Stage One- The Innocuous Lump

It started quietly. My grandma noticed a small lump on the side of her throat one evening while massaging her neck. At first, she brushed it off, thinking it might be a cold sore, or maybe just a lymph node swollen from a seasonal flu. Nothing serious. But month after month, the lump didn’t go away—it grew. She kept pressing on it, like her fingers were trying to confirm what her heart already feared.

Eventually, she told my aunt, who took her to Abbay Hospital, just down the road from our home. The doctors there checked her vitals, nodded among themselves, and then—without much explanation—they admitted her. No clear answers, just the sudden shift from ordinary life to hospital walls.

After a closer look at the lump, the doctors seemed to know this was something beyond their control. Yet, instead of guiding her toward the right care straightaway, they sent her to the lab for an FNAC—Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology. No ultrasound. No CT scan. Just a needle, no images, no roadmap. It was as if they were probing in the dark, and we were left holding our breath in that same darkness. When the results finally came back, they weren’t answers—they were question marks. The report used words like “suspicious” and “should be reviewed by doctors.” Nothing definitive, nothing we could hold on to. The irony is that FNAC can sometimes detect cancer by examining cells from a lump, giving families some clarity. But in her case, it only sent us in circles—back to the hospital, still searching, still without a name for the thing growing inside her.

And still, no PET scan, no CT scan. Just waiting. Another week, maybe more, because the specialists—the otolaryngologist, the head and neck surgeon, the endocrinologist—only came to the hospital twice a week. Time dragged, and in that pause, the disease did not. The lump started to grow faster, pushing out against her throat until it was visible even under her clothes. What had once been something you could only feel with your fingers was now something you could see with your eyes.

Meanwhile, the general physician focused on her fluctuating blood pressure. Every three days her numbers spiked—150/90, 162/100—and she was kept on hypertension medication. But beyond those pills, there was still no real consultation, no specialist stepping in to explain what was happening or what to do next. We were managing symptoms while the actual cause kept growing, unchecked, right in front of us.

This dragged on for months. The lump was first noticed in December 2022. By the time any real steps toward a diagnosis began, it was already March, maybe April 2023—three to four months of waiting, watching, and being told to hold on while the disease raced ahead.