Diagnosis

Amanda has been struggling with extreme fatigue since October of 2012. At the time, we suspected that she was not doing well on her migraine medications. In any case, it got bad enough that she missed a couple of weeks of school in December and had to pull out of her grade 12 AP Calculus course when she missed most of the beginning of the instruction for the course. Also missed a number of soccer practices, which is competely unlike her!  Amber and I were concerned enough that we ended up getting her referred by her pediatician to see a Cardiologist as well as having a long conversation with her Neurologist about trying to wean her off of some of her medications she takes to reduce the some of her migraine sypmtoms; one of which is notorious for causing fatigue.

In January of this year, a lymph node on the right side of her neck swelled up to about the size of an orange, but other than a cough she also developed, she did not have any other symptoms. We took her into a local doctor and he suspected that she had an infection and prescribed antibiotics. Only thing that seemed out of place was that weird cough when the swelling started. The swelling went down, but not away and then came back again - as did the cough. Back to the doctor and another round of antibiotics. Once again the swelling went down. Around spring break (end of March), Amber and I were in Victoria, BC for a quick holiday and Amanda's grandmother called us about the lymph node being swollen again. She took her back to the same doctor and he basically told Amanda that she obviously had an "over-active" node and that if it did not go back down in 6 months to come back and he would refer her to a surgeon to have it removed. Not satisfied with that response, Amber took Amanda into her doctor for a second opinion. Apparently the look that Amber's doctor gave mom was kinda scary. She basically told Amber that Amanda needed to be seen by a surgeon ASAP. Next thing we knew, things started moving in very fast and scary directions.

The ENT that Amanda was referred to was an "ENT-Oncologist".   Basically specializes in the surgical aspects of neck and throat cancers. He did a thorough examination and then scheduled her for a PET-CT the next day and a FNA (Fine Needle Aspiration - type of biopsy) the following day. We were back in his office about a week and a half later and were told that the PET-CT was positive with significant uptake in her neck, collar bone and chest area, but that the FNB was negative...then he told us that he did not believe that result. End of the day; surgery was scheduled two days later for an excisional biopsy. Another week wait for the results and we had confirmation...Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We had a pretty good idea what was coming, so it was kinda odd when we got the news.  There were no tears (yet); it was no surprise to any of us at this point in time.  Amber and I were watching Amanda's health significantly decline over the past few weeks, and additional symptoms were beginning to show (night sweats, constant fever). 

Amanda saw her oncologist for the first time on May 21st. Dr. Taparia is a very nice lady that once again confirmed her diagnosis.  Unfortanantly, Amanda had to do a couple of additional tests to "stage" the disease. First up...bone marrow biopsy. Apparently Amanda's bones are exceptionally healthy as there was a significant struggle to get the sample - poor girl...talk about excruciating pain! Then she was off to get more lab work and a lung function test (apparently one of the chemo drugs she is going to be on can affect your lungs in rather nasty ways, so they need to know if her lungs can handle it and to get a baseline measurement).