It is not quite clear how you managed to detect the ball that interferes with swallowing. If you touched it under the skin in the frontal neck area right over the sternum (chest bone), then you might have touched an enlarged thyroid gland. There might be several diagnoses that include an enlarged thyroid gland. Hypothireosis is a condition in which the thyroid gland produces less thyroxin (thyroid hormone), while the tissue grows larger to try to compensate for the low levels of thyroxin in the blood. This might also be initiated if the pituitary gland, which is a controller of many glands in the body including the thyroid gland, is affected by a disorder.


A tumor might be found in the thyroid gland and might be presented as a solitary bump attached to the thyroid gland.

The lump that interferes with the swallowing might be located in the esophagus. The pressure that the lump puts on the laryngeal nerve which passes in the vicinity might have caused the coughing reflex to trigger more often, when there is nothing to be coughed out. Having in consideration the fact that you had a family history of many tumors, it seems possible that the lump might be caused by a tumor of the esophagus.

If the lump is found to be part of the esophagus, then an esophagoscopy (method of visual examination of the esophagus) might be needed. During the esophagoscopy, a piece of the lump might be taken as a part of the biopsy procedure.

Please note that every tumor does not necessarily have to be malignant representing cancer. Certain of the tumors might be benign, but this is usually determined with a biopsy. And this condition still might be caused by inadequate function of the thyroid gland which is not such a serious condition as cancer, but has to be treated in order to prevent other complications.