The Lump

Back when Davis was 15 months old (July) I noticed that he had a lump on the side of his neck. We had just had his 15 month appointment the day before so I didn't want to go back in unless it was necessary. So, I called Davis' pediatrician and asked what she thought and she felt that it was just an enlarged lymph node since he was a little sick, but she said that if it didn't go away in a week that I should bring him back in. Well, I stopped noticing the lump and kinda forgot about it for a while. Right around Davis' 18 month check up I noticed the lump again and at this point I was feeling terrible because I was questioning, "was that there the whole time?" I took Davis to his 18 month check up and his Dr. checked him out. He was sick this appointment too and she said, to keep and eye on it again and if it didn't go away after his sickness was gone to call back and get an appointment. This time I was much more aware of the lump. Davis seemed to be sick on and off for a few weeks after his appointment. At just about 19 months I noticed the lump was still there and he was definitely no longer sick. I called the Dr. and she had us come in. She didn't like that the lump had gotten bigger and she didn't like that it was still there after 4 months. She started some basic testing to see if we could figure it out. She did a Tuberculosis test on him first which came back negative. We then did a course of antibiotics which also didn't cause the lump to go down or go away. At this point, she set up an appointment at a pediatric surgeons office in Atlanta. They were able to squeeze us in for an appointment the very next working day.

At this point I am a little more nervous about everything because we got the specialists appointment very fast and Davis' pediatrician seemed a little more concerned but I was trying to stay positive and optimistic. The surgeon said she didn't like that it had gotten bigger and that it had been there for 4+ months either. She said that doing a biopsy would be inconclusive. If the biopsy came back positive then they would have to remove the lump, if it came back negative it still wouldn't rule out that nothing was wrong. The only way to be sure that nothing was wrong was to take out the lump completely. Surgery was then scheduled for Dec 7th.