Nodes on pothos plant

[Jwhitehall]

This summer I saw some alarming brown lumps on the stems of my pothos. I hadn't noticed them before and after googling what could cause brown lumps on a plant determined that it was scale. I picked them all of and treated with neem oil and all seems to be fine except... now that I'm reading more about pothos plants I see they naturally have nodes on the stems and that is what I picked off . The plant seems to be fine (and very shiny), I guess I'm wondering how to tell between nodes and scale because the pictures look similar to me. Thanks!