Worried about my husband

My husband recently had an mri on his neck due pain at the base of his skull , they said the reason was a bulging disc  but they said they were concerned about his enlarged lymph nodes in his neck so rang him and put him straight through for a chest X-ray, blood tests and booked him an urgent appointment for the ENT clinic. His chest X-ray is ok thank god but his bloods are showing his red blood cell count is low.he has an appointment next Wednesday at the ent clinic.  Along side this my husband has been suffering with hair loss and has a few bald spots over his head about 50p size when this started happening a few month back we put it down to stress.A few week back he found a lump on the side of his knee cap which feels like a fatty deposit but has doubled in size since he first noticed it .  My husband has also had no appetite and has lost quite a lot of weight in the past 6 month. He has also been very tired lately , we originally put this down to depression and stress as my husband has just recently lost both parents and is not coping well. We are hoping that it is just coincidental ailments that overall look as though it could be something worse but you can imagine how we are feeling right now .

has anyone been through this themselves ? We feel as though when we spoke to the doctor about my husbands blood results he wouldn't give us any information and even said we had to make another appointment for the bald spots and lump on knee as he didn't have the time , which you don't want to hear when you are worried sick . I was frustrated as I felt as though we were rushed out of the door still not knowing what to expect or why they are doing the tests. 

  • Hi Concernedwife86,

    Welcome to Cancer Chat. It sounds like you've both been through a lot recently. I can of course understand your concerns and I know it's never easy dealing with this uncertainty and waiting for answers.

    It's good to hear you have an appointment coming up. Hopefully this will give some clarity on potential next steps. Keep on asking any questions you have and where necessary pushing to get the information you need.

    I hope it's not too long to wait until you find out more.

    This forum is always here for support if ever you want to write things down and reach out to others, so I hope you find it useful.

    Wishing you all the best,

    Ben
    Cancer Chat Moderator

  • Hi ConcernedWife86

    Totally get where you are coming from with regard to lot of things adding up and how it can be difficult to draw things together post-Covid. Every thing seems to need both telephone triage and then face to face and I really feel I know where you are coming from ... In our case, they probably excluded cancer (not definitely but probably). However, unfortunately for us this is not good news either.

    I must say here that symptoms we (not me but person close to me) are dealing with are not the same as your husband's. What is similar is lots of different things and frustration with how it is all being dealt with.

    So, a lot of anxiety over getting some cancer tests, then probably not cancer. But, new symptoms keep on coming. Things keep adding up. Obvious something is really wrong. But what?

    I did try and convince myself that some symptoms like nausea were anxiety and stress, but there are other very physical things that are obviously not anxiety and stress. Maybe things are linked. Maybe they are co-incidental. Do we know? No!

    The doctors (including hospital) have now been honest and said they simply don't know. GP did hazard a guess, which was extremely scary, and that was only for one element. He also said he has never encountered this before (which is why I'm not putting symptoms down on forum as unlikely anyone else would be in same boat.) Not a super young doctor saying that.

    We are actually waiting on some biopsy results, but seem to be going down a path of exclusion where excluding everything bad still leaves us with bad outcome. What we need is something treatable. So bad but treatable is better than not knowing and downhill speeding up on daily basis if that makes any sense.

    Sorry if I'm babbling. The last few months have been extremely stressful and I don't wish this path of not knowing on anyone. I think perhaps the fact the doctor's don't know makes them even more reluctant to talk. I feel completely lost and the not-at-all joined up system isn't helping right now. 

    Really hope you get some answers and that the news for you at least is good. Because everyone's path is different. Stress can do very strange things, lumps may be benign, blood tests can be abnormal for all sorts of reasons. I wish you luck! And I wish you some escape from the hell – because it is hell – of not knowing! X