Pardon the Interruption

Jet back to 2005 with me, won't you? I forgot to add the thyroid biopsy which occurred after the scan. After my adventures with radioactivity and passing out on bathroom floors, I was told that I needed to have a biopsy of the growth. This would not be a surgical procedure, but a "fine needle aspiration." That didn't sound so bad, aspirations are a good thing and using fine needles sounds...well, sounds fine, I guess. I had been worried that some manner of robot would be sent down my throat to cut out pieces of my thyroid, so this procedure sounded like a cake-walk. I brought my husband with me for moral support anyway.

I should have known better. We were called back and a doctor who kind of resembled Saddam Hussein came in. I'm not trying to be racist or call him a terrorist, I'm just stating the facts. I would later feel that he was an absolute terrorist of my neck region, but honestly he really did look like 90's era Hussein, not spider-hole, prison Hussein. There was no small talk or explaination of what would be happening. He sat me down on a stool and pulled out a syringe best used for horses, or maybe rhinos. He jabbed it all the way in my neck not once, not twice, but three times. No numbing, no nothing. I don't do well with people touching my neck. I really don't do well with giant needles being stabbed in on three occasions. As the last needle plunged in, I passed out. I fell backwards off the stool and was grabbed by my husband and the nurse. The doctor seemed to take personal offense to the passing out and pinched the bridge of my nose with completely unnecessary force. He said it was to get me to come to, but I'm pretty sure it was just to be a jackass.

I wrenched away from him as my eyes teared up. He glared at me and told me that he'd never had anyone pass out from this simple procedure before. I thought my husband was going to punch him and I wasn't going to stop him. The terrorist, I mean doctor, said that I might experience some bruising and then he stalked out of the room. My husband and I looked at each other with the same message on our face, "What. The. Fuck?"

The next day my neck was black and blue and the bridge of my nose didn't feel much better. I was pretty convinced by then that I was going to die, if not of thyroid cancer, then probably of PTSD from the biopsy horror. Yeah, I know, I was kind of a sissy back in 2005.