My Story, Episode I: The Phantom Neck Menace

Star Wars: Episode I was an awful origin story.  The origin story of my thyroid problems is also awful.  Well, not THAT awful.  There's no Jar Jar Binks in my life.

It all started around Christmas 2014.  My sister was in town with her husband and their daughter (my niece) Alayne.

Apples are amazing.

Alayne, as she is during all major federal and religious holidays, was sick as a dog.

All the way on the other side of town, my girlfriend's brand-spanking-new nephew, Jackson, was also harboring respiratory ailments aplenty.

Naturally, spending so much time with both of them ignited the inner-hypochondriac in me.  So, I dug deep and summoned my inner Filipino-nurse instinct, and decided I was medically qualified to palpate and detect swollen lymph nodes.

Low and behold, EUREKA!  I went digging for gold, and I found myself a nugget.  I actually felt something strange at the base of the left side of my neck, and for the rest of the holiday season, I thought I had found a swollen lymph node.  Great, I'm about to have a gnarly cold, just in time for New Year's.  But the cold never came, and the lump never went away.

By the time the new year rolled around, I had convinced myself through extensive Googling that I had some kind of lymphoma, and that I was in trouble.  So, I made an appointment to get a physical on Wednesday, January 7th, 2015, something I had been meaning to do in the new year, since I was approaching the golden age of 30 and hadn't had a physical since I was in high school.

I made an appointment with a PA in El Segundo (Rebecca Pestle, I highly recommend her if you need to visit a general practitioner), and figured I'd bring up the lump, so that she could tell me it was no big deal and I could get on with my life.  So, after going through the physical routines, I brought up the lump.  Luckily, she was very attentative to my concerns and didn't just write it off.  After feeling around, she decided to call the doctor in for his opinion, which is when I briefly met Dr. Mellman.

That's Dr. Michael Mellman.  No, not the guy at the podium, that's Laker legend Magic Johnson announcing he was HIV-positive in 1991.  Look to the right.  No, that's former NBA Commissioner David Stern, look to MAGIC's right.  No, not the guy who Magic is covering with his right arm, I don't know who that is.  Are you even paying attention to me?  Focus!  Find the first guy on Magic's right whose face ISN'T being blocked.  That's Dr. Mellman.

Yup, he was the doctor who told Magic Johnson that he was HIV-positive.  Obviously, I was nervous as I sat in the exam room.  But anyone knows me knows I'm a diehard Laker fan.  So, in a weird way...a part of me was excited that I was in the same room as this guy!  Is that morbid or inappropriate?  Sorry.

But I digress.  Dr. Mellman, who was also awesome, stood behind me, pressed down firmly on my neck and asked me to tilt my head up and swallow.  And in that moment, he immediately declared that the lump moved up and down when I swallowed.  It was not a lymph node, which would have remained relatively static; the likely culprit was my thyroid.

The doctor said that while thyroid nodules were very common among the female population, they were much less common among men.  Still, my nodule was probably nothing.  He said the best thing to do would be to have an ultrasound, so that the nodule could be checked for suspicious characteristics.  He went off to see his next patient, and Rebecca (she insisted I call her by her first name) referred me to UCLA Radiology, since it was so close to my office in Westwood.

The very next day (Thursday), I left work in the early afternoon and headed to the Ronald Reagan building on the south end of the UCLA campus.  I went in, had my ultrasound done by the friendly tech, and went back to work.  I couldn't have been gone longer than an hour.

The day after that (Friday), Rebecca called me with the (not) exciting news.  Three nodules had been found on my thyroid.  In the words of the radiology report:

- a subcentimeter cystic and solid nodule in the inferior right thyroid lobe which is not clearly suspicious. [W's Note: Not alarming at all.]
- 2.2 x 1.9 x 1.6 cm cystic nodule in the left thyroid lobe [W's Note: Cystic nodules are rarely cancerous]
- 1.0 x 1.3 x 0.6 cm solid nodule in the left inferior thyroid lobe with multiple peripheral microcalcifications [W's Note: Microcalcifications are considered to be highly indicative of cancer.  Gulp.]
- IMPRESSION: Multinodular thyroid gland with nodules demonstrating suspicious sonographic features.  FNA (fine needle aspiration) is recommended of the solid nodule and the cystic nodule in the left thyroid.

So that was it.  Suspicious.  Time to go in for the biopsy.  Rebecca referred me to Dr. Farhad Sigari in Marina del Rey, an ENT Surgeon, and I was set to go to his office for the needle biopsy on Monday, January 12th.  I had gone in for my physical on a Wednesday, and by Monday I was set to have a needle stuck into my neck, and have tissue extracted and sent to a lab to test for cancer.  Happy New Year!

Still though, through all this, I figured it had to be nothing.  I mean come on, only 5% of all thyroid nodules are cancerous...right Google?  You're not lying to me, are you Google?  I thought we were friends, Google!

...by the way, I still don't know what an actual swollen lymph node feels like to this day.

-W