I'm a 46 yr. old premenopausal woman, enjoying life as a piano teacher, with relatively little stress, compared with the days of nursing my parents years ago (my mum died of High grade gastric Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, aged 57). I've lost quite a lot of weight, sometimes get night sweats, and I can see a lymph node about the size of a pecan nut in front of my left clavicle. My 22 yr old son who is studying 5th year medicine, and reckons he can feel a couple of large ones. One is nearer my neck, in my left shoulder, though I can't see them. I have been getting pain in that shoulder and in the arm with hand weakness. Last evening the veins in my wrist and hand swelled up for a while and I felt rather weak, with palpitations. And kept waking in the night with odd sudden thumps of the heart. I wondered whether I had a constriction of blood vessels in the arm or a separate circulatory issue. Do you think I could have Hodgkin's Lymphoma, given that several blood test results are acceptable, a GI endoscopy 2 weeks ago was all clear, except I still had porridge oats in my stomach 7 hours after breakfast, so they asked if I was diabetic and a fasting blood test proved negative. My chest Xray 3 weeks ago was clear, though an abdominal ultrasound scan last week showed a small non-shadowing 3.7mms hyperechoic focus near the posterior gallbladder wall. I sometimes have trouble emptying my bladder, so for the internal womb ultrasound,I had supposedly emptied it but the ultrasound showed that it still contained 168ccs. I am a pianist, and have been afraid to play in public recently, as I tend to lose a bit of control of my bladder, (and sometimes at night) though that is more of a minor issue as far as I'm concerned, at the moment. I have an appointment booked for a neck ultrasound on 13th June, but would like someone's opinion now, if possible on the seriousness or otherwise of my condition. Thanks.
posted on
Fri, 14 Mar 2014

Thu, 22 Nov 2018
Answered on

Tue, 27 Nov 2018
Last reviewed on