Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Pain the neck!

My biopsy, that is. In some weird way, the pain and the fact that it was being done to ME aside, it was fascinating. Part of me was freaking out, white knuckling the arms of the chair, and the other part was trying to pay attention to the process, watching the ultrasound screen as he stuck each needle in my thyroid for each sample of tissue.

We are trying to discover what the dark mass in my thyroid is. My blood work had antibodies from Graves disease and Hashimoto's disease. The oddity is that the two are opposites, with one being over active thyroid and the other under active. This is the third time I've had some issues with my thyroid being overactive. Hopefully the third time is a charm.

So today the doctor was just supposed to go over my blood work with me and talk about options, but instead I got there and the nurse told me, " I need you to sign this release and then we can do your biopsy." Whaaaaaat? Ok, whatever, fine. I think he likes to surprise people because then during the actual process, as he's sticking me with needle number 5 he's telling me that we're done. And then once it's out he says, "Oh wait! I forgot, one more!" with a giddy little laugh. I asked him if I could see it for a minute and he asked me why. "'Cause I'm going to stick it in your neck!", I told him and laughed. Thankfully he knew I was kidding. (Sorta.)

It's a process I hope to never have to repeat, and I'm glad it is over. Hopefully the results will be negative for anything bad. We're mostly checking for cancer. The results will be in at the beginning of next week.

I say, just cut the darn thing out and then we don't have to worry about it anymore!

2 comments:

Megan said...

Ugh! Sounds awful - you're in our prayers. For what it's worth, my sister Bernie has Hashimotos. Doesn't it run in families?

Celeste said...

It does run in families. My mom has hypothyroidism. I did some reading and it seems that it can also be caused by stress, repeated illness, and traumatic experiences. (Both Graves and Hashimoto.)Interesting how your emotional state can so influence your physical health. So many people think of the two as completely separate.