It's never lupus

[digitaldiscipline]

This is the considered opinion of the specialist after examining the CT scan of my lymph nodes and the rest of my lower skull, and seeing what his needle sucked out of my head on three spelunking sorties.

It is, however, possibly some kind of anaerobic bacteria, so I've been issued a third kind of antibiotic after my needle biopsy, from which, the doc extracted a nontrivial amount of very-reassuring pus and a core sample, which will be summarily split up for culture development, as well as lymphoma and non-lymphoma testing, the results of which, I should have in a week to a week and a half, during which time, we'll see what the newest bug killers do (cephalexin = bupkis; clarithromyacin = abatement of inflamed secondary lymph bits, and once I ran out on Friday morning, the WGSoMM[1] got markedly more inflamed and tender and warm to the touch).



[1] Whole General Sort of Mish-Mash

Comments

[miamadness15.livejournal.com]

So are they fairly certain that it is not worse than that?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

At this point, the tests are primarily to rule out that it's cancer/lymphoma, rather than to confirm that it is; my impression from the conversation with the ENT doc is that it's 80-90% likelihood of a tenacious bacterial infection, possibly triggered by some of the bugs from my mouth being opportunistic fucks during my routine tooth cleaning - the human mouth is full of some amazingly toxic shit as far as the rest of the body is concerned, infection-wise.

"You're going to want to buy some probiotics," is doctor-speak for, I presume, "This new course of anti-biotics is going to salt the fucking earth where your gut flora is concerned."

And, given the range of possible causes for the neck lump? Having the shits while the cause gets annihilated is an absolutely fine trade-off for me.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

One of my co-workers had neck lumps which were diagnosed as lymphoma (but which she was told wasn't going to kill her). When they excised and re-biopsied it turned out not to be lymphoma... many tests later, it turned out to be latent toxoplasmosis which had been in there for goodness knows how long. So one course of the right antibiotics and she's all better now.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Toxoplasmosis, or, in layman's terms, "crazy cat person parasite." ;-)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

That's the mystery. She's a dog owner, not a cat person.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

One of my partner had a mysterious neck lump that manifested right around the same time as yours. He started chemo on Monday. So I am *very* relieved to hear that you aren't going to have to deal with that.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, I won't, but I won't be breathing entirely easy until I get the biopsy and culture results back the end of next week and the ENT dude can review them and stuff.

[miamadness15.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on there. As long as the stuff is gone, the runs is a great trade-off.

I hope that you hear "good" news. (for what that means!) Keep us posted!

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

Wow, in a not so grand way. Please keep us in the know.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This is actually about the most-reassuring outcome I could have hoped for this side of "Well, hey, look at all this very obviously sebaceous goo that came out when the needle lanced it; take this to make sure it isn't infected, put a band-aid on it, and we'll see you next lump."

There are, as far as I can tell, a limited number of times when thick, bloody pus is a good sign; this is definitely one of them. *laugh*

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

In that case, yay for thick, bloody pus!

Horray not cancer?

[tirani.livejournal.com]

I am glad to see that is not likely cancer. If you would like, when I get home tonight, I can send you the info on the probiotics that were a damn miracle when they purposely nuked the fuck out of my GI track in Jan. I went from doubled over with stomach cramps to fine, if a little queasy in 30 minutes.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

If/when e. colischwitz takes place, I may call on your expertise. Neither of the previous rounds had anything more than mildly adverse downstream effects (I couldn't even have been an extra in the beans scene from Blazing Saddles)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Bleh. Echoing the "hurray, it's probably not cancer." But still. BLEH. Antibiotics are the worst. *sympathy*

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't mind them, and... *poking recalcitrant midriff squish* .... there may be beneficial side-effects if they do more than they're strictly contracted for.

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

Things I have never actually said before: "Yay, pus!"

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I am astonished.