How do I start this?

Wow where to start! 

So this all started about a month or so ago when I noticed a lump on the side of my neck right above my collar bone. A week later and another one appeared, neither were painful just these weird bumps. Well I had never seen anything like that on my body before so I made an appointment to get it checked out. The doctor was booked for about three weeks but I wasn't in any hurry really, I honestly thought I was just being paranoid. 

So fast forward three really long exhausting weeks where I probably slept double the amount of an average person, not to mention itching like crazy and waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, to the morning of my appointment. I was so eager to finally find out what was on my neck, only to get a phone call from the doctors office saying my doctor called in sick and needed to reschedule for the following week! At this point the bumps haven't gone away at all, still not painful but I noticed the one seemed to be getting slightly bigger so I started getting a little worried. PS don't ever google any medical symptoms because all that comes up are a bunch of scary things like cancer, lupus, HIV; just a billion weird scary things. So for this period of about three weeks I've been thinking great I'm gonna die. 

After my original Dr. had cancelled I called a new doctor and thankfully he was able to get me in the next day. So I got to meet with a real doctor finally, actually three doctors. They gave me a whole team of them. They all came in and started feeling my neck, my armpits, one of them threw on some gloves and even felt out my groin. (Don't worry she asked politely before putting her hand down my pants.) Well they decided that I needed blood work done and some chest x-rays so they sent me to phlebotomy and then downstairs to radiology. (Yay a familiar face, my stepmom's cute friend Brittany was my X-ray tech!)

A few hours later I get a call from my Dr. saying that my blood work looked normal but he found some more swollen lymph nodes in my lungs so he referred me to a general surgeon at the University Hospital to get a biopsy scheduled which brings us to this morning. Actually, rewind to yesterday when the receptionist called to my confirm my appointment and let me know it was just a consultation, I wouldn't actually get a biopsy yet. Okay yay, another step before getting anything answered. And of course I went alone because I'm a 'big girl' and it's not like I would learn anything about what's going on yet right? Well turns out wrong..

I get to the office, and am taken to my room to wait for the general surgeon. Well not too much longer he comes in, feels all over my neck and armpits (not the groin this time) and sits me down. He says, "Okay Alexis, we have a few options here." He then proceeds to tell me that theres a possibility it could be about four different kinds of cancer, or it could be benign and nothing at all! Sweet. So he decides to call in the FNA team to come do a biopsy in my neck to test for a few of the cancers. In case you're not a medical expert, FNA stands for Fine Needle Aspiration which basically means they stick a needle in my neck, pull out some of the cells, and look at them under the microscope to see if the cells are cancerous or not... All right there in front of me which I thought was pretty cool. Not to mention the four doctors and pathologists they brought in were so nice. Well they did it once, (they told me they would need to pull about three samples originally) and said okay that's all we need. The results are abnormal, your Dr. will be back in to explain everything. And then they leave and all of the sudden I'm freaking out. Luckily my awesome Dr. came back in very quickly and proceeds to tell me that the pathologist believes it's Hodgkin's Lymphoma. "You'll need to come back in the morning of the 24th (that's Christmas Eve for those of you that didn't put that together) and have surgery to remove one of the lymph nodes for another biopsy just to double check." They also scheduled me an appointment with an oncologist at the Huntsman Cancer Institute to kind of go over everything with me in detail, to explain what the future looks like, and perform a few more tests to better understand what's going on.

And that's about where I'm at right now. Still really confused and just trying to catch my breath. A lot to take in over a week right? So I made this blog to keep everyone updated and to kind of get all of my crazy thoughts and emotions out there. I'm so grateful for the support system I have, my amazing family and friends. I love you all! Let's kick this cancer's butt!!