Well, How Did We Get Here (part 2 Cancer)
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Janel Gomez
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Janel Gomez
March 2026
- On March 16 while attending an evening meeting, I started having chest pains. They were more "weird" than painful. With all of my other symptoms, I decided to go back to convenient care.
- CC did an EKG and found my heart to be normal but were not happy about my swollen ass face so they sent me to the ER.
- ERs are a weird place, man. Regardless, this blunt talking angel of an ER doc sent me to get a CAT scan and full blood panel. In addition to my white blood cell count being still low, the CAT showed lymph nodes all over my body swollen as well as a swollen spleen. Dr, Blunt said to us "My gut says this is a lymphoma" and got an oncology consult and booked us into oncology at Carle Hospital.
- I think that first night was the hardest night. We were still trying to find out if it could be something else like an autoimmune disease or infection, but my gut also said lymphoma. Jonathon and I stayed up most of the night crying and trying to support each other. I watched the clock minute by minute waiting for a time to call one of my sisters. Apparently 6 am is too early to call your sister.
- I stayed in the hospital for 4 days giving gallons of blood for blood tests, CBCs, flow cytometry, etc. I had two biopsies done, one on a gland in my underarm and one bone marrow biopsy. (More on these in another post. I have A LOT to say about being awake during procedures)
- Every time the Aliens (all the medical people are a little alien to me and they are always kind of surprised when they realize I speak their language) came to visit me, they seemed more and more sure that it was a lymphoma and they just needed the biopsies to figure out what type.
- At this point, I also noticed my lymph nodes growing at an aggressive rate and assumed it was an aggressive lymphoma.
Friday, March 17
- Got the official Diagnosis of Stage 3 Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma and a chemo plan.
Janel Gomez
about 1 month ago
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