Hi Christine I'm 28. Though reasonably young I know it is possible.

Dave you mentioned metabolism. Mine is super quick. I workout regularly and eat 6-8 times a day. I have noticed that feel somewhat more fatigued than usual particularly more recently and most notably while training. I keep telling myself it is just the stress that is doing it. It also seems that when I take any sort of antibiotics (as gross as this sounds) I break out in anal and penile fungal infections. I then treat it and its gone again. I also freak out about this and went and got a full STD workup which all come back negative. At once point I was so concerned about HIV that I got 2 antibody tests and then made my doctor order a viral load test. All came back negative.

Your note on the lump being soft is interesting. I have come across a paper that stated HPV throat cancer tend to metastasize to lymph nodes in a pseudo-cystic manner.

What I know is that there is something definitely taking its toll on me and I really need to pursue it. Like you I feel like something just isn't quite right. I have a meeting tomorrow with the ENT which I will raise all my concerns. I find it difficult to express them as I feel like I will just make a fool out of myself because I have work myself up over it.