I first saw Carol Watkins for what I thought would be a routine visit on a burnished September afternoon over a year after her first severe bout with the itching. She was obviously embarrassed to tell me her symptoms. I've had kind of a bad year, so maybe this is nerves. But I can't help wondering whether there's something really wrong with me. I put my hands on the lymph nodes on either side of her neck.
Experienced fingers can feel even a slight enlargement.
Carol's right node was swollen, but it wasn't causing her any pain. Pruritus, the medical term for itching, is a common symptom. The tests and biopsy confirmed my educated guess. Carol turned out to have Stage 1 Hodgkin's, limited to a single node on one side of the body. As I always do with my patients, I gave her copies of the test results and helped her understand them.