Thursday, January 31, 2008

Thyroid update

Yesterday, I had that ultrasound on my neck to look at my thyroid. The entire process was “underwhelming” (to use a word my friend the Chiropractor uses when describing his method of care) and I am now left to deal with whatever emotions happen to surface at any given moment. Generally - though sometimes spotted with brief bouts of worry – I am unconcerned. The Ultrasound Tech was quite pleasant and asked me which side she needed to focus on; I told her the swelling was on the right side. She had no more touched the little magic wand thingy to my neck before she said, “Oh yeah... Definitely something going on in there.” She said very little during the actual scan, but afterward, she wiped the goo off my neck and had me sit up so she could show me (at my request) what she was looking at. She pointed to a rather large, misshapen blob, with multiple other misshapen blobs inside it, along with a big black “void” right in the middle. She explained that the large blob was the right side of my thyroid, and the multiple blobs inside the big blob were “nodules.” (I thought I heard her say the number 16 when referring to the nodules, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I grabbed that number from thin air. I don’t really remember how many she told me there were.) The black “void” was fluid. She said it looked like a pretty significant amount of fluid to her, but then she was not the radiologist. (I wish that I had thought to ask her for a picture or two...) I asked her what the nodules were and she again said she was not a radiologist and that most likely my doctor would need to refer me to an endocrinologist. I asked her what the endocrinologist would do, and she said that they would most likely perform a biopsy to evaluate tissue and cell structure. The radiologist has to read the ultrasound and then send the report back to my doctor. I’m hoping to hear something soon, but otherwise I really don’t know more than that at this point. Sandy said, “If you hear really really fast, then they’re probably concerned and want to hurry the process along. If you don’t hear quickly, then they’re probably not concerned and you shouldn’t be either.” Not sure how that holds with me, but OK. I've just got to give it to God. He's in charge anyway. Right now, I’m just thankful that I can breathe again! TTFN JMS

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Dr. Bunick is a fantastic endocronolgist (Sorry about the spelling). She has been Betsy and
Chris' thyroid doctor for years.

Hope this helps.

Love, Liz

Terry said...

OMG! I googled "misshappen thyroid" and arrived here. I just made an appointment with an endocronologist for the same thing you seemed to be experiencing. My appt is Sept 6th. Let us know how yours progresses and I'll share mine.

TLL