After Cancer: My Story... Part 3

When I visited my family physician to receive the results from the Uptake test, I felt a little worried that it was going to be bad news.

The doctor told me that the Uptake test was inconclusive because it was showing many red and blue areas, and that The Nuclear Medicine Department recommended redoing the test. My doctor thought it would be better that I go in for a biopsy instead.

When I heard BIOPSY, I was nearly floored. This word is always associated with cancer, and of course, that was the first thing that popped into my head.

The doctor explained what the biopsy entailed, and also told me that the biopsy was a precautionary measure. "I want to be sure that it is just a nodule, and nothing else". He said.

I walked into the same ultra sound cubicle that I had been in not so long ago, and was met by a doctor. There, on the table, beside the sonography machine, was some rubbing alcohol, cotton balls and the syringe.

The test itself wasn´t very painful. Not very pleasant, but not too painful.

Because the nodules were small.. one was 4 mm and the other 5 mm.. it did take some time for the doctor to get a sample. I walked out of the cubicle in about twenty minutes with a bandage on my neck.

The first test was inconclusive, and the biopsy was repeated a week later.

One day after having the second biopsy, my family doctor´s office called me and told me to come in right away. It was right then that I knew that it wasn´t good news.

The next day, my doctor confirmed that indeed one of those nodules was cancer, and the other came back as inconclusive. The left lobe tumor consisted of two types of cancer, follicular and papillary carcinoma.

"You need surgery". He said.


He called the surgeon and endocrinologist from his office and set up an appointment for the very next day.