I have to go to the doctor tomorrow. For swollen glands.
I’ve had these on the back and side of my neck for months now. Over that time, I’ve tried ruling out everything I could think of – maybe it’s my shampoo? Switched to one with fewer chemicals. Maybe it’s my teeth? Had them checked – nothing wrong.

But recently, more glands have started swelling. It’s becoming harder to ignore. So here I am, finally doing the responsible thing and getting it checked.

I wasn’t even going to mention it here. I still feel awkward writing this part, because I don’t want sympathy, or attention, or for this to sound like a health scare post – it’s not. The reason I’m bringing it up at all is because of what it made me feel.

Because when I asked myself the question – what IF this is something serious? – I didn’t spiral.
Something else happened.
And that’s what this post is actually about.

The Glands

I can’t even remember exactly when I found them, but I was scratching my neck a few months ago and felt two pea-sized lumps – one on the back of my neck and one behind my ear. I thought, “Meh, probably nothing. Wait a few weeks and they’ll go down on their own.”

They did not.

I haven’t been feeling great – physically or mentally – for quite a while. I’ve been stuck in a battle with my eating disorder, grief, depression, and extreme fatigue – a pick-and-mix of some of the worst-written characters in the DSM-V. And honestly, I didn’t really care. I just hoped it would go away on its own.

Then, a few weeks ago, the glands at the front of my neck joined in. I guess they’re having a rave and I wasn’t even invited – yet somehow, I’m the host. Again, I thought, “Probably nothing. Maybe allergies.”

I have other symptoms too – but they could easily be explained by everything else I’ve got going on: my ED, perimenopause, life in general. Crushing fatigue (like, falling asleep on the sofa mid-conversation level), drenching night sweats, abdominal distention and pain. All of it has a maybe.

The (Lack of) Anxiety

I have a tendency for health anxiety, but there’s always a real symptom behind it. I don’t panic over nothing – I just blow something real up to catastrophic levels. Other people say, “That won’t happen to me.” I’m more the type who says, “Why wouldn’t it be me?” Illnesses aren’t sentient. They don’t pick and choose. They just… happen. You can be the kindest, most wonderful person in the world and still get cancer – like my best friend WeeGee did. I’m not the kindest, most wonderful person in the world. But even if I were, deserving’s got nothing to do with it.

But when a second round of glands swelled up?

Nothing. No panic. No spiraling. Just… flatness. A quiet, resigned, “Whatever.”

And instead of anxiety asking the what-ifs – I started asking.

BUT What If?

“Okay, but what IF it is serious… what would I regret?”

In a very me kind of moment, my brain immediately thought of Commander Shepard.

If it’s something serious, then right now – I’m not free. I’m stuck in the middle of the rope bridge, clinging to my ED, still too afraid to walk to the other side.

What if the choice gets taken from me?

I know what treatment looks like. I’ve watched the people I love go through it. If I end up sick from medication, too unwell to eat, will I look back on this time – when I could have eaten – and regret it?

I know myself. I would.

I’d think about it all the time. I’d ask myself why I was so afraid of gaining weight – because in that moment, weight gain would mean nothing. They’re not going to write “achieved BMI of x” on my gravestone, are they?

We are born into this world and one of the first things midwives do is weigh you. But we don’t leave it that way. In the end, we’re measured by the weight of the legacy we leave behind – the lives we’ve touched, the kindness we’ve shown, and – at least for me – how I’ve always been a good mum despite everything. That’s what I want to be remembered for.

Not for staying underweight until the end.

I wish eating disorders were that simple. I wish this whole “Maybe this is serious” thing had clicked something into place and fixed it all. That perspective had just snapped me out of it. But unfortunately, that’s not how mental illness works.

Still… there was an act of peanut butter-based defiance and I took a few steps away from the middle of the bridge.

Peanut Butter of Resistance

I don’t know what’s on the other side of the bridge – and honestly, my swollen glands are one of the many reasons I’ve clung to the middle. I feel done with the fighting, I don’t want to fight something else. I’m tired. My soul is tired. Everything feels like a battle. When WeeGee died, it took the last bit of fight I had left. It didn’t just take her – it took hope. I’m not hopeful anymore… but I’m not hopeless either. I’m just, “Whatever.”

I’ve been trying to vibe in the superposition. Of knowing and not knowing. With recovery, with grief, with this rave in my neck. I’ve been hanging there, refusing to collapse the wave function – because if I look too closely, it becomes real. And I don’t want it to be real.

But sooner or later, the wave collapses anyway. The bridge only holds for so long before the ropes snap – whether it’s from strong winds, swollen glands, or something else. The only way I can have any control over that collapse… is to choose it. To observe. To take a step forward. To get off the bridge.

So I did. With peanut butter.

I was sat here, hungry and “whatever,” thinking about Commander Shepard. Remembering who I used to be – someone who would fight for just one more day, even if that day was a pile of shit. I remembered how I saw myself in V from Cyberpunk 2077, still fighting even when everything felt hopeless. That’s who I was. That’s who I lost. And that’s who I need now.

So I got up, made peanut butter toast. Ate it slowly. Then made more. And I didn’t stop until I wasn’t hungry anymore.

And then I cried – not because I ate. But because of everything in this post. For losing myself. For losing WeeGee. For these swollen glands. For the numbness that kept me from even wanting to check them out. For how defeated I’ve felt, for how long.

But in that small act – making peanut butter toast (and maybe a bit of biscoff-fuelled chaos) – I took a step. Not just any step. A chosen one. Away from the middle of the bridge. Toward the other side.

And now I’m still walking.

The Day After the Night Before

I half expected to wake up and change my mind. Anorexia recovery is like that – a constant hokey cokey of ambivalence. But I didn’t. I’ve been eating more since that night. Waiting, and eating, until I could phone the doctors. It’s difficult and I struggle with it and every meal is anxiety inducing, but I do it anyway.

I still think my swollen glands will probably turn out to be nothing major but it did change something and I felt that was worth writing down. And I know it’s very risky to hang recovery on them – I know exactly how my eating disorder works. If I get a clean bill of health, it’ll jump in immediately: “You’ve got nothing to eat for anymore.” But that’s a different bridge to cross. Maybe, by the time those answers come, I’ll already be too far across to go back.

I wanted to write this, though, because when I found a breast lump a couple of years ago – one that turned out to be a fibroadenoma – I told no one. Not a soul. I waited until I knew it was benign, and in that time I disappeared. It affected everything, but I couldn’t speak about anything without mentioning it, so I said nothing and hid away.

The whole process took three months. Three months of carrying that weight alone, in the same year my best friend died of breast cancer. I don’t want to disappear like that again. It was so lonely.

So I’m writing this to not disappear. Because this provides context – why I’m suddenly moving again, despite clinging so hard to the middle in my last recovery post. It’s also why I haven’t posted much at all here despite blogging really helping me. But I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want anyone to worry. It could easily be nothing at all – something viral, long COVID, a bunch of other non life threatening things.

I just want to celebrate the peanut butter of resistance night – whilst still being absolutely terrified of weight gain, even though I know it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I just want to take you with me – to the other side of the bridge, with balloons, with bears. And with the peanut butter of resistance.

I’ll be keeping you updated on the rave in my neck, but you know what, at least this is something I’m struggling with that Doctors will be able to see and feel.

Feeling a little…. :-