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Recurrence on the Metro

This morning while riding on the Orange Line of the Metro, I found myself thinking about my upcoming visit to the endocrinologist next week and subsequent ultrasound of my neck. Then I started jumping to conclusions.

Dr. Pun said at my upcoming October visit, he would give me an order to get an ultrasound of my neck/thyroid area. The last one I had was in April as part of the batter of tests/scans following my January 2009 surgery to remove more cancerous lymph nodes. All of my other ultrasound prior to the April one were performed by the same physician. However, the one in April was not for some reason, even after specifying I wanted to schedule this “regular” radiologist.

My conclusion as I dwelled on this: what if he missed something. He wasn’t familiar with my case. The other radiologist was.

So I should prepare myself for the worst with this ultrasound I will schedule in October. If there is something “suspicious” on ultrasound, I will have another fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy, the good ol’ sticking the needle in my neck again. Hopefully I can get both of these done before my trip to Austin/OKC in November.

If it proves to have the suspicious areas that I think it will, that will put me in December in terms of timing. I don’t want to have the surgery before Christmas because that’s depressing. This actually works out well as I should put it off to January 2010 to be able to use our medical savings account again since we tapped that out in June this year.

Wait…what am I doing?! I don’t even know if there is anything suspicious in my neck much less a recurrence!

And that, my friends, is how a cancer patient/survivor thinks from time to time. The days leading up to our check-ups, check-ins, whatever you want to call a doctor’s appointment to make sure you don’t have more cancer, really just stink and are nerve wracking.

Plus, I am my grandmother’s grandchild as my mom would say. Meaning, Mema worries about everything, and so do I.

I’ll do my best to keep my mind on other things (heaven knows there’s plenty of activity at our house/with our kids to keep me busy) the next few weeks, but I can’t promise anything other than there will be good days and bad days. Hoping for mostly good ones….I like those better.

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