iamom | further thinking on the topic

I should begin with a short Bio 30 review (but be warned that I skipped a lot of that class in grade 12): Lymph nodes are collections of lymphatic tissue. The lymphatic system distributes white blood cells throughout the body. White blood cells (e.g. B-cells, T-cells) are the main building blocks of our immune system. When we get an infection (viral or bacterial), those white blood cells come to the rescue in force.

In my case, it would seem that a lymph node in my nasopharynx became inflamed, for lack of a better term, as a result of fighting acute mono (I think that extra white blood cells were being produced to fight the infection). The inflammation grew to be so large that it prevented drainage of my nasal passages. This caused my sinus cavities to fill, which most likely caused the excruciating headaches I had when this whole thing started.

Step One was the biopsy, and it revealed that I had abnormal lymphocytes, apparently caused by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The presence of such a large mass in the nasopharynx also suggested most emphatically that this was some form of lymphoma. In probably more than 99 cases in a hundred, those two circumstances would result in an automatic diagnosis for lymphoma, such as it did for me.

But the first biopsy results were ultimately inconclusive, which automatically postponed treatment and required a second biopsy. And we now know that the second biopsy proved that there was no lymphoma. Therefore, since I tested positive for acute mono in a blood test and since the Epstein-Barr virus was present in the biopsy tissue, it was concluded that the mass must have been caused by acute mono.

The trippiest thing about this is that I now know that I never had any cancer at all! There's a big difference between having been miraculously spared by cancer and never having had it at all. I'm not a cancer survivor, I'm just a diagnosis survivor!

(I'm also thinking of