by Becky Jackson on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 9:41am
As many of you may have heard, I did have some surgery and have been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but we'll get there in a minute. This all started back in the summer when a lump came up on my neck. It was where that little dip is... between your collar bones. I thought it was a just a surface thing, so when I went to the Dr., she told me that it looked like a boil and to apply moist heat and try to get it to drain. I applied heat, and it drained. and it drained. and it drained. So finally I realized something else was clearly going on, so I made an appointment with the dermatologist. She told me it looked like a cyst that needed to come out, so I went to Dr. Michael McGhee (awesome guy) to have it removed. During that surgery, he discovered that this 'cyst' went further down in to my chest, behind my breast bone. We then made an appointment with a thoracic surgeon, Dr. Hugh Burnett (another awesome Dr.) After reviewing my ct scan, he determined it was a thymic cyst. Not thyroid, thymus. Evidently, for those of you who like me who didn't even know I HAD a thymus gland, your thymus gland helps set up your immune system when you are a kid. When it's job is done, it just turns into a fatty tissue and just hangs out behind your breast bone. Well, mine had turned into a 'cyst'. January 10, we went in to have it removed at Baptist Hospital. If you remember, January 9th was the big snow storm of 2011, so just getting to the hospital was a challange! But we made it and spent the night at the Baptist Plaza hotel. Surgery went well, however, the thing was bigger than expected. About 8" to be exact. I was cut from neck to belly, my first (and hopefully last) sternotomy, which is MUCH more painful than I was expecting. Which I really don't know what I was thinking, I mean having your breast bone cracked open sure sounds bad, I guess I thought I was tough. Surgery was on Monday and I was released on Friday. I went back to work the following Monday, just for a few hours a day (back to full time now!) Anyway, after extracting the -now called- mass, pathology here determined it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma and sent it off to Boston for confirmation. Which we got last Monday. So....now we start treatment on that. I tell ya..If it's not one thing, it's another. When it rains, it pours. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. (Insert your own old timey saying here) Nevertheless we go, get it taken care of, and move on with our lives. (I've got lots of things planned! I didn't plan for any down time!) Today I have my follow up appointment with my surgeon so he will hopefully release me from this dang 'no picking up more than 10lbs rule'. I mean really doc, what in my life weighs less than 10 lbs?! My purse weighs more than that! And I'm REALLY having a hard time not picking up my nephew Griffin! For those of you who have noticed, he has been my entertainment for the past 2 weeks! So there will probably be more pictures and videos to come! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and for those of you who came to the hospital, I thank you again! You guys have been awesome through all of this and I don't know how I would make it without you.
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