r/parotidtumor

33F ongoing symptoms for at least a year; night sweats, dizziness, fatigue, increased brain fog and memory issues. Recently developed neck pain, shoulder pain, weakness in right arm intermittently.
Mother had HL at 23yo.

3 weeks ago woke with enlarged lymph node under left ear. ULTRASOUND results 1cm, Hypervascular, and lobulated. Other lymph nodes that I can feel looked normal.

Going for a biopsy this week to be sure.
Anyone experience something similar? Does a fine needle biopsy hurt? I've been so anxious!!!

I’m 55 female… Last year I started getting “ear infections” all the time… really it was just fullness but I didn’t know… the usual maneuvers to clear my ears didn’t work so I started “milking” my Eustachian tubes to help them drain. It was then I discovered a grain of rice feeling thing behind my jaw, just below my ear. I assumed it was a swollen lymph node due to the ear infection.

Finally, a doctor told me he thought my ear issues were due to a common side effect of some blood pressure medication. So I REALLY ignored the ear fullness at that point. I also started experiencing some other issues, especially constant nausea etc… since I am predisposed genetically to colon cancer etc… that kind of took over…

I was also hospitalized for some weird unexplained shortness of breath and general malaise.

The grain of rice was growing but I switched to just thinking it was a cyst and I usually go to the dermatologist in summer anyway so I held off again.

So summer rolls around and at this point, it’s been probably a year since I first felt that green rice. I go to the dermatologist for my annual skin cancer check and I have her check the cyst on the side of my neck.

I was a little freaked out because I look on her face when she said yeah that is not dermatological. You need to go back to your PCP and have that imaged sooner rather than later.

At this point, I had also started seeing ENT couldn’t stand the ear fullness and if I was gonna continue on the medication, I was sure causing it. Something had to be done. She treated it also like an initial ear infection, even though I had explained to her the past year, but that didn’t really matter on my follow up I explained to her about the bump on the side of my neck and the suggestion by the dermatologist it get imaged. At that point, though I had an audiology appointment and determined that I actually did have hearing loss so she didn’t wanna order imaging for the lump. She wanted to order imaging for the IAC hearing canals. But this point I was kind of beside myself because I knew the neck lump had to be examined, but she just kept kind of putting it off.

Well, so I finally got the IAC MRI done and what do you know it, comes back with a parotid tumor that is now the size of about a pea.

So of course, this ENT has to refer out again because they don’t handle this. They also still have never ordered specific imaging of just the powered gland still just depending on the IAC MRI. I have really good insurance so I’m not sure what the holdup is and ordering the imaging and that’s been a very frustrating part of this whole experience.

So the area has been growing it does ache a little bit and statistically that’s not great and leans more toward cancer. That said there is an 80% chance that it’s not so I’m not gonna freak out either way about the cancer part as even if it is, it’s usually a surgical cure anyway. I guess I’m more worried about the complications of the surgery itself, which would be true regardless of benign or cancer.

Right now, I’m just stuck in kind of a waiting hole trying to get in with a Doctor Who actually does handle these things and then finding a second opinion for another Doctor Who handles these things. I’m in the Dallas Fort Worth area and there doesn’t seem to be a super special specialist around here. It all seems like they take less than a dozen case cases a year which I don’t think is great.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. If you have anything you wanna say advice you wanna give this very early on in the process I’m all ears.