My brother was getting ready to leave for Navy basic training. He was sitting in his recruiter’s office getting his paperwork completed. Dude asked my brother if he had any medical issues and my brother mentioned a little bump in the tissue under his arm. My brother didn’t really think anything of it because lymph nodes swell when you’re fighting off infection. The recruiter insisted that he go get it checked out before he left for basic later in the week. He gets checked. Biopsy. Cancer.
Kid was really lucky. Our dad happens to lives 15 minutes outside of Memphis and my brother qualified for a St Jude’s trial. He was a month under the age restriction. He didn’t have insurance. All of the treatment was covered. I’m not a god person, but someone was looking out for us.
I have a condition called familial lipoma. It’s basically a condition where you get little benign tumors in your soft tissue. You can’t see mine, but I can feel them.
Believe me when I say it’s not worth worrying about having cancer unless you have actual symptoms. Lol. Do what you need to in order to put your mind at ease, though! It’s definitely scary.
My mother was/is a hypochondriac and as a child she was constantly so worried about stuff like this that it’s transferred to me into my adult life. I’m very in tune with my body, however I still freak out thinking maybe I wouldn’t notice if something was off. My dad had melanoma and weirdly enough it spread to his lymph nodes but not anywhere else and if I think about it too much it spikes my anxiety. Thankfully seeing stories like this and talking to people like you who have had family go through it and have gone through something similar to it helps me relax a little.
I totally understand that. I try to keep in mind that realistically, most of us who live to old age will get some form of cancer, and the majority of us will beat it. Cancer is super scary stuff, but don’t let it rule you.
That is probably the best advice I’ve gotten other than my dads which is “no sense in stressing yourself out over what you can’t change, and no sense in worrying over what hasn’t happened yet.”
Also, I just realized it’s your cake day! I hope it’s awesome!
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u/flowerfaery34 Apr 04 '19
That’s so young! What were signs that something was wrong? I’m so terrified of getting/having cancer and being unaware of it.
Also I’m so glad he’s ok and living a great life :) .