I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma in september. i was sitting in my office at work, with this horrendous cough, and it had gotten so bad that my coworkers had started popping their heads into my office telling me that they're starting a petition to get me to go home and get to the doctor. i was stupid; not wanting to leave work early just to find out i had a really bad cold. And i might not have, had my mother not gotten my father to call me crying basically begging me to go to the doctor and have a chest x-ray. I did not like hearing my father cry. I'm Catholic and Irish so guilt works wonders. the mental image of my father on the phone bawling his eyes out telling me that my grandfather would still be alive had he only listened to my mother gave me enough incentive to head out the door and sit in my doctor's office. I should've known something was up when it took me a half an hour to walk two blocks. I simply couldn't breathe. So, there I was in his office, coughing so that people were moving several seats away from me and then I was called in. He listened to my chest and heart and didn't say anything. I pointed out the small lump on the side of my neck, "Can you tell me what that is? I think I knocked into something in my sleep." He pressed it and asked me if it hurt. I said no. The look of panic crossed his face and I knew, right then, that something bad was happening. he sent me to another place to get a chest x-ray. Five blocks away. I just said how hard it was to walk two right? Okay, five, was no picnic and I was in a race against closing time. so, the girl who can barely breathe, rushes her way to the "imaging" center. I get there, finally, completley winded. I hand her the form to get the chest x-ray and she goes "okay, that's ten bucks". i go to hand her my debit card, and she says "um, no. we don't take debit. cash or check." remembering that I had treated myself to lunch that day, and never carry my checkbook, i stared at her and my sad three dollar bills. "can you bill me?" No, was the reply. for a lousy ten bucks? anyway, i had to walk another three blocks to the ATM and the girl's parting words to me were "hurry up, we're closing soon and you have a stat x-ray." So, finally after the $$$ was taken care of, I took the first of many chest x-rays. Then I had to carry the films back to the doctor's office and as I got there a fax was coming through and he was reading the pages with a worried look on his face. He hurried me back into the examing room and left me in there for twenty minutes. I really thought I had pneumonia. He comes back in and asks me is there anyone I'd like to call. uh, no. He then puts his hands on my shoulders, stares me straight in the eyes and says "you have one of five things. first, it could be sarchoidosis (sic). or, lymphoma. the other three i haven't even thought about yet." i stared at him and started to tear up. "no, you have to be with me here. you have to stay strong." so i nodded, took my films, went outside and walked home. the next few days I got sicker and sicker. it was as if my body now knew that the cancer had been identified so it could continue it's downward spiral. I went for CT Scans (drinking that stuff is disgusting) and finally a biopsy. I had the biopsy on a weds. by friday I knew i had non-hodgkins lymphoma. They had done a frozen section on that weds to find out what exactly it was, and so, I knew I had cancer. I never thought I'd be rooting for a specific type though (hodgkins). by the next weds i had started chemo. everything kept happening so fast, and all i kept thinking was, but my birthday is soon. i'm going to be 24. something isn't right.