Wednesday, March 21, 2012

You Just Have to Laugh!

Ok, so this morning Ronny finally had his biopsy. He had a very nice doctor who had a chart explaining all the possible outcomes of what the results would be and explained everything that would happen in the procedure. We were taken back and he looked around on the ultrasound. This time the cyst looked different, lots more fluid and the mass we saw so clearly before was hard to make out and this doctor wasn't sure if it was even there anymore. He scanned around and then got real excited about a new mass that he first called a parathyroid tumor or a very swollen lymph node just outside the thyroid. He thinks its a tumor which he said was almost always benign and probably was causing Ronny's kidney stones. He said he would know after he got a blood calcium level. (When I say he was excited, I really mean it, he was like a little kid opening presents on his birthday!)

So then he started the procedure. He first gave Ronny the numbing medication and told Ronny that would be the worst of it. Ronny was doing well up to that point. Then he put the syringe in to draw the fluid, he was moving it around quite a bit and struggling to pull the fluid out. At that point I looked at Ronny's hands and noticed they were whiter than the sheet. Then the nurse felt his skin go cold. Then the doctor released the end of the syringe and it snapped back like a rubber band. (I guess the fluid was crazy thick!) Then both the doctor and the nurse were asking if he was ok and Ronny started to tell them he was really sick to his stomach. Then the doctor asked if he was still with us and told the nurse to go get the oxygen. (At this point I am thinking I should have told them before they started about Ronny not doing well with needles, oops!) Both the doctor and nurse looked to me to try to reassure me he would be fine while I was trying not to laugh and assured them that I really was not worried.

The doctor was not able to get as much fluid as he wanted because it was soooo thick and that Ronny was about to pass out, but he had enough cells for one slide. He then told Ronny that next time they will sedate him. At which point I said, next time????? You could tell at this point the doctor really wanted to get a blood calcium but wasn't sure Ronny could handle it. That's when I said, well he already has the oxygen and he's laying down, you might as well do it now, so they did!

So depending on what the results are, Ronny will either have the affected lobe removed (worst case scenario), or they will do nothing and have him come back in 3 months to do all this again. He wanted to drain the cyst completely but the fluid was just too thick for the size of the needle they were using. If they decide to have him come back in 3 months they will sedate him, (he really freaked them out this time!). If his blood calcium comes back high they may decide to remove the new mass they found today. Leave it to us to come in for one thing only to leave having something else entirely to test. The doctor told us again that only 4% of these cysts were cancerous, I told him our family was really good at meeting the low odds. Of course then we had to explain our uncanny ability to find all things rare.

We should have the results sometime in the next week and a call from the doctor to tell us what the next steps will be. So now we once again get to play the waiting game. Both Ronny and I were laughing and keeping things as light as possible, I don't think they knew what to do with us.

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