Kortney

I scraped up half the office visit, my mom paid the other half to see my internist. He's a nice guy, good doc.

Long story short is the pain in front of my throat on the right, facial pain on the right, muscle spasm, etc doesn't have one thing to do with my neck directly really.

One look in my mouth was all it took. Large mass in the back of my throat, right tonsil area. When I stuck my tongue out ( something I love to do to doctors anyways! ) my left side is *normal* in that you can't see the tonsil. It isn't inflammed, nothing abnormal.

Right side, different story. All you see is in the area in the back of my tongue, where the tonsil area is, just one mass pushing out from the side.

Down into my throat is a little sore on that side, swollen lymph nodes under my chin on that side, 1 in my neck on the side, one behind the ear.

He did plain view films of my neck they looked pretty good. Xrayed my sinuses 3 views including a waters view, they're clear. Looked in my ears, little clear fluid, no infected fluid.

He said whatever is going on in that mass area is causing pain like referred pain.

I didn't know it was there. I mean, it's not like I check out my throat and stick my tongue out at myself every day and things like that.

I've been a little hoarse lately, slight cough but I figured it was from allergies. I've always had trouble with allergies, all my life ya know? Especially where I live it's hot and humid every single summer we hit 100+ degrees with heat indexes.

He wanted to know how much I smoke and I was honest with him. 2 packs a day. I've smoked since I was 15 years old.

He says that whole area needs to be removed and biopsied asap because it just looks ugly. The lymph nodes have to come out too and I need a CT or MRI of my head/neck area. He said the whole thing just doesn't look good. I asked him to please, just be honest, tell me what it looks like. He said cancer.

I'm only 32 years old. I have a little girl. It's just the 2 of us except my mom and family.

My aunt is an oncology nurse here. We talked to her, she looked at it for me. She started to cry. We're real close. I remember being 7 years old and at the graduation when she graduated nursing school. Now she's a nurse practicioner for Baptist Cancer clinic here. Has been for 10+ years.

I have applied for state assistance but the process is slow for medicaid, etc. We can't pay out of pocket for all the tests, etc. Biopsies. That costs tons of money.

My aunt did tell me if push comes to shove in the next week, we can probably get either an ENT or, one of oncologists at her office to do a direct admit and get me a social worker upon arrival and they can get the ball moving real, real fast and run it thru like an emergency or something. She said social workers know the ropes and know how to do that.

I am not allowed to have any aspirin, no NSAIDS. Nothing that will thin the blood because when I go in and they start cutting the stuff out, they don't want me on those meds.

I am still on Neurontin because it does help a little with the nerve type pain in my face, prevents migraines, etc. It does help me with that. He gave me some lidocaine viscous I can swish and spit out for the throat pain when it gets bad.

I asked about another MRI of my neck and he told me he does not doubt at all my neck hurts. Disc bulges can cause pain in alot of people and then there are some with it and it does not cause pain.

My doc said I need to put all my focus and energy into dealing what what's been tossed at me now because that disc bulge may be the least of my worries.

I just don't what to think at this point. It's alot to take in at one time.