One more thing...

It was all so accidental, maybe that is why I am so numb.

The doctor sat behind me put his hands on my neck and said swallow. It was aggravating. Really? I was having trouble breathing. I had made an appointment for antiobiotics and nebulizer meds February 7. The drama of the bronchitis/asthma had just started with the below zero temps and viruses everywhere. The visit was almost over and I was anxious to leave, to take more meds and get on with this regimend of getting well and, yes, making dinner.

He said it again.

He sat too long holding my neck.

You have a lump here. Do you feel that?

And that was it.

Do. You. Feel. This.

And I did. And I do. So often I have probably made it swollen.

Among so many other things, the breathing, the heart rate, the blood pressure, the chest pain, the insulin levels-- I felt clearly the lump in my throat as he held it and I swallowed against it.

How long had I felt it? I couldn't say. It did not hurt but was a pressure like his hands on my neck.

And now it has been ultrasounded, felt by many different doctors, questioned, prodded, scoped and biopsied. It is a mass in my thyroid. A solid, complicated tumor that is too large to watch but a few millimeters too small to remove immediately.

They say it is common to have a thyroid growth. Sure, mine has to be a bitch so close to my voicebox it has made my voice hoarse already. And solid, not fluid filled, not innocuous as many nodules are. Complicated. Yes, I know complicated.

But if it is that C word that has kept me up for a week then it is a good one to have, usually contained and behaves and is removable.

And that is it for now. Almost too much to be believed and digested. The journey has left me numb.

To wait several more days the results with my new husky voice, "How are you doing?"

... Hanging in there, tightly...