The day had arrived and I was a mess. My anxiety was high and Toronto driving was not helping. Packing hematite in both pockets, because I needed all the grounding I could get.
We barely found parking. The clock was ticking down. At one point my husband told me I should just head in without him and he would circle around.
By the time we got out of the car, I was on the brink of having a panic attack. He stopped me in the street and told me to breathe. It was cold, unseasonably cold. I should have worn a jacket. My muscles were cramping and we weren’t going to make it on time. We had committed the tragic mistake of parking at the Mars building, and coming out the wrong side of the underground. We had so far to go to get to where I needed to be.
I made it to my waiting area with 6 minutes to spare. My husband had rushed back to pay for parking, after forgetting to do it.
I scanned the waiting room. Maybe a dozen other people filled the room. Some masked, some not. Some old, and some young. I noticed the woman there with her husband and toddler. Something about that tugged at my heart.
My husband rejoined me and I got called into a waiting room. In the hallway, I could see my oncologist verbally dictating notes. My husband and I made small talk, with the occasional medical terms floating around in the background.
I could hear the nurse in the next room with a patient.
“Has your voice changed at all since surgery?”
“Oh ya, I sound a lot different.”
“Have you noticed any other side effects?”
“Well, everything I eat tastes the same. Last week I had coffee and it tasted like salt.”
I cringed.
“That does sometimes happen with radiation. It likely won’t last. Okay, we are going to scope you now. That’s it, you’re doing great.”
The scope, as it turned out, was the device that was hanging in our room that kept hitting my husband in the head. Call it a foreshadowing of sorts.
Then it was my turn. A nurse came in the room first and asked me some questions.
“Are you having any symptoms? Trouble swallowing?”
The million dollar question.
“Yes, actually. There are certain things I am struggling with. Dry things, like bread, and chewy things, like my protein bars.”
“Okay we are going to scope you.”
I froze. I wasn’t expecting that.
“I am going to insert this tube up your nose, and down your throat. The hardest part is the nose. It feels like getting a Covid swab.”
Turns out she was a liar, and a sadist. The nose was easy compared to the throat. I swallowed.
“Oh no, try not to swallow, and breathe through your nose.”
Mind over matter I told myself. Relax. Nope. Swallow.
“Try not to swallow.”
Swallow. Swallow. Swallow. It was all I could do now. I was panicking. I went into fight or flight mode. I no longer saw her, it was just blind fear. Arms flailing, I’m surprised I didn’t hit her.
“Okay, okay. All done. You did great.”
Liar.
I was coughing, tears running down my face. Nose burning, and the feeling of something lingering in my throat. I quickly tried to gather myself.
Dr.G came in shortly after. He was a tiny man in black plastic rimmed glasses, and scrubs. He wore rubber shoes that looked like clogs. He stood on the outside of his feet the entire time he spoke to me. He was like a leprechaun, and I hoped he had a pot of gold at the end of his rainbow, because my patience was getting really thin.
“Okay Amanda, so our team reviewed your pathology and it came back as benign.”
“Oh great!”
“Yeah, but, the ultrasound you had done here last week, showed a 4 out of 5 risk of this being cancer.”
Here we go again. Not cancer, but not-not cancer either.
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, we aren’t sure about the discrepancy between the two. My suggestion would be to repeat the biopsy.”
“Don’t biopsy results normally trump ultrasound results?”
“Usually, yes. That is why I figure if we get one more benign biopsy result, we will conclude that it is the case.”
“I have a secondary biopsy booked for December 9th. My endo booked it thinking it might be necessary.”
“That’s great. Have the report sent here and we will call you with the results just before the holidays, so you don’t have to come out all this way again.”
“Or, if the results are bad, wait until after the holidays.” lol
My nervous habit of making jokes, even bad ones, was making an appearance.
He also mentioned he wouldn’t opt for surgery with a benign mass. I had received differing information on that. It can injure the vocal cords, and since thyroid nodules are slow growing, our esophagus usually adapts around them. He had patients with 8 to 9cm masses still in their throats. Mine was 3.2.
“From there, you would just be monitored.”
We would keep an eye on thing 1, and biopsy thing 2 once it was large enough.
Some of the information was a relief, but I was tired. Tired of the back and forth, and the not knowing. Tired of the tests, procedures and appointments. Access to healthcare is a privilege, and yet I longed for the days where a day off meant doing something I enjoyed. Maybe that will be the case again soon.
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