Is it or isn't it?

My appointment with the endocrinologist was June 26th. As someone who has never waited for an appointment that was not exciting or pretty routine, it is infinitely more stressful. Part of you wants them to hurry up and part of you wants them to never call your name. You are focusing too hard on not crying, because you don't even know what is going on yet.

You get called back for vitals from the nurse, and she asks "Do you have any questions?" Ha...Ha...Ha....

So we get back to the room and wait...for like 30 minutes...it was awful. But finally the Dr. gets there. He examines me, and apparently I pass all of his tests. (Yay!?) Then he gets to my ultrasound results. The "good news" is that what the sonographer called microcalcifications might not be. Longish story short apparently there are 2 things that will show up as "bright spots" on an ultrasound. Mircocalcifications (MCs) and colloid crystals (CCs). MC are almost always cancer, CCs, are almost always not. MCs look like a period, CCs look like a comma. Here are some pictures supplied by Google for reference.

Colloid Crystals

Microcalcifications

As you can see, they are very hard to distinguish between the two. The Dr. said that some looked like they had a tail and some didn't. He was going to send me for a biopsy of both nodules, and it could really go either way. Cancer or not, he wouldn't be surprised.  But the more he talked the more he sounded like surgery was in my future, and that he was just trying to give me a "non-cancer" straw to grasp at.

He basically said, if it is not cancer, then we do nothing since all my levels are normal. If it is then we take out my thyroid. I could either do it during my second trimester or after baby is born. Both have about the same risk, and I would be on hormone replacement for the rest of my life. I might have to do radioactive iodine, but that could wait until after I was done nursing. He made it all sound like it wasn't a big deal at all.

Here are the "good news" things I took away that day:

• It still could not be cancer
• If it is cancer there is a 99% survival rate.
• It isn't a kind of cancer that I would need chemo and lose my hair.
• My baby is not in any real danger right now. 

So... I guess all in all, it could have been a worse visit....Now it is just waiting for the biopsy and results. My biopsy is scheduled for July 19th.

(this post was written July 8th)