March 5 - Biopsy day!

                 Leading up to this point I had felt pretty sure that I had made the right decision and that it was better to know what I was dealing with than blindly throwing drugs at it in the hope that it went away. But wouldn't you know it, that morning the lumps were smaller! I mean drastically smaller. Almost to the size of when I had first discovered them! They had been going down a little in the week since my last appointment but now they were practically gone. Of course this would happen on biopsy day.

                I started to wonder if I should go through with the surgery or if maybe I had made the wrong choice and was just being a hypochondriac. (Which Chase had teased me about to try to keep me from immediately jumping to the worst conclusions) Fortunately the doctor performing the surgery came in to chat with me before the procedure. We hadn't met before and he just wanted to look things over himself before I went under the knife. He told me he wanted to be sure about doing the biopsy and if he didn't think it was necessary we could call the whole thing off. I told him that they had shrunk and he asked me the standard set of questions. “Have you been sick?” “No.” “Any fever?” “No.” “Any other symptoms?” “No.” “I feel totally healthy except for the lumps on my neck.” “Ok, well, it is still a sizable lump for a lymph node and since you haven't been sick let's go ahead and get a good look at it.” It was comforting to know that he took the time to make sure that this was the right thing for me, even right before I was scheduled to go into surgery.

                Most of the morning was spent waiting around. I got checked in and put on my oh-so-fabulous hospital gown and grippy socks. The nurse came in to start an IV, and she and Chase had a long conversation about why the new ones were worse and harder to use than the old ones after the first IV didn't go in quite like it should have and got blood all over my hand. I’m glad I can provide some entertainment for Chase. He’s looking to engineer medical devices once he is done with school and all this hospital time is giving him extra exposure.

                 The surgery before me ran long and we ended up waiting nearly an hour and a half past when my surgery was supposed to begin. It was a relief when the nurse arrived with some heated blankets because by that time I was freezing. Hospital gowns were not made to protect you from the harsh conditions of industrial AC.

                Once the doctor had finished talking to me the anesthesiologist came in and had injected something into my IV before I even knew what was happening! I was then whisked away to the operating room without saying goodbye to Chase. Not that I really needed to, it was a twenty minute procedure, but still. Hospitals are scary, give a girl with a dramatic imagination a chance here!

                Once I was on the table the nurse asked me one more time for my name, allergies, and what procedure I was there for just to make sure we had everything straight before they started cutting. The lights on the stands looked exactly like huge versions of the light at the dentist. That must have been when the drugs kicked in because I have no more memories of that room.

                The remainder of the day is mostly a drug filled blur. Chase claims that I asked him how the surgery went at least 5 times and could not pronounce the word tapioca when the nurse asked what kind of pudding I wanted while I was in recovery. I do remember that pudding had awfully large lumps compared to normal tapioca. Also the apple juice was almost sickly-sweet, but delicious because I hadn't been allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight before the surgery and it was 3:00pm at this point. The nurse who checked us out told us they would call to schedule a follow up in 10 days and wished us a happy spring break.

                That night my wonderful friend Briana came over to welcome me to the neck scar club. (She has a really awesome one from having half her thyroid removed a few years back).