This has nothing to do with the title or lack of one.
Last week I found myself sitting at the medical center again waiting for my doctor’s appointment. I started writing on my phone but I never finished so I guess I’ll finish here.
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This place is eerie. I’m sitting here waiting to be called in to see the ENT (Ears, Nose, and Throat) Specialist. This floor also holds the departments of oncology and that’s what creeps me out. Everyone here is old(er). I hate medical buildings and hospitals. A place filled with the sick. I wonder if they just kind of assume that everyone who comes here has cancer and is dying. I’m a little more hopeful as it seems that the bump has actually gotten smaller. Maybe it was an infection from that scab on my head I kept picking. Sorry, that sounds gross but it’s true. I finally let it heal.
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I’m sure I’ve mentioned it many times before. I really dislike going to see the doctor and I really dislike medical buildings, waiting rooms, hospitals, etc. They give off this bad aura.
Anyway, this was my follow up appointment after seeing my primary care. From that previous visit with my primary care, they sent me off to get an ultrasound of my thyroid and of the swollen node (these are two separate things). Thyroid is in the front like where your throat is – the swollen node was on the right side of my neck. The right side of my thyroid, I felt, was also more swollen than the left side. Started to feel a lot of pressure in my throat all the time and continued dull pain from the node. Not comfortable at all and made me extra paranoid and concerned. They wanted me to get the ultrasound right away which was kind of scary – they even got me a same day appointment. I went in late to work because of that original appointment and then that afternoon I had to go again so I felt kind of bad. During the ultrasound, the technician spent a lot of time on the right side which I guess makes sense. After it, as I was leaving, she said, “Make sure you keep all your doctor’s appointments.” Who says that?!??! Geez. I was starting to feel a little better but that totally tripped me up. It was as if she saw something concerning. So I freaked out and was stressing out and bought 20 chicken nuggets from MCD even though I JUST ate lunch prior to going to this doctor’s appointment. Ugh.
The primary care also moved up my appointment with the ENT to two weeks later. It was originally scheduled for August which would have been over a month out. I guess it was concerning which made it more concerning for me. Freak.
Fast forward to last week. Because they had to squeeze me in, they had already warned me that I might have to wait long. My appointment was at 440. I didn’t get called in until like 20-30 min after even though I was there at about 420. Then I sat in the room waiting for the doctor for about another 30 minutes which make it like almost 530-545. Anyway, it was forever.
The doc comes in – reads my charts to himself. I tell him about the node and bend my neck over to show him. [Actually by this time, I felt like the node was actually smaller than before. I really think that letting that thing on my head heal may have helped it and it might actually be what was causing it.] He looks at it and presses on it. He says that there are multiple nodes there – a clump of them. =\ Um. That is not good to hear. He feels my thyroid and says its definitely enlarged. He asks if I have had any scalp infections which is interesting – so I tell him about the thing on my head and he checks and is like, yeah there is a scar there. He said that might have caused it. He also said the node actually wasn’t that big once I stopped tilting my head. He said it just seemed extra large because of the position of where it was at. And that was concerning at first. He told me I had three options (in regards to the node): 1) since it did get smaller, we could wait to see if it goes away; 2) stick a needle in it and get some cells out to test; 3) cut it open and take out.
He says, you think about that for a moment. Then says, I’m not done examining you.
He sprayed some topical analgesic to numb my throat and the inside of my nose. He sprayed some stuff up my nose and then sprayed this nasty nasty rotten banana flavored stuff in my mouth. I guess they numb the mucous membranes. He was going to look in my throat and up my nose – well they connect together. That spray was nasty – it felt so weird and uncomfortable as it started to numb. I felt like I had to keep swallowing but couldn’t really feel anything. He first looked in my mouth and said my tonsils were very large. That’s weird, no one ever said that before. Then he stuck this tiny long tube up my nose :( and looked in. That was uncomfortable and awkward. UGH. He looked in there and said my adenoids were enlarged. He said that was weird because usually they’re not supposed to be for someone my age. He said maybe I was allergic to something. He said if it was really enlarged then it might block my airway so I would have difficulty breathing. He said maybe that was also causing the lymph node to swell.
Back to the options. Uh…great. My initial thoughts – better to get some info about it so stick a needle in it. He said doing that would either tell us if it’s cancer, if it’s not cancer, or if you can’t tell if its cancer (so it’s not ruled out – so we’d have to run more tests). Then I thought, well I kind of want to wait because it did get a lot smaller – so maybe it’ll heal – but I didn’t want to wait because the nurse told me the doc was booked until September. Option 3 – uh, yeah no. I blurted out, needle…I guess? Then asked what he thought. He said he was very comfortable with any of the 3 because he actually wasn’t overly concerned about it. Though he was slightly concerned that there were more than one nodes together. But he said they were soft. I told him my concern about not being able to come back until September. But he said, you’re my patient now, when I tell them I need to see you, they’ll book it, so don’t worry about that. Then I asked if sticking the needle in will aggravate the node and possibly make it bigger again. He said yeah it would. So I told him I was thinking about waiting. He said that was fine, if it gets smaller, then great, we’ll be happy we didn’t do anything to do it. If it gets bigger, then we can needle it. That made me feel better. The thing that made me feel better the most was that it is smaller than before.
So I chose to wait. And kept asking when everything would stop being numb because 1) it was very uncomfortable and 2) I wanted to eat. Ugh. I would hate to be sick and having tests run on me all the time. That little bit was bad enough – for me at least.
So I won’t go back for a few more weeks. Hopefully this continues to go down. Then I’ll be happier. I haven’t thought about it too much or been too concerned lately. It was seriously bothering me like crazy. I still hope and pray that it is nothing serious and hope it all disappears by the time I go back.
On another note, if you’re still reading, I had to go into a parking area where you have to pay to get out. A lot of Sharps are like this. However, I realized, I didn’t have any cash. I was guessing I’d have to pay $2 so I started looking for change to prepare. Luckily, they were closed by the time I was done and I didn’t have to pay to get out!
And J was so sweet. I went to his place afterwards and he had surprised me with a bag of all the things I like. :) And then took me out to dinner. :)