This sounds a lot more like an infection of some sort than cancer, though I'm certainly not a doctor.
I had a scare back in 92 with a chain of enlarged lymph nodes in the right side of my neck. They were slightly sore, but hard, and stuck to the surrounding tissue.
My doctor freaked and sent me to a surgeon to have largest "sentinel" (top of the chain) node removed for biopsy. She was quite sure it was lymphoma o some sort.
I had the node removed, and then the fun started. The pathologist had never seen anything like it. It was sent to the CDC. They had never seen anything like it. It was sent to Walter Reeds Infectious and Tropical diseases department. By this time, 3 months had passed and the rest of the nodes were gaily growing away and I was starting to run low grade fevers and lose weight.
Then, word came back from Reed. It wasn't cancer. It was a mycobacterium infection. Somehow, while traipsing around in Eastern Europe's wooods and mountains after the Border had opened, I had picked up a soil bacterium related to TB via a small wound or scratch on my neck. Could've been a bug bite.
A 6 month course of the same antibiotics used to treat drug resistant TB cleared up the infection. My only reminders of my cancer scare are a slight hollow where the node was. a 4" scar on neck, and a tendency for that part of my neck to swell if I get anything that causes swollen glands, because the lymphatic drainage on that side is messed up due to the missing gland and the damage done to the other glands by the infection.
BUT, my lymph nodes did the job they were meant to do: they prevented a potentially deadly infection from spreading to the rest of my body, sacrificing themselves in the process.
I do have to say that the anti biotics used to treat an infection like that make on sicker than a dog, though.
Susie, I sympathise with you on the waiting, that's the hardest part. But my gut feeling is that you'll be OK whatever this turns out to be. I am sending strength, hugs and good thoughts your way.
