Mom and I went in for my bibopsy today. It was a well orchestrated event, I'll say. The ultrasound tech explained everything they would do and told me I would have a bruise 'hickie' on my neck by this evening. He said that the little old ladies get a tickle over having their first 'hickie' in decades. One of the aids came in with the tray of needles she called the 'goodies'. Hey, at least she got me to laughing. The tech got my neck and head in position to make sure he could find the nodules, then the radiologist came in. She took out six separate samples (read six needles and syringes), three from each nodule. The first sample must have been in the middle of the active nodule as she said that one was the money maker. It was funny to see someone so excited about pulling tissue from a nodule! She said they don't normall pull samples from nodules this small unless there is a family history or, as is my case, there is a family history, an elevated calcitonin level, AND calcification in the nodule. This last bit of information was new to me so I looked it up when I came home and have no more insight into if this thing is cancer or not. Sigh. She gave the samples to a cytologist? to prep for the pathologist to read (Exactly how many ologists am I going to meet???) They came back after ten minutes because the pathologist said they needed one more sample for the special dye they use to test for medullary thyroid cancer. Then they put a band-aid on my throat and took me back out to Mom.
The lidocaine shots (three in all) used to control pain really didn't sting at all, which was a wonderful surprise (in MY favor this time). The seven fine needle aspirations were really not too pleasant, though. I didn't expect it to be that uncomfortable, but it was still better than the nerve shock testing from Monday.
However, I was off like a shot and motioned to Mom to get the heck out of dodge. Today was so incredibly difficult as I am starting to get severe medical 'touching' fatigue. I am tired of being touched, tested, sampled. I know it is so incredibly important and I am not done with all of it and the medical staff have all been wonderful, but I just don't want to be touched anymore and am finding I'm getting hyper-sensitive to all of it. The only thing that got me through today was going into a meditative state and even putting my fingers in a type of 'ohmmmm' position while I pretending I was a yoga master at the beach, or anywhere but there.
Mom and I went out to lunch and then went for a movie so I could shake the 'don't touch me's' and it helped a lot. My throat is achy where the tissue was removed, but it should feel better by tomorrow. Can't wait to see my hickie :)
The bad news is that the report will not be done for 3-5 business days, so it looks like another week of waiting and treading water. I'm so frustrated as this will make it a 3 week wait from the time they discovered the cancer marker and nodules to the time I'll find out and I think it is pure torture. I also received a postcard from my PA that my appt. was moved from the 18th to the 17th. I'm not sure what that's all about. Might be a meeting she needed to schedule around, but my paranoid brain is wondering if they want to meet with me a day earlier. Now I'm also wondering if the pathology report will even be done when I go in. Sigh. We'll see.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The micro calcification [specks less then 1.5 mm] are considered higher risk for cancer, while egg-shell like calcification is associated with benign nodules.
ReplyDeleteExcessive presence of blood in the samples can lead to false dignostic of neoplasm.
Since it was considered a reason for the biopsy, it must be the micro calcifications. Will be interesting to find out soon!
ReplyDelete