A few weeks ago, you read about Nate Blass’s story of his battle with cancer.  Read Part 1 here and read on to find out more about Nate and the process of diagnosis of cancer.

“Clark Kent”

The wait from Friday until Tuesday wasn’t as long as one might expect. I already had the results from the CT and the x-ray: there was a large mass in chest. An appointment was scheduled with an oncologist. It was pretty clear in my mind that they’d tell me I have cancer. I told a few of my closest friends, then spent most of the weekend trying to ignore the chest pains. It was really the shortness of breath that bugged me, though. It’s frustrating to be working one day, then breathing heavily after walking upstairs the next.

My mom and I drove to Hershey on Tuesday for two appointments. First was blood work, then the appointment with Dr. Ehmann. It turned out that the ER doctor from the previous week had done me a bigger favor than I thought; most people don’t go straight to Penn State Hershey with no diagnosis, but Dr. Chetlen had seen to it that I did. So we met with Dr. Ehmann and a few of his colleagues—because there was no diagnosis, each of the specialists I might work with was there. We all looked at the scan results, and the doctors agreed that it was a type of lymphoma, an infection, or thymoma. Lymphoma was at the top of the list.

During those five days, I never really felt like there was anything to worry about. Being someone who can spend hours thinking through the same scenario over and over, I was pretty amazed by that. Part of me felt like I had no choice but to act like nothing changed—really, if you think about it, nothing did. None of the doctors gave any sign that I should be more than slightly concerned. They said it was impossible to tell how long the tumors had been there or what caused them. Regardless, they were there, and my life up until the previous week had been exactly the same. But, I did feel a little uneasy when Dr. Ehmann sent me for an ECHO and the technician asked, “So, what kind of cancer do you have?” It was a perfectly legitimate question. I just didn’t have an answer for it.

Looking back, I feel like I had appointments for the next three weeks. Really, I only had a PET scan, pulmonary function test, a pre-op, biopsy, and then another pre-op and biopsy because the first had been inconclusive. Though the biopsies weren’t fun, the PET scan was really the worst—partly because you can’t have carbs for three days before, and partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know where all of the tumors were. The results of the PET scan were encouraging: nothing had spread below my diaphragm.

The next two weeks were spent waiting for the results of the respective biopsies. The first one was a needle biopsy, a procedure intended to be minimally invasive, but still produce a diagnosis. I simply got some pain medicine and laid on a table while a needle contraption took pieces of tissue from lymph nodes in my shoulder. When the results came back inconclusive, we decided the second biopsy would definitely produce results. I was put to sleep, and I woke up with a new scar at the base of my neck and left shoulder, and one enlarged lymph node lighter.

On Thursday, June 30^th, I saw Dr. Ehmann was calling despite us having an appointment set up for the following day. He had the results of the second biopsy. Stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.