January was a crazy month.

Many have said, how did you know? You are so healthy, so fit. How could you have cancer? I know...but apparently cancer does not care about any of that.

How did I know? Bottom line, it was a lump in a lymph node in my neck that appeared overnight on December 16th. However, looking back there were a lot of signs that I would write off as something else over the past several months. In fact, Follicular Lymphoma is a slow brewing cancer that may have been brewing for a lot longer than a few months. The most prominent signs prior to the lump were: a bloated belly, feeling full quickly, digestive issues and irregularities, on and off nausea and towards the end of December, serious fatigue.  I have had an enlarged lymph node before (not quite this large) and know that with some infections, that is common. When the lump didn't start to go away and actually seemed to be getting larger, I finally made the appointment. I went to my primary care physician on January 4th at 10am. She did an exam and listened to all of my symptoms. She expressed concern and told me she was ordering a CT scan, a CT scan with contrast, and an ultrasound of the lump. She knows me and said, do not put this off, I want this done by Monday or Tuesday and if you can't get an appointment, call my assistant. I left the office and called to schedule the appointments. I was only able to get something for the following Friday. So I called her assistant and left a message and headed home. I had two conference calls for work and got a phone call at 2pm. It was the assistant, she said, do not eat anything - you have a 2:45pm CT scan. I was like 2:45pm TODAY? She said yes. I proceeded to Hoag. Spent the next 2.5 hours, having the scans and ultrasound done. Left Hoag around 5:20pm. At 6:31pm, I got a phone call from my doctor - she said, I am sorry to call with this news, but it looks like you have a type of lymphoma. She was very caring and compassionate but she also says it like it is (probably why we get along). She went on to tell me, it was probably a Hodgkin's type of lymphoma, treatable but would be a rocky road ahead. She was going to talk to the oncologist on Monday and get back to me.  Have a great weekend (no she didn't say that). Processing that information was rough...and felt surreal. We also didn't have a confirmed diagnosis so we were spinning. The weekend was long.
From there, it went like this.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting...appointment scheduling.
January 10th - Bloodwork
January 15th - Lymph node Biopsy
January 22nd - PET scan
January 23rd - Oncologist Appointment and confirmed diagnosis
January 24th - More bloodwork
January 25th - Bone marrow Biopsy
January 28th - Port-a-Cath placement in Chest
January 30th - Day 1 Chemo (9-hour infusion - due to the adverse reaction to meds)
January 31st - Day 2 Chemo (3.5-hour infusion - left over from Day 1)

So here we go, Cycle ONE of SIX- DONE...5 more to go. May 21st is my last cycle. Pray that it kicks the shit out of cancer and leaves me standing. I know it will! It must. I will not let this shit get me down (well maybe a little) - but I will win in the end.