The lump that wouldn't go away
It was autumn, and everyone's sick when the weather changes, including me. Eventually the cold went away but one lymph node refused to calm down. In October, after about a month, I finally decided to get a non-urgent GP appointment, a further 2 weeks away at the end of November. The GP was a locum, so she was unfamiliar with the system, but doing her best. She felt my neck, looked in my throat and into my nose and ears (I had mentioned my right ear feeling blocked). She saw nothing untoward. "It's probably a cold. Sometimes lymph nodes take a while to go down. Give it a few weeks" she said, and off I went. A month later and that lymph node was still swollen. Now, the swelling was quite minor. It was barely visible to anyone but me and my partner couldn't feel it even when I put his hand right on it. I began to feel I was becoming a hypochondriac. At Christmas I was with my partner's family. His father is a GP an...