“Anything is possible”

Today was my first appointment at Sloan Kettering in NYC with Dr. Richard Wong.  Of course the weather was horrible... thank god for one of New York's finest aka Maureen for driving me.  The hospital is off of York Ave. on East 74th street right on the water.  It is beautiful! It doesn't even make you feel like you're going to a hospital.  Hello valet! Makes it quick and not stressful.  Check in was easy and everyone there working the lobby was super kind and of course following Covid protocol.   Dr. Wong and his team are simply amazing.  I felt 100% comfortable going into the appointment and knew I was with one of the best.  Dr. Wong and his nurse were super welcoming.  They quizzed me a bit about how everything started and a little bit about myself.  Of course I mentioned I was an IRONMAN and right then and there I gained some respect.  I swear I missed the bus in  math  but not in athletics, endurance sports and apparen...

On Tuesday, November 10th I reached out to Dr. Wong’s office in hopes of booking an appointment sooner rather than later ... and success! I had to wait a couple of weeks but I managed to get an appointment for Monday, November 30th.  Anxiousness set in up until the 30th.  Stressful headaches, anxiety, not a lot of patience for things and pretty much exhausted myself each day waiting.

Mom took me to my CT appointment this morning. Still felt the same emotionally regarding everything.  I knew I was going through the process and just tried to be patient (which I am not at times). #aries The CT results came back showing no other enlarged lymph nodes in my brain area, thyroid, chest and lower portion under the lung. The scan did show two enlarged lymph nodes at about 4cm each 😳 in the neck area (ummmm totally not normal). I’m sure you’re probably thinking why the ultrasound reads differently than the CT ... look it up and Google if your interested to know the difference. It’s pretty interesting and I’m too tired to type it all up HA !

After my results came back from the Ultrasound stating that at CT was suggested, Madison Medical quickly got me approved for a CT scan. God speed with my health insurance! Thank you Verizon.  Luckily I was able to book an appointment for November 9th.  As the approval process was going through on the CT, Maureen reached out to her sister Cathy who is a clinical nurse at Sloan Kettering in NY to see if anyone could point me in the right direction with everything that was going on.  Cathy contacted Dr. Richard Wong personally.  Dr. Wong is Chief, Head and Neck services in Oncology. The turnaround time with his response was less than 24 hours (liked him already) and agreed to take me on a patient after I had my CT performed.  He did also suggest a US guided needle biopsy of the largest node but I knew I would prefer to have that done by his office and not by another facility in New Jersey.  As an FYI, at this point my round of antibiotics did not help at all....

Maureen took me to my Ultrasound appointment today.  Going into the appointment I knew something was going on with me. Just didn’t know what. The report came back showing five enlarged lymph nodes in the lower left neck area. One of them measuring up to about 4cm. It was then suggested that I have a CT scan done for more detail.