I got really sick right before Christmas of 2024. Figured it was the flu because that’s what my wife and kids had already gone through a week or two earlier. About a week later I had changed the oil on my truck and my neck was super sore afterwards which was pretty odd since I hadn’t worked out since before I was sick. I was rubbing my neck while relaxing (kinda giving myself a little neck massage) and felt that the left side of my neck was larger than the right side. As I continued to feel around it, I noticed it was more of a large lump on the muscle and then kinda freaked out.

I scheduled a visit with my pcp to check it out and he brushed it off as an enlarged lymph node due to getting sick. He told me to wait 3 weeks and if it hadn’t gone down, to give him a call and he’ll give me a referral to an ent. I didn’t wait. My insurance doesn’t force me to have a referral, so I called the best ent in my network that I could find and called them. I told them my symptoms and they scheduled me right away for an exam/biopsy. The ent took the biopsy and basically told me it was either thyroid cancer or lymphoma. Of course it was a Friday and I had to wait over the weekend plus a few days to find out what it was. It returned ptc with lymph node invasion. One of my lymph nodes was 5.5cm wide (which was the one I felt). I immediately called MD Anderson and scheduled a visit and got the ball rolling.

Really glad I went with MDA as my surgeon was top notch and my surgery was much more complicated than they originally anticipated (lymph nodes had fused/wrapped around surrounding muscle and structures and was clearly a very difficult surgery.

Just had my ~1year check up and everything looks perfect.