Weight: 155.6

It’s been 5 months since my last radiation treatment. I wouldn’t say I’m one hundred percent but I’m closer to one hundred percent than I thought I’d ever be just a few months ago, so that’s great. I’ve been back to work for 7 weeks and started lifting in the gym for the first time in 3 years. My taste is steadily improving and the throat pain is gone. I still have dry mouth but ACT lozenges and my ever present bottle of water help with that.

About 10 days ago I noticed a hard lump on the left side of my neck. It felt similar to the lymph node that started this whole ordeal 10 months ago. I already had a visit with the ENT Dr. Huang scheduled for today so I figured I’d just wait and ask him about it when I saw him.

Over the past week I’ve constantly been checking the new intruder to see if I could detect any changes. It appeared to be getting smaller. Also when I first noticed it, it was painful. It is no longer painful and got noticeably smaller which was encouraging.

At my checkup today I asked Dr. Huang about it. He checked it out and said it was actually swelling in my carotid artery. He was certain it’s not a return of cancer and said it’s nothing to be concerned about. He felt that it was probably caused by my constantly self checking my neck. I’m always checking my neck for anything unusual since the original diagnosis of cancer in the lymph node. Apparently I’ve developed a habit of feeling my neck which has irritated it and caused the lump. His advice to me was simply “Stop playing with it”, which got a juvenile chuckle out of me.

I guess for a while it will be normal to expect the worst every time there’s a lump, unexplained cough or anything else out of the ordinary. I was never concerned about these things back when I thought “It can’t happen to me”. Now that I realize it can, everything appears to be a threat. Hopefully this will ease up over time but for right now, it’s all still pretty fresh in my mind and hard to ignore.

Everything went well at my visit with Dr. Huang and I’m still cancer free.