Theresa the Thyroid Welcomes Lucy the Lump

I had my regular doctor check-up a week ago today. During the exam, my doctor felt a weird lump on my thyroid. I didn't know what a thyroid was, but research a little later on informed me it looked a little something like this:

It's this adorable, butterfly-shaped gland on top of your neck (I think it looks more like a dapper bowtie but I read a lot of websites that kept calling it butterfly-shaped, so we'll go with that). It's really important for regulating hormones and secreting thyroid hormones that affect your metabolism and a bunch of other really important stuff. When you're not producing enough hormones or in the right variation, all kinds of symptoms show up in your body, from wacky to scary. 

I have no symptoms so I had no idea my thyroid (a previously unknown little piece of my anatomy) was acting out of sorts. And it's still not known if that's the case. My doctor said I needed to get an ultrasound to see what the lump was so he gave me a referral and took some blood for testing and sent me on my merry way. 

I called the ultrasound place (same place that first told me Scarlet was a girl!) and they had an opening the very next morning, so I jumped at the opportunity. I dropped my kids off at my sister's in the morning and had some uncomfortable ultrasounds taken of my neck (they kept pressing into my throat, making me fight to resist pushing the machine off of me in a fit of claustrophobic rage). The images were sent to a radiologist and the information faxed back to my doctor, who then sent them on to an ENT and set me up an appointment a week later with the ENT. I liked to think of him as a giant shepherd of the forest, but really he's just a friendly older man named Dr. Hunter.

Dr. Hunter said my thyroid was acting normally (which explains my lack of symptoms) but noted that the lump on my thyroid was actually a lump IN my thyroid, and he wanted me to get a biopsy of it to make sure it was benign material (which it is 88% of the time). He sent me referral information for the lab and I set up an appointment for the next day (today) to have a PA use an ultrasound to guide her scary needle into my neck and shake loose (literally shake the needle up and down until some cells get lodged into the needle and she can extract them--ick) some "mystery lump" cells for the pathologist to examine. 

So I dropped my kids off again today and spent a very tense hour getting my neck prodded by numbing needles and then the cell-extracting needle. I talked to the pathologist and the ultrasound technician and the PA and the weird guy in the back who never introduced himself or his purpose while I was being prepped. The PA mentioned that my lump was solid instead of liquid, so it's not just a cyst that you can leave alone, and the ultrasound technician said that mystery lumps are sometimes reluctant to give up their cells because the thyroid closely safeguards itself since it's so crucial to normal hormone balancing and all. The pathologist said I can expect results of the cell analysis around Monday. 

It took three needle jiggles and three extractions while I tried not to swallow before we were finished. They gave me a bandaid on my neck and let me drive myself home, which seems irresponsible because I was incredibly tense and rigid walking out of there. Sticking a needle repeatedly into my neck may be the scariest thing I've ever had happen to me.

I picked up my kids, had dinner with Josh, and then we went out for frozen custard because I had undergone four different medical appointments in one week and I was a bit frazzled. The custard was delicious, but my neck is quite tender. Moving, swallowing, and speaking are uncomfortable and sometimes painful. A bruise is already starting to peek out from under my bandaid. 

You can almost see it blooming out of the top of the bandaid.

BUT...

But there's a very, very high chance that the mystery lump is nothing but a mystery lump, causing no harm and doing no damage to the rest of me or my thyroid.

But I've named the lump Lucy. Lucy the lump.

But I've also decided my thyroid's name is Theresa.

But my belly is full of unbelievably creamy ice cream with fudge and cherries like a BOSS.

But I'm really relieved and happy and grateful that everything has worked out so smoothly and that there has been so much good news already.

But I am amazed yet again at what the human body does normally to function and how it adapts to changes and evolution.

And I'm anticipating a lot more good news on Monday when the results come back. :)