Hi,
My first post here and I am in the position of waiting for EBUS biopsy results and very worried and anxious. I will try and describe how it lead to this and hope someone can provide helpful feedback.
On 30th June after traveling in the USA for over a week one morning when clearing my throat with a forceful cough I noticed some streaks of blood in the mucus which alarmed me. This was on and off for over a week and I did also reckon dehydration and hot weather and drinking far less water than I normally do back home played a part in making my throat dry and sore and inevitably bleed. My first instinct was as soon as I return home in a week's time I will contact a GP triage immediately and I am aware blood coughing is a potentially serious sign. The blood was mainly streaks and blobs like mucus discharge but red blood instead of green normal mucus. I would not describe it as being more than a teaspoon and large enough to leave a very big stain.
By 13th July back home I got a GP appointment to discuss this and the GP did some tests but also advised me to go to A&E next day to rule out a pulmonary embolism but explore other causes most likely i according to her report an upper respiratory tract infection. She took my heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen and all were normal and listened to my chest and lungs and commented breathing is OK and normal. I went to A&E 14th July did blood tests which all came back fine but a doctor there noted my D-Dimer score of 550 was marginally above the normal making a possible higher risk of blood clotting. I also did a chest X-ray which did not reveal any significant findings but required to come back next day for a CT scan and whilst there I received a blood thinning injection from the nurse.
15th July I did the CT scan and the report revealed a "significant mass" in the chest area and presence of a possible reactive lymph node. The respiratory team expressed concern and wanted to book me in for an EBUS bronchoscopy and a PET CT scan as soon as possible. Also that same day the doctor at the hospital prescribed a course of Co-Amoxiclav antibiotics three tablets per day lasting seven days and the presence of blood from the phlegm and sputum began to recede that by the Sunday morning I only noticed smaller specks of blood from throat clearing first thing in the morning when my mouth was dry but no other time of day and by Wednesday morning 22nd July the final day of the antibiotics course I did not see any blood discharge at all. Occasionally in the seven days since I have seen normal green mucus when throat clearing for the first time in a long time but no blobs or steaks of blood from my mouth at all. There are hopeful signs this was merely an infection that cleared up thanks to the antibiotics.
That week I was booked in for a Lung Specialist appointment on Thursday 23rd July and my lung capacity was fine and measured at 7.35l which the specialist described as above average for a man of my age but that day I also get an EBUS bronchoscopy test booked for the following week.
Yesterday morning 28th July I had the EBUS test and hoped to get some feedback from what the doctors noticed. They noted the presence of an abnormal looking enlarged lymph node from the chest gland that they want to get analyzed at the lab and then reach a definitive answer. Whilst in my recovery room the doctor described that lymph node as concerning noting the size being over 2cm and the shape being round and these have a possibility of major concern. Obviously he could not give any hints based on guess work at this stage but did mention that malignancy such as lymphoma is one possibility but also there is the possibility of it being something benign or an inflammatory condition or a reaction to an infection and the nodes take a long time to shrink back to normal. Everything has to be taken to the lab before finding out. Before I was ready to be discharged a nurse from the specialist lung cancer team saw me and told me that results take at least a week and they hope to phone me by next Wednesday and invite me back to the hospital to discuss their findings with me and naturally this fills me with increasing dread and far every day that goes by and how to handle it when I see them. Is this just standard procedure regardless of outcomes? I also got a PET CT scan booked for this Friday 31st July as well after a bit of deliberation when someone phoned me up last Friday offering me one because I was unsure if I need that as well as the EBUS and also would not want it the same day or the day after the EBUS but I have it booked. Indeed when I got home yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from the lady at the hospital respiratory team (the same lady I saw on 15th July who wanted to refer me for EBUS and PET CT) checking if I had a PET CT booked and saying in an urgent tone of voice "it is because we think you may have lung cancer", those exact words. I don't know if they are genuinely fearful what it is or medical teams have a general approach of always assuming the worst case scenarios at all times, a "worst first" approach you could call it same with the preliminary feedback after the EBUS yesterday.
Based on all of this I have inevitably been typing my in as much detail as possible everything I have experienced into Google AI search looking for their results across the web and when asking about outcomes the malignancy scenario sometimes gets considered "likely" but then after it asks me for any further personal information it tips the odds more towards the benign or temporary infection scenarios but malignancy is never completely ruled out. I know you cannot completely trust Google AI 100% but it is clever how it crawls through hundreds of pages and determines answers based on that.
For the records I am male in my early 40s and a non-smoker. I have no history of frequent exposure to asbestos and no frequenting of places like factories or building sites and only notable smoking experience being in the physical social presence of someone smoking but never actively inhaling.
There is not much to do other than wait and hope but I would appreciate honest feedback from anyone who can relate to all of this and what all of this could likely point to what sounds most likely if it was just some kind of infection or inflammation after all.
