A Trip to the Doctor

I’m still waiting to hear about my shoulder…ugh.  But in the meantime, I was scheduled to go to Lacrosse and connect with my endocrinologist to check up on my thyroid…or rather lack of thyroid.  I go and see her every six months for follow up after I was diagnosed with follicular thyroid cancer in March of 2016.   Part of the routine visit is an ultrasound of my neck where my thyroid used to be.

Kelli went along with me for company.  Hubby usually goes with me but this time he was able to be in the field and work on harvesting.  He offered to go but I said no…work on the harvest instead.

I started out early with the hope of stopping into my local doctor’s office and getting a flu shot.  That worked out perfect.  A little poke and I was on my way to meet Kelli in Decorah.  The drive was pretty.  For those of you who don’t know, Lacrosse is located along the Mississippi River.  There are lots of bluffs along the way.  Everything was changing colors.

The weather was perfect for a drive too.

My appointment was okay….not everything I wanted to hear…but okay.  Let me explain.  I have a lymph node to the right of where my thyroid used to be.  Last spring when I did this check up, it was enlarged.  Not grossly but still it was enlarged.  My blood work was all good so we attributed it to the cold I had the few weeks before.  We decided to keep note of that but not worry.

This time when I came, that lymph node was slightly smaller but still considered enlarged.  She suggested that being my blood work was still good, let’s watch it another six months.  I am not that kind of girl…I consider myself pro-active.  I’m not very good at sitting and waiting…so, I suggested that we do a needle biopsy on it and find out if it’s cancerous or not.  The lymph node is big enough that it does meet the guidelines to do a needle biopsy so that’s what we made plans to do.  I was hoping they could squeeze me in that day but they couldn’t.  I am here today instead.

It meant taking another day off of childcare but in the end, I am very happy with my decision to not hang out in limbo.  I did have a cold not too long ago, so that could easily be the reason for the enlargement…I could have a re-occurrence of cancer.  I could have a large lymph node with no other explanation.  Whatever it is…I want to know and not just wait for the next 6 month testing.

So I’ll get one of three results after the testing…benign (which is what we’re hoping for), inconclusive (which I’ll opt for surgery to remove it) or cancerous.  If it is cancer, I will have it removed and go through the whole radioactive iodine treatment regiment again.  If it isn’t cancerous then on we go with life…well that’s not quite right.  Whatever happens, I am going on with life.

I do have a hope that if this is benign that I won’t have to go through the low-iodine diet, with shots and testing this spring.  Then I might be able to move into the “every two years” testing instead.

Results won’t be in until the end of the week…of course I’ll let you know when I know.  I’m not worried about it.  I will “work the plan” whatever the plan is that is put in front of me.

From there we went up town and ate at a really good bar called The Old Crow.  It was packed so be took a seat at the bar to eat.  The hockey game was on in front of us.  Our son Buck is a hockey fan so I snapped a picture to send to him joking saying “I was in a bar on a Friday afternoon to watch hockey!

The food was awesome…Here’s Kelli enjoying a flat bread pizza…the fries were AMAZING!

We shopped and found Kelli a new winter coat and then meandered our way home via New Albin where they have the awesome meat market.  In all honesty, the place is a bit of a dump but boy of boy does it have good meat!

Everyone always wants to know about my thrift stores…well here’s the one in New Albin.  It’s just off the main road.

After that we were back in the car…eating hot sticks from the Meat Market!  YUM.

More and more beautifully colored trees for us to see.  I love the glowing oranges of the sumac and the grasses growing.

I was full from all of the days eating but Kelli insisted that we stop in Waukon at the ice cream shop.  It was good…but….

By the time I was home, I was stuffed and didn’t eat a bite of supper.

Then it was time to start contacting childcare parents to let them know about the doctor visit and that I’d need Monday off for the next trip to Lacrosse.

I think telling people is always the hardest part of this all…it’s not the testing…it’s not the unknown…it’s the telling.  I know this isn’t true at all but if it’s back, I almost feel like I let everyone down.  Rather than my body betraying me, I feel like I’m betraying all the people who cheered me on last time.  UGH.  Let’s just hope we don’t end up going there and this is all just a silly lymph node that doesn’t know how to keep it’s size in tact….and now we wait for the biopsy results.