mick a lot. I think writing down the worry might help so bear with me and wish me luck.
