I was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. and arrived at the hospital's lab and ultrasound section about 5 or 10 minutes early. I was called soon and given a big plastic card to hold and told where to wait. There were at least 7 other people with the same type of cards waiting too so I thought it might be a while. But I was called within a couple of minutes and taken to the back of a long lonely hallway and directed where to sit. I was right near a doorway to a closed off section for non-hospital staff. A couple of times personnel came and went from the room that I would be having my test, and I could hear voices inside, but I continued to sit in the hallway waiting to be called in. More than 15 minutes ticked by, many hospital staff passed by on breaks, others wheeling trolleys of things, a couple of other patients were directed into other "echo" rooms... Tick, tock, tick...
Finally, the door opened and another patient left and I was immediately called in. There were a lot of people crowded around in the room! Oh, perhaps they were that troop, of what appeared to be newly graduated Drs., that passed by while I was still in the large reception area as they had all headed down this same corridor.
A young woman directed me to put my belongings in the little basket at the end of the table. A pillow was already set up in about the middle of the bed. I was to lay down with my knees bent and then positioned into place with the pillow somewhere between my lower neck and upper back, I'd guess. It was kind of uncomfortable on my neck to hold the position but no turning back at that point. The lights dimmed and the show was on the road!
I'm taking a guess that the young female who preformed the test was a new graduate as there was a middle aged guy standing next to her giving advice. (There were no introductions made but I doubt this sort of test would be made by a technician so I'm guessing they were all Drs.)
There was no generalized looking around of the thyroid this time, the ultrasound was immediately placed on the area of suspicion that would be tested today. The color Doppler ultrasound was switched on and I was doing my best to eyeball the screen. I could see them looking at the areas of vascularity and the middle aged man deciding that she should place the needle at a 45 degree angle.
Ready to begin, I was told not to swallow, speak, or move from this point on. Ok, a couple of quick nervous swallows and I signaled I was set to start. As the name suggests, I could feel a fine needle prick and pressure over the area. I was busy trying to avoid swallowing as that's about all you want to do when you know you can't! But I was also trying to count how long this would take as I'd been told a count of 10 last week by the endocrinologist. Well, I got to 10 and it wasn't over, then 20 and it wasn't over, maybe it was closer to 30 when it stopped. But I was fighting so hard not to swallow during it and then told: "Ok, finished, now we'll do the next spot". The second prick was over in a flash. But, I'm pretty sure I heard the young Dr. get flustered during it and say something along the lines in Japanese of "What should I do? Somebody tell me!". Hey, what was that all about??!! Next, she told me we'd take a short break and she retreated behind a curtained area where many other of the young Drs. had been standing. It was probably to check if there was enough fluid extracted in the sample because she came back very quickly and said that I was done. Oh, and as she was wiping me off, she said that some isojin (iodine) had been spilled on my shirt. I was cautioned not to do heavy sports or drink this evening. I can take a shower but not a deep-water bath. I'm to leave the bandage on until tomorrow. She told me to go home and just rest.
I stopped by the restroom to check out how I looked and to see the isojin spot on my fairly new blouse. It's one that I really like, too. It seemed to be back near the collar and not too noticeable luckily. But, it was then that I discovered the blouse doesn't have a top button so the bandaged area was very much visible to the random eye, so a little embarrassing to go out in public with.
(Took this photo moments after arriving home. Excuse the bad hair day!)
A closer look at my blouse and the isojin (iodine) showed this stain on either side of the inside collar. Soaking it for a bit in warm water and some detergent at home later took it out, though.
Before I'd paid and left the hospital, another woman came along who seemed to have just had the same test as me. She also was sporting a bandage in the middle of her lower neck. I wanted to strike up a commiserative chat with her but Japanese don't really talk to strangers so I didn't. I wonder if we'll be seeing each other again...
As I waited in the accounting area, I couldn't help but notice a boy who probably wasn't much older than 15 or 16 who was with his mother and there to settle a bill at the end of a hospital stay. Well, I may or I may not have cancer. I'll know more in 9 days time what my future holds. I've already had cancer once and it was no where near as bad as people fear when they hear the C-word. I also have RA, it took a good decade to finally feel that it was under control. But it is and I'm doing things that I love and want to do. Oh, but what about this teenage boy I've just mentioned? From the looks of him, I'd guess that he left school when jr. high compulsory education finished. That's at age 15 in Japan. He probably went to work in a factory or some other sort of hard and dangerous manual work as that's about the only work open to a boy who leaves school too soon. So there he was, with his bags on a chair digging around for the paperwork to hand in at the counter. But, the thing I noticed about him first was that he was missing the tops of all of his fingers on his left hand, in a straight line across, down to the top joint or so. There were bandages over the tips, and possibly the pinkie was still intact. But what an awful fate for someone so young and with so many years ahead of them! I've seen horrific new hand injuries on a few other young boys here and each time I've guessed it must have happened during a factory job. It breaks my heart afresh each time, though. Anyway, I don't think I'll put him out of my mind soon. There's nothing like a hospital to make you realize that there is always somebody or a lot of somebodies that are dealing with far worse things than you are. For me today, it's a young boy who has had a serious accident resulting in multiple amputations. Last week, it was a waiting area adjacent to another waiting area of babies and young children with serious birth defects. Really what could be worse that an infant, small child, or young person suffering so much?
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