TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008
This isn’t going to sound like a funny story at first, but somehow I factually found a lot of humor in it. I know you’re surprised.
I got a clean bill of health from my Endocrinologist this week. Yay me! You see, I’d had a second biopsy of my thyroid. Seems the first one wasn’t painful…I mean conclusive enough. So, no thyroid cancer, just a whopping big thyroid. Like the size a Tyranosaurus Rex would have…if dinosaurs had thyroid glands that is.
Here’s how it went down.
Last June I went to see my doctor with a sinus infection. When I spoke, I swallowed – as all people do, right? She stopped and stared at my throat (which freaked me out considerably) and asked me to do it again. Then she gave me a cup of water and had me swallow. Apparently, I had practically sprouted an Adam’s apple. Actually, my thyroid had gone Godzilla on me.
So, I had to go get an ultrasound. Now, I’d only ever had one of these done when pregnant. It’s weird when it’s on your neck. Seriously, having warm goo squirted onto your throat…it’s a bit obscene. Anyhow, they said I’d hear back. And I did, while in San Francisco during the RWA conference. The nurse told me I had three nodes inside my thyroid on the left side and two on the right. (Doesn’t anyone care about symmetry anymore?) So, she scheduled me for a visit to an Endocrinologist in September.
Of course, I worried right through August. I couldn’t even pronounce Endocrinologist. I can write it, but I can’t say it (it’s like Steve Martin with “abominable,” remember that?). The morning of my appointment, I began signing this song in the shower (it’s based on “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than have a frontal lobotomy…”)
“I’d rather be a war crimes apologist, than see an Endocrinologist.”
I don’t know where that came from. Obviously it isn’t politically correct but do you know how hard it is to rhyme with Endocrinologist???
On the way there, Mr. Assassin accidentally turned too soon and we ended up at the Hospice Center. I (rather frostily) told him I didn’t think I was quite ready for that yet. He apologized and we made it to the E. center. It was pouring down rain but I was so ready to get this damned thing I’d been worrying about over with I didn’t care. In fact, I was so ready that the receptionist informed me that I’d arrived a day too early for my appointment.
We went back the next day (after consulting my datebook and realizing I really did go one day early) and they showed us in. The doctor was fabulous. I loved that she had a little toy thyroid gland (I might have to knit one) on her desk – how cool is that? Anyway, she explained that she wanted to do a needle aspiration biopsy that day and told me that it was okay because, “Thyroid cancer is the cancer everyone wants to get because it’s so slow-acting.”
I asked her, “There’s a cancer everyone wants to get?” Really? I had no idea.
So we go into this other room and she asks if I’m okay with needles. I assure her that I am – I mean I give blood all the time and everything. The doctor says they use really fine needles but I’m not worried because like I said – needles don’t bother me. I lay down on the table with a pillow under my shoulders and hyper-extend my throat by tilting my head back (which, by the way, is very uncomfortable). She does the ultrasound thingy and using the computer screen (which I think is a dubious way of doing things – but maybe that’s just me), and inserts the needle gently into my neck.
They had to peel me off the ceiling. I kid you not.
Anyway, they did this four more times, which was just as much fun every single, damn time. I went home with a ring of bandaids circling my throat. It looked like I’d seriously botched slitting my own throat – which is something I would never do. I had bruising the next day. We had to walk around telling everyone that no, Mr. Assassin did not attempt to strangle me and no, I wasn’t playing the choking game either.
After five agonizing days, the good doc calls and says the nodes on the right showed I have Hashimoto’s disease and are benign. However, on the left the tests were inconclusive. I’ll need to come back and DO IT AGAIN!
So I spend the next month waiting and reading about Hashimoto’s disease. This is cool because it’s not fatal. In fact, one of the side effects is forgetfulness! I KNEW it. Or rather, I didn’t, because I forgot! Mr. Assassin was not amused when we had this conversation;
M.A.: Did you run by the bank?
Me: Um, no.
M.A.: You forgot…again???
Me: (maybe a little too cheerfully) It’s that damned Hashimoto’s!
M.A. : You can’t use that as an excuse.
Me: Uh, yes I can! The doctor said I could! (I followed this with a little end zone dance while my husband tells me again that I can’t use this as an excuse. But he was there! He heard the doctor say that! Woo hoo!)
So we went back in again last week. The doctor put me through the paces and this time I ripped my fingernails through my palms to distract myself. It didn’t help when she said, “I don’t know how we missed that last time. These nodes are so big. I mean they are HUGE.”
To make a long story short – I don’t have cancer. Just an enormous thyroid that probably makes me look like a female impersonator with nodes you could choke a hippo with.
But on the bright side, I have a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of my life with this Hashimoto’s thing. And that’s a pretty fair trade as far as I’m concerned.