You can't plan for life.

I haven't always been a planner, but thanks to my college friends and their excessive planning, I learned how to be.  And after graduating college, my 10 year plan was this: get a job, get married to my long time boyfriend, possibly get a masters degree, buy a house and then, the ultimate goal: start a family with lots of babies (my husband, Donny, doesn't agree with the lots of babies part...we'll take it one at a time).  But it's funny how you can't plan for life.  I should have known after all the craziness that I've already gone through, but then again, you just never think it'll happen to you.

After a short five and a half months of being married to my best friend, we found out that Donny (my husband) has Hodgkin's lymphoma.  You can read more about Hodgkin's lymphoma on Northwestern Medical Hospitals website because I can't tell you much about it as I am learning about this disease myself.

It all started with fatigue.  Donny has been really tired these past few months, but we just figured it was because it's football season.  Then we found the lump on the left side of his neck.  The lump was about the size of the tip of your thumb...well, the tip of my thumb, not Donny's thumb.  Anyone who knows Donny, knows he's got some massive hands :)

Monday, October 15, Donny went to his regular doctor to ask about his fatigue and the lump.  The doctor did some blood tests and everything came back normal.  But any time you're dealing with lumps, it's always better to be safe than sorry, and luck for us, his doctor made Donny get a CT Scan.  Since the blood work came back fine, we really didn't think much about the CT Scan other than it being a precautionary measure.  So you can imagine how shocked I was when Donny texted me saying his doctor called and told him to go see an oncologist (cancer doctor) immediately.

Thursday afternoon we saw the oncologist, Dr. K., who very optimistically told us that this could be Lymphoma or just some strange virus and not to worry.  Dr. K. also suggested we go see a General Surgeon because he needed a biopsy of the lymph node in order to determine what it was.  We saw the surgeon, who really calmed us down by assuring us that no matter what type of Lymphoma it is, it's 100% treatable and 95% curable, and scheduled the biopsy for Friday, October 19.