Excuse me...I have WHAT?

Friday 6:00 am - looked in the mirror and said to myself, I work out like a maniac and no muscles, this morning: 18" neck, shoulders for days and one arm, the left one solid as a rock. Breathing was difficult and I sounded like I had asthma. 8:00:00 Call the Doctor for an appointment. Get my ass ready for 10:40am appointment.

Got my swollen self to Beth Israel and when my doctor saw me she just could not make any sense of the symptoms, so she just said go straight to the emergency room! As I am driving to emergency I park the car (no valet) and check in. It seems they were waiting for me. Vitals, usual crap and on to a room to wait for blood tests.. Nobody wants to say what they think because nobody can figure it out, however the salient characteristics so far are a) swollen head that has traveled down the neck shoulder and arms, no fever, and I can aggravate the shit out of it by laying horizontally or upside down. In other words, if I tie my shoes I have the mother of the head rushes.

Between the doctor and the emergency room, I had called Paul and told him where I was and not to worry, 4-5 hours and I would be out. After waiting for 45 minutes for something to happen, Paul shows up, so much for anyone paying attention to me. I also called my sister just so that she knew the basics of what was going on. After all, all I had was basics.

Finally, something is going to happen... CT Scan! Of I go on the stretcher, the CT Scan speech; you will get a warm feeling and you will think you want to pee but you won't. Amazingly, it was very quick. Roll me back to my cubby and wait. Dan my personal nurse who was wonderful tries to calm us down(Paul and myself). Twenty minutes later, the attending doctor comes over and closes the curtain around the bed. Never a good sign. In a very straight forward manner she explained that I had a "mass" that was pressing on the Superior Vena Cava. This in turn was causing the blood flow to back up into my head, neck and arm. It also explained, why my heart rate was at 95-100 from a normal 65-70.

So now, everyone is starting to get worried, including ME! Paul called my sister for me and try to sound convincing that everything was ok and that we were waiting for tests... Didn't work, she was already driving down to the hospital..

In my head I am thinking a) hopefully it is something like a big ass infection and not a mass as in cancer b)it is cancer OH FUCK or c) at least I didn't have a heart attack from the pressure to the vein.

The docs are very concerned because we will not know what it is or how fast it is growing until a biopsy is done. The biopsy can't be scheduled till tomorrow at 10:00am A night at the Beth Israel Hilton awaits..

I am moved to my new digs, very nice (private room!!!) and I get to eat something (Jello and a bad turkey sandwich), before I need to fast AGAIN for the biopsy. Waiting in the room are the Chemotherapy specialist and the Radiology Specialist. They proceed to tell me that regardless of the biopsy, since my white blood count is about normal, and I have no fever and all 4,000 blood tests are normal, it will most likely be a cancerous mass. I have two possibilities, lymphoma or carcinoma. The first is fast growing the second is not. With that happy thought I took an Ambien and went to bed sitting upright.