Let’s start at the beginning. In early
December on a Wednesday I left work thinking I had Covid. Well that test came back negative and the doctor stated that I should come back in a few days if I still didn’t feel good. So the following Sunday Christopher and I got up and made our way to Urgent Care. Which they proceeded to Covid test me again. Thankfully they did a rapid test and I was inside the building in no time. Afraid that I has pneumonia my Dr.Jordan, who was the best, had me do a chest X-ray. This is where things went down hill. He came back in the room and told me he was worried that it might be this condition that’s local to this region with problems with the lymph nodes. He asked if he could just check my neck and armpits to make sure there wasn’t any bumps. Well there was a small potato size on my neck right where it meets the top of my shoulder. I have noticed this before and didn’t think anything of it. This made him very worried and had the nurses bring in Chris. Once Chris was in the room he was stated he was worried it was lymphoma. He sent my x-ray to the lung doctor on call and we went home. Waiting for the call to see where to go from here. I had hope that it wasn’t anything serious but the look on this Doctors face you could see the worry. The following day I went to see the lung doctor. We scheduled a a visit with the surgeon and he referred me to the Hematology/oncology department. Now it’s Wednesday 12/13. My first appointment with Dr.Picton my oncologist. Her nurse practitioner came in and was explaining everything to me and that when I go into surgery on the following Monday I would be getting a port put in. This was scary. This is when everything started setting in. The fact that before any of my tests came back they knew it was cancer. I had cancer.  The rest of the visit was good a lot of questions answered as best as they could be. We were going to the fertility doctor to start that process so that someday after this we could finally have our family. What we started this year aiming for. My does life have a different plan for you sometimes. Surgery went well. All the other tests I powered through with the help of Christopher’s family and him. We finally got the tests results back and it turns out I do have Hodgkin’s lymphoma it’s at a stage 3 being that it’s in my neck, shoulders, chest and abdomen. It’s also effecting my spleen. The game plan is 6 months of chemotherapy every other week that starts on 01/14/2021. We are almost done with the fertility doctors and getting all that squared away. To be honest I’m scared, however I will get through this. We will get through this. I was blessed with a great husband who I couldn’t do this without. Well that’s all for now. If you have any questions or want to talk please reach out. It means so much to us.

All the love,
Rachael