Winner Take Nothing

A few days after the confusion of the last visit, I received a call from the second surgeon. She informed me she had sent the pathology reports to her pathologist whose diagnosis differed a great deal from the first report. It appeared that the second pathologist did not feel that the tumor, though unusually large, was malignant. This changed everything.

When I met with the second doctor again she felt confident that her pathologist's findings of a benign tumor were solid. This meant that, even though the tumor had to come out because of its size, I could postpone it for awhile, have only the diseased half removed, not have to take synthetic thyroid replacement and, best of all, avoid radiation treatment altogether. I was cautiously optimistic. After a lifetime of having metaphorical rugs pulled out from under me, I knew enough to keep my relief to a minimum. Again, my inherently cynical nature proved correct and saved me from extreme disappointment.

A few days after receiving that news, my original surgeon called. He said that he received the new pathology reports and did not agree with them. He said that he felt very strongly that the tumor was malignant and needed to be removed in its entirety with follow up of radiation. He personally wanted to make sure that I was going to follow up on it and not just take the benign diagnosis at face value. Well, crap.

Now at an impasse, I am confused to the point where I have dissociated completely from the situation. I will have another lymph node scan in August and pending the results, will plan for another biopsy after baby comes. I prefer to think of it as future Jen's problem and I have confidence that she will deal with it just fine. As for present Jen, I'm going to enjoy my pregnancy to the best of my ability because I know that it will be my last.

Lymphatic Overachiever

After nearly an hour of scanning my lymph nodes and making disconcerting sounds, the ultrasound tech said that a doctor would be in to talk with me. Super. My husband and I sat fretting in the dark, stifling room wondering what fresh hell the doctor might be looking at. After a few minutes a J-Crew-esque man strode in with a clipboard. He asked me when I had my thyroid surgery. While my mind said a string of expletives that may still be hanging in space over the hospital, my mouth said, "I have not had any thyroid surgery. Do you have the correct chart?" I could not believe that so many people could get such seemingly simple information so astoundingly incorrect.

He frowned at his chart and and mumbled something. I told him the whole sordid affair and we eventually ended up on the same page, figuratively. He said that all of my lymph nodes were clear of any malignancies (yay!), but interestingly, I had several more lymph nodes than normal people possess. How could I be surprised at this, given all my other medical abnormalities? I asked him if this was a problem or if it somehow led to me being in this particular situation. He said that while having so many nodes was unusual, it wasn't to blame for any of my problems. I then questioned how I came to have so many lymph nodes. "You are just an overachiever," he informed me. Oh dude, if you only knew.

This lack of concrete answers to my various bizarre organ issues led me to think up several scenarios of my own. I asked around my family to see if I ever lived near a nuclear reactor, lived under power lines or ingested a large amount of paint chips, though no one could confirm any of these. I prefer to think that, in-utero, I had a twin and I ate him/her to retain my supremacy and will eventually rule the galaxy with my superpowers. We'll see how that works out for me.

OMG, Get Bill!

So, after the previous occupant was shuffled hastily from the ultrasound room, I was plopped in the chair. The doctor lubed up my neck with ultrasound jelly and took at gander at the beast within. She mumbled some things to herself and then called for her nurse. "Hey, where's Bill? Get him in here, he needs to see this!" I couldn't move my neck, so I couldn't share a bewildered glance with my husband. The nurse returned with the Bill in question and also the aforementioned Dr. Christian Brooks-Brothers-Izod. The doctor again called out for someone else to be brought in to view whatever the hell is lurking in my neck.

I was reminded of an In Living Color sketch with David Alan Grier--the gist of which revolved around giant hemorrhoids, his ass exposed, and a clueless nurse that kept calling people in to look at them, including the janitor. I honestly had to fight the urge to crack up and probably looked like a mental case at that moment. The doc was talking in doctor-ese and pointing out all kinds of things about my apparently giant and fascinating tumor. As quickly as I was pulled into the room, I was shuttled out and told to go to the 4th floor to have a scan of all my lymph nodes. The 4th floor is where I met Daniella, who so eerily resembled Tangina from Poltergeist that I was momentarily speechless when she called out my name (thank God my name isn't Carol Anne). She had a thick French accent and a matching thick French attitude.

"Why are you here?" she barked at me. I told her that my doctor had sent me up to have a scan of my lymph nodes. "I know that. What are we scanning?" "Ummm...my lymph nodes?" She asked again what we were scanning and why I was there. I asked her if perhaps I was in the wrong place and she assured me that I was not. The conversation stalled from there....

She had what I assumed was my chart in front of her and after being called Robin earlier in the morning, I was hesitant to trust anything anyone said. She took me back to the scanning room and asked me when I had my thyroid removed. Are you freaking kidding me? "I haven't had it removed. I have a tumor on it and was told to come here and have my lymph nodes scanned. That is all I know. I don't know what else to tell you." She made a harrumph-ish noise told me to lie down on the bed. I stood there debating whether to leave or do as she commanded. I thought French people were supposed to sound sexy, she sounded decidedly unsexy and pretty much terrifying. I decided to go ahead and lie down, if nothing more, just to see what the hell could possibly happen next.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself....

The surgeon at the first hospital sent my records to the second hospital for my second opinion. In a completely unprecedented move, they called me a few hours later and got me in the next day. I wasn't sure whether to be glad or terrified. I was now going to a specialist who worked on nothing but thyroid problems and specialized in thyroid cancer. I felt comfortable with her level of expertise and was curious to see what they had to say.

My husband was able to accompany me to this visit, which was nice since it not only was an hour away in a sprawling, mega-hospital, but would entail an entire day of tests, scans and prodding. We arrived at the appointment on time and waited for my name to be called. When I was finally called back we were put in a room with very off-putting machinery and equipment designed to go up your nose or down your throat. I felt I would politely decline either option if asked.

A young, blonde frat-boy looking resident came in clutching a clipboard and chewing gum. I know I shouldn't judge someone on how they look, but the kid reeked of elitism and expensive hair product. Also, his first name was Christian, which also made me dislike him. I know. I'm a jerk, but he was poster child for an Ivy league upbringing and looked like he loved nothing more than abusing the staff at the country club. I may be judgmental, but I'm often correct. He strode into the room, looked at me and said, "Robin?" Um. No. Not even close.

He looked perplexed, glanced at his clipboard, the room number and back to me. He mumbled an apology and left. My husband and I knew that this was the precursor for a bizarre and stressful day. Another 15 minutes passed and Dr. Christian ShoeTassels returned after, I'm guessing, taking care of Robin.

He got my name correct and began asking me about my previous pancreatic surgery, interrupting every sentence with medical jargon questions to which I did not have the answers. He then described my current tumor and asked what my plans were. Um, that's what I'm here to discuss. He said that it looked like the tumor was not a big deal, very common and I might not even need to have it removed.

All of this was news to me, but it made me feel a little relieved, albeit skeptical. Dr. Christian Fancyslacks didn't seem terribly trustworthy, so I reserved a full-fledged sigh of relief. He said that the surgeon would be in to see me in a few minutes and left.

The surgeon came in a few seconds later and began questioning me in rapid-fire succession. She was a tiny little thing, with a slightly clipped Asian accent. I actually really liked her right off the bat. She took one look at my neck and said that she wanted to do an ultrasound now, as in this very second. She yelled at the nurse to get the current patient out of the ultrasound room and get her equipment ready. A confused patient was yanked out of the darkened ultrasound room and my husband and I were herded in. This was all very strange indeed....

That Sinking Feeling

The day finally came for me to meet with the surgeon again. Even though I was sure of what he was going to say, I still had a glimmer of hope that he'd say everything is cool, go back to your previously scheduled life. No such luck. I sneaked a peek at the chart where I could barely make out the word "carcinoma." This is not my first rodeo, so I know what that means. He explained the results and what they meant for me. He felt that this growth had been malignant since I first learned about it five years ago, but the technology wasn't there to give an accurate diagnosis. He said since there was no ultrasound done as they did the biopsy, they just jabbed randomly and came up with benign results. I didn't care to ruminate on that, all I cared about knowing whether or not they'd have to remove the thyroid while I was still pregnant.

Everyone thinks that pregnancy is a beautiful time where you live your life, not for yourself, but for the health of the beautiful being that is growing within you. Rainbows, kittens, unicorns, all that jazz. Bullshit. Maybe it's like this for better people than me, but I found this to be an extremely difficult position to be in. I hadn't really felt the baby move yet, didn't know the gender and still didn't really, really believe I was actually pregnant. It's hard to be selfless and benevolent for someone that you have never met. If I had a malignant growth, I sure as shit wanted it out of my body as quickly as possible, I didn't want to wait until after the baby was born.

Of course, I'd never put my baby in danger, but the claustrophobia of slowly dying to keep someone else healthy is hard to live with. It wasn't really that dire of a situation, but when it's YOUR health, it's hard not to be a little bit overdramatic. The doctor assured me that the cancer was not fast moving and waiting until baby comes is really the best course of action. I agreed, but still decided to take a trip back to the teaching hospital in the big city where I had never thought I'd have to return.

I stayed calm in the office and asked all the right questions. The doctor must have thought I either didn't get it or didn't care. I calmly got in my car and drove away from the hospital. Then I freaked out. I went through all the stages of grief in about 10 minutes, from "this cannot be happening again" to "why is it always me" winding my way through bargaining, depression and then to "well, here we go again, I did it once, I can do it again." I've always been a bit accelerated when it comes to emotions.

I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the total removal of my thyroid, working out the right dosage of synthetic thyroid hormones, radiation treatment, a conspicuous scar that looks like a murder attempt and a brand new baby, but I guessed I'd cross that bridge when I got there.

I Meet The Needle Again

I had one thyroid ultrasound at one doctor's office and was then told I'd have to have another one at the surgeon's office. The first ultrasound was no big deal. The second came with the threat of another fine needle aspiration. I met with the surgeon who looked over my medical records (which are now the thickness of a Tolstoy novel). "You're only 28?" he asked. Yeah, I know. I've heard it all before. I'm a medical freak.

He said that the first ultrasound showed a very sizable growth on my thyroid, so large that it was creating a bulge on my neck that I hadn't noticed until a few weeks ago. He said that he needed to take a look for himself and then would need to do a biopsy. I must have turned several shades of gray at the mention of the biopsy. I said that I had a really bad experience with the first one, but that I'd do the best I can not to pass out. He asked me to explain my first experience. I edited out my terrorist theory and gave him the short version. He was appalled that I wasn't given a numbing shot and that the procedure hadn't been done using an ultrasound in order to get a precise reading. He assured me that this one would be different. I was not swayed.

The numbing really did make a difference and I was proud to stay conscious the entire time. He got several slides of nasty looking goo. He said that (shocker!) my growth was unusual in that there was a large, solid mass surrounded by a more gelatinous mass. He said would meet back with me in a week to discuss the results. Great, a week to fret.

I spent the next few days assuring everyone that this was not a big deal, everything would be fine, while completely freaking out on the inside. I knew that, once again, my body was trying to do me in and that the growth would most definitely turn out to be cancer.

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.