Benign!

As I knew it would be… Actually, as relieved as I am, I can’t help but be annoyed with my ENT (ear nose and throat specialist). He found some extremely small nodules on my thyroid, so small they can’t even be detected by touch without an ultrasound, but he thought just to make absolute sure, even though with the kind I have (many tiny ones as opposed to one big one) and with my demographic (female between the ages of 20 and 70) there’s less than a one percent chance they’re cancerous, that I should have a fine needle aspiration biopsy just to make sure. Question: isn’t there a less than one percent chance that me, or anyone, could have cancer growing somewhere in their body that they’re totally unaware of?? Anyway, this procedure, which he guaranteed me was no big deal, was a HUGE deal. It hurt like all hell, to put it mildly, and was horrendously uncomforable. They didn’t give me a local anesthetic because they said the needle used to deliver that was larger and more painful than the fine needle they used for aspiration of the nodule cells, and said it wouldn’t really hurt, but they were wrong. First, since my nodules were so tiny and couldn’t be detected without ultrasound equipment, this one technician had to push down with all her might right on the base of my throat with the ultrasound wand while the doctor stabbed me in the same place with the needle and left it in for what felt like centuries, both of them warning me not to swallow, not to breathe, not to talk, or else the needle would pierce something major. Ugh. I mean, maybe if the needle aspiration was taken from my leg or arm or stomach or something, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but being delivered to the base of my throat, I really felt like I may choke. I could just see the headlines: “patient asphyxiates while having a needless biopsy to her throat” … Anyway, at least it’s over now — and I’m never doing it again unless my doctor proves to me that there is a very serious chance one of them is malignant. And to make it worse, I couldn’t take any Ibuprofin for my tendonitis for 7 days prior or do any physical activity for 48 hours after, preventing me from dancing for the last couple days… I’m sorry, I’m obviously happy about the cytologist’s report, but it’s just that when you have horrific headaches of unspeakable pain that make you consider suicide for years and no one wants to take them seriously and then you have something your doctor finds by accident that you can’t even feel and even though there’s a tiny tiny chance anything is wrong with it the doctor insists on painful tests, you can feel like there’s really something not right in the world of medicine…

Anyway, beginning Monday, the hysteria officially begins. My showcase is October 16, meaning I now have exactly one month to learn how to dance. Help! Now I get to greatly annoy and alienate all of my friends: “No, I can’t go out to dinner with you, I have to dance,” “No, I can’t go to one hour-and-a-half-long movie with you, I have to dance,” No, I can’t go to an eight-minute dating event with you, I have to dance,” “No, I can’t walk your dog for five seconds while you’re on vacation, I have to dance,” “No, I can’t go to the store and get you chicken soup and Tylenol even though you’re on your deathbed, I have to dance” … I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I apologize in advance 🙂