This is the wrap up of my medical adventure and the story of my first cancer scare. I would like to say only, but I do need to repeat this every 6 months.
When last we left off, I was freaking myself out by hanging out on the internet learning about what life may be like without a thyroid and watching movies with cancer as the main plot line. The three weeks pass slowly as you can imagine.
As side thing during this 3 weeks, I had to have a cavity filled and it turned out I needed a root canal. My first root canal ever. I had to go to a separate doctor for that. I did not like him. He and his assistant treated me like a car they working on and didn't address me as a person until they told me to leave. So, it was just a ton of fun for me. I got a haircut and was convinced they were going to tell me they found something else wrong with me and needed to see another specialist.
My biopsy was all kinds of fun. I was in a fairly big room with a bed and a monitor. They do all the prep stuff and then a staff of four to five people come in. One doctor uses a ultrasound guided needle, one assists and the rest sit there and take samples from doc. So, they tell me they need to take 4-5 different samples. I thankfully have to be looking the other way. They put the needle through my throat and then it feels like someone pressing and clicking a Bic pen a couple of times. The doc does this 4 different times and then I am done. It left a tiny little mark at the time and a band-aid covered it. The samples would be shipped off and I would hear from Dr. S in 5-10 business days. Yea. More waiting.
This where I need to say that I wasn't advertising what was going on. I told my core group of friends, my immediate family and my close co-workers. Everyone for the most part was pretty awesome. All, but one person asked if I was okay and if I needed anything. While I did do all these appointments on my own, I knew I didn't have to. I was freaking out, but trying not to and all my friends were pretty great about it. I did get a nice taste of what reactions were going to be if I really did end up having to break bad news in the future. I have an awesome support center. My friends and family are amazing. I am very lucky and very grateful. I hope they all know that. Because I sure know how screwed I would be without them. Okay, okay, rolling credits on this click flick and moving on.
I get the results over the phone while at work. Dr. S calls and says, "Everything is good. Not cancer." So I breathe for the first time in weeks. She said it was all normal tissue after all. My favorite part of the conversation was, "I was surprised it wasn't. I didn't want to worry you too much, but I thought it was going to come back malignant." Thanks, Doc. I am glad she didn't tell me that. So, I need to do blood work every six months and we go from there.
After that, the point where the needle went into my neck expanded to a huge bruise the size of a half dollar. I covered it with a band-aid for a while, but I was playing with it too much and making it worse. I just went with it and had everyone think I had a hickey from a vacuum cleaner.
To conclude, I am surrounded by awesome friends and family, 50/50 is a great movie, a small footnote on an MRI can lead to all kinds of fun and Oh my hand! I almost forgot. I saw two different docs and they jabbed me with needles and the conclusion was that I suck at holding things and need to relax. I asked my one doc about the herniated disc and her response was basically, "Who doesn't have a herniated disc these days?" So this was all just my body's elaborate way of getting my attention to something I wouldn't have even known was an issue otherwise.
Thanks for reading!
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