Hi everyone,

I’m a 20 year old who’s driving herself sick with worry. A year and a half ago I found a lump in my neck where your cervical lymph nodes are. It’s painless (maybe a bit achy at times), firm but moveable and about 1-1.5cm in size as an estimate. I have no other symptoms.

I know I should’ve got it checked out at the time but I have terrible anxiety and was too scared to go to the doctors about it because I’d pretty much already concluded that I had lymphoma and didn’t want to be told something I didn’t want to hear. 

A year and a half later it’s still there. It seems to fluctuate in size, usually feeling a bit bigger when I feel a bit under the weather and smaller when I’m not. It never gets much bigger than about 1.5-2cm but it never fully goes away and this is what is concerning me. 

I’ve recently moved back home from university and without uni to distract me the health anxiety is kicking in big time. I can’t sleep because I keep myself awake until the early hours of the morning obsessing over google and crying. I’m completely miserable and have convinced myself that I’m riddled with cancer because I’ve left it so long to get it checked out. 

After a massive panic attack on Sunday I went to the walk-in centre where the nurse said he was 99% sure it was nothing to worry about but to get an ultrasound anyway just in case. I’m booked in to see my GP this afternoon to sort out the ultrasound but not sure if I can emotionally take the stress of scans and waiting for results etc because my anxiety is just so severe and debilitating.

Honestly not sure what I’m wanting to get from posting here. I’m just tired of being told by my family that I’m being ridiculous when it’s a very real possibility since the main symptom of lymphoma is a painless swelling that doesn’t go away, which is exactly what I have. I know it should be reassuring that I have no other symptoms but I read that other symptoms only occur in around 40% of cases. I guess I’m just shouting into the void.