I've been battling this for a few months now and finally am undergoing chemotherapy to treat it. Back in January I started with an itchy rash all over my torso which went away after a month or so and then I started having lower back pain that just kept getting worse and worse and then my bowels stopped working. Almost nothing was getting through and I wasn't eating because of this. I went to my doctor and he sent me to the emergency room to have them do a CT scan and they found my lymph nodes in my abdomen were inflamed. This was causing my lower back pain and intestinal issues so they referred me to an oncologist and ordered a biopsy of my lymph nodes. The result of that was a diagnosis of Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a form of blood cancer that attacks the white blood cells. In the meantime, I still was in pain and couldn't really eat much and eventually wound up unable to keep water down so I went to the emergency room again to be admitted where they could run a couple more tests I needed before they started chemo, one was an MRI and the other was a bone marrow biopsy to see if the cancer had spread to my brain or to my bone marrow. Thankfully, it hadn't. Anyway, I am stage 3 and have undergone 2 chemo treatments and I'm feeling better but still have some pretty brutal treatments remaining. I will lose my hair with the last high dose treatment (I will be in the hospital for 3 weeks for a stem cell transplant with a few months of recovery) that will also wipe out my immune system and hopefully the cancer with it and then I will be in remission... hopefully. The good news is that I am still relatively young, at 58 years old, and in good shape so I should be able to beat this. There are no guarantees however.
Anyway, if you are experiencing any health issues keep pressing your doctors to get a resolution. You are your best healthcare advocate.
Anyway, if you are experiencing any health issues keep pressing your doctors to get a resolution. You are your best healthcare advocate.