In my quest to understand the disease my son has had, I still struggle with the concept that it grows very slowly and that often they will offer you a simple 'Watch and Wait' monitoring scenario.
I personally believe it may initially grow very slowly, over months maybe even years, and I understand that the concern from the medical profession about Stage is not as critical in Hodgkin Lymphoma, as it is still very treatable whatever stage it is at, though obviously Stage 4 is more difficult to treat than Stage 1. And of course different types of lymphoma grow at different rates, and some individual's lymphoma is more aggressive or indolent.
My son had an issue under one armpit on and off for several months, with one node that would come and go. We eventually went to GP (we should have gone earlier but his health was fine) only once this single node increased in size. The GP checked his whole body but nothing else and offered "Watch and Wait" but referred us to a specialist the following day where he was thoroughly checked over again. She too could only feel the one node, and sent us home saying she felt it was just a reactive node, but gave us a back up CT scan for 6 weeks later. They apparently see lots of people with inflamed /enlarged nodes.
The CT scan revealed the 6 x 5 cm underarm node, but also 4 x 3cm conglomeration of nodes in his collarbone, and some in his spleen (size about same as underarm). There were also a couple of other little bits about 1cm in his cervical (upper neck), and mediastinum but it was unclear if these were just reactive or diseased.
He had no illnesses or night-sweats at all, but lost weight in the weeks we were waiting for his CT scan, but he was also growing taller.
When he had the PET scan we were told he was Stage 3B and saw the image of the scan. So his lymphoma grew considerably in just 6 weeks, from just one under his arm, to a few others, though of course it may have been growing in his spleen unseen.
It explains why around 50% are classed as Advanced HL, because it is so difficult to diagnose.
We went from a boy happily playing football at school the day before his CT scan, to one with a lot of lymphoma in his body the day after. I believe many people are drawn to symptoms due to mediastinal/chest involvement, but he didn't have that. Obviously, in his case, it had really increased over a 6 week period.
How quickly do you feel that your HL developed, and did it increase quite rapidly before diagnosis?
