This post might be a little long, but I'll try to make it as short as possible. It's about getting advice and getting help with understanding what's happening with me.
In July (this year), I started having chest pains. It hurt when I drank, swallowed, ate, belched. I thought it was just indigestion so I didn't really think anything of it. It got really bad 3 days later (Friday night) and I ended up waking up at 4 something and having my Dad to go pick up some Tums. Eventually, I fell asleep again and woke up around 10 or 11 and nothing had changed. I decided to go to the ER. They did blood work and X-rays. They diagnosed me with enlarged lymph nodes in the mediastinum area of the chest (center)..., but that they are calcified lymph nodes. They were thinking of Valley Fever at first. They admitted me into the hospital. Done lots of blood work and a couple CT scans. Later, the surgeon came by and brought up Hodgkin's Lymphoma and Sarcoidosis along with what they had been saying about Valley Fever. They done a mediastinoscopy to get a biopsy of the node. It came back dead so we were back at square 1. Did another CT scan and then a PET scan. Everything came back benign. So they went on to diagnose that I had a fungus in my chest and put me on an anti-fungal medication. The calcification of the nodes was probably from prior colds, sicknesses I had that didn't totally clear up all the way (or something like that).
SN: I had been sick already like 7-8 times back to back it seemed like already in 2010 alone. I had never been sick with colds that many times back to back in my life. So it was REALLY weird for me.
They put me on Fluconazole (sp?)... a generic brand of Diflucan. I'm having side effects like EXTREMELY dry/itchy skin, blurry vision, hair is coming out more than usual, bleeding gums, and constantly chapped/peeling/cracked lips.
To those of you who have Hodgkin's or know someone that have it.... does any of this make sense to you guys? I'm just like... overwhelmed with all of this!