Back from the Biopsy

I apologize in advance if this post does not track well. I am kind of angry.

The hospital that my medical group is affiliated with is Hoag Hospital (which is a very good hospital, just not very convenient). My ultrasound and biopsy was in one of the medical office buildings that is adjacent to the hospital. It takes me 45 minutes on a good day to get to this hospital, so I left early to get to the appointment on time. My appointment was at 10:00 AM so I left at 8:30 to get there by 9:15. Well today the traffic was extremely light so I ended up there at 9:00. No biggie.

Again, assembly line medicine. Check in at one place. Wait, then check in at another place. The redundancy kills me.

Finally get into the ultrasound room. The technician does the initial images, then she brings in the radiologist.

The radiologist felt the nodes, did another ultrasound, and then said, "It might be too small for me to do a biopsy." He proceeded to kind of hem and haw about it, then he asked me what I wanted to do, whether I wanted to wait a month and come back, or do it today. He stated that he did not think he could get any good cells for pathology.

I decided that I wanted him to do the biopsy today. He was not very good at hiding his disappointment about having to do the biopsy. Guess what? It is not his body, and it is not his call. So everything was prepped, my neck was painted orange (the surgical disinfectant), and a pathology tech was brought into the room to assist.

Whole biopsy took about 10 minutes from start to finish, done with lidocaine as a local anesthetic. The doctor and the pathology tech left the room, and the ultrasound tech was left to apply pressure to my neck to stop any bleeding. Doctor came back in after about 5 minutes and said, "Pathology says it looks like we got A LOT of good cells to look at, we will send the report to your GP in about a week."

Funny how a mere 15 minutes previous, he was carping about how there was not enough tissue there to biopsy.

Now I wait.