Not the OP but I had Hodgkins Lymphoma and I was like:
"Hi, I noticed I have this weird lump. This is a lymph node right? And those are supposed to swell up if I'm ill but then go away? Well this lump is two weeks old." - no pain, just I had noticed a lump and I knew that mysterious lumps need to be reported for diagnosis.
I'm told that probably the first person who'd seen Hodgkins before went "Oh, Hodgkins" but of course they didn't say so - I spent most of the next week or two worrying I'd wasted their time with nothing. It took maybe a few weeks, including a needle biopsy and blood tests before somebody actually formally told me I definitely had cancer and that they intended to begin fixing that immediately could I come in the next day to begin chemo?
Last year (so almost twenty years after I had Hodgkins) I thought I'd detected a new lump and that I was also experiencing peripheral neuropathy (finger nerves not working as expected) so I went urgently to my GP. Still no pain. The GP felt the lump, said "That's a sweat gland, they do that" and I realised later the neuropathy was from holding my mouse and keyboard in a bad way, it went away when I stopped. They did find a new lump in my neck (in hindsight I can't believe they could see it but I'd never noticed, I guess I really don't look at mirrors) but it wasn't dangerous although they did a bunch of tests just in case because after all I have a history.
A few people with Hodgkins report pain when drinking (alcohol). It's unclear why that happens, but most have no pain until _very late_. If you wait until the lump hurts you're probably going to die. In other cancers it will vary, obviously if there's a lump in an internal organ you can't necessarily feel that, and in some cases by the time you can feel a lump you're screwed even if it doesn't hurt.
Pancreatic cancer often presents with painless jaundice. The cancer causes a mass which presses on the common bile duct (the bile drainage from the liver), preventing it from being excreted.
"Hi, I noticed I have this weird lump. This is a lymph node right? And those are supposed to swell up if I'm ill but then go away? Well this lump is two weeks old." - no pain, just I had noticed a lump and I knew that mysterious lumps need to be reported for diagnosis.
I'm told that probably the first person who'd seen Hodgkins before went "Oh, Hodgkins" but of course they didn't say so - I spent most of the next week or two worrying I'd wasted their time with nothing. It took maybe a few weeks, including a needle biopsy and blood tests before somebody actually formally told me I definitely had cancer and that they intended to begin fixing that immediately could I come in the next day to begin chemo?
Last year (so almost twenty years after I had Hodgkins) I thought I'd detected a new lump and that I was also experiencing peripheral neuropathy (finger nerves not working as expected) so I went urgently to my GP. Still no pain. The GP felt the lump, said "That's a sweat gland, they do that" and I realised later the neuropathy was from holding my mouse and keyboard in a bad way, it went away when I stopped. They did find a new lump in my neck (in hindsight I can't believe they could see it but I'd never noticed, I guess I really don't look at mirrors) but it wasn't dangerous although they did a bunch of tests just in case because after all I have a history.
A few people with Hodgkins report pain when drinking (alcohol). It's unclear why that happens, but most have no pain until _very late_. If you wait until the lump hurts you're probably going to die. In other cancers it will vary, obviously if there's a lump in an internal organ you can't necessarily feel that, and in some cases by the time you can feel a lump you're screwed even if it doesn't hurt.