This is my first post on the board so I will give some back ground.
I was first diagnosed when I was 20 years-old with Stage III. I had ABVD and it appeared to be in complete remission. This was December 2005.
My cancer recurred in January 2007 where I was treated with two types of salvage chemo (first method failed and nodes grew) followed by high dose chemo and a stem cell transplant. I was out of the iso ward by May of 2007.
I returned to law school where I just graduated in May and passed the MA and NY bar. Great. Only there are no jobs out there, so I am currently unemployed, with loans adding up that private banks make you struggle to defer.
These pressures and stresses add up. Whenever I get this worry I go toward my number one worry - my cancer recurring again. I think about it all the time the past week or two. I feel my neck constantly looking for lymphnodes. I have a node that I have felt since my transplant that I know to look for...then I have felt one or maybe even two on the opposite side of my neck before prior to scans, and they have come back clean. Only problem is that I never remember where that one is and in my searching I have found one and possibly another on that side of my neck and then one under the chin. They are very tiny, probably smaller than a pea, and I am sure if I'd never had lymphoma I would be thinking nothing of it. Just, the way my life has been going with all these negatives I can't help but dwell on this.
I am just looking for anyone that has dealt with this type of thing before. What do you do to get your mind off of this stuff? I can only tell myself I am healthy and never going to have the disease again so many times. It really isn't working anymore...
I also go to NYPH and they keep switching up doctors on me and the latest doctor isn't a fan of PET scans. His opinion is 3 years out of transplant, that the risk of recurrence is low and there is more concern (for him) of the side-effects of the radiation from PET scans that I don't need them and I should just look out for symptoms. Great - perfect thing for me to do. I probably touch the nodes I feel on my neck 45-50 times per hour...and I stare at a spot on my hand where both times I have been sick I've gotten this dry skin circle. It's not there now, but I keep picturing it forming, like I can see it forming and it's not itchy, but when I stare at it, it gets itchy in that area.
I don't know what to do. I have never been this bad. I also was never this worried before, or this bored, or had this little to do. At least when I was still in school with nothing to do, my loans were deferred and playing video games was fun. I never even have the energy to turn on my xbox right now. I feel so depressed. I also almost feel I am going to worry the disease back.
Please if you ever get down like this, what do you do? Does seeing a therapist help? Do they know what you went/are going through? If anyone is in the Greater Boston Area, are there therapists that focus in cancer survivors?