A familiar name

The doctor who supervised the biopsy is named Dr. Aziz.

It's the same name as one of the characters in A Passage To India.

I said her name as much as possible "Nice to meet you Dr. Aziz" and "Goodbye, Dr. Aziz."

Womens Center Facilities

The facility where Enrique had his sonogram and biopsy is a "Womens Health Center." No one has explained why he's been sent there.

We haven't seen any other male patients - but we haven't seen many other patients period. The doctors have all been women.

The bathrooms are unisex. I keep leaving the toilet seat up.

This Biopsy Wasn't So Bad

Yesterday Enrique had a biopsy. It went much better than the first biopsy.

I was a little concerned because a fellow was doing it, instead of the regular doctor. But it went smoothly.

Enrique's uncle and I were in the room with him. There was a lot of waiting between sonograms and prep - but the procedure itself (inserting a thin needle several times where his chest meets his neck) took only a couple of minutes. Enrique told me that the pain was minimal.

The pathologist will have his report ready on Friday or Monday. I suspect we'll get the results when we visit Enrique's surgeon on Monday.

Results, Indirectly

Enrique has a knack for befriending receptionists, which means he can usually get a good appointment or reach the doctor by telephone. But his buddy at his endocrinologist's office is on vacation, so he has had some trouble getting the results of his PET and CT scans.

We had hoped to get the results as early as Friday, but no later than Tuesday. The temporary receptionist keeps putting him off. Today is Thursday and he finally learned that "there is nothing to be concerned about in the results" but that the doctor would like to discuss them in person, at his next appointment, on June 7th.

It's a huge relief that there is no really bad news in those scans. It's also annoying to have to wait another week to learn more. But we've learned that when the doctors are concerned things move quickly; when they aren't, they move slowly.

We had both spent a lot of time imagining getting an "all clear" or a death sentence from the scans. It's clearly not a death sentence. It sounds like it's not quite an "all clear" either - but hopefully it's not too far removed.

We should get a sneak peak at the results on Monday, when we meet with Enrique's surgeon.

Another Sonogram, Some Dreary Results

After the PET/CT scan, we went across town to a different hospital for a sonogram.

In this one, the technician moves a wand over his neck, just like he would with a pregnant woman's belly.

After doing that for half-an-hour he went to confer with his colleagues about "maybe getting a closer look." That in itself wasn't a good sign, especially as he took about 20 minutes. He came back with a radiologist who said she didn't like what she was seeing in his lymph nodes around his chest.

She did some more work with the sonogram and said she'd send the results to Enrique's doctors. They are going to need to do a biopsy sometime next week. That, in combination with the results from the scans will determine his next course of treatment.

Unfortunately, it seems like there may need to be a further course of treatment. We hoping for the all-clear. Obviously, we don't know what that will be, but it's unlikely to be anything worse than he's already been through. And maybe it won't even be that bad.

New Test Results

Enrique went in for a combination PET and CT scan today at Mission Bay. There is a good explanation of how these work here. The scan was scheduled months ago and is being done to determine what, if any, further treatment he'll require. It will determine how efffective the radiation treatment was in killing his remaining thyroid tissue; it will also turn up any other unknown cancer in his body -- if there is any.

His uncle and I went with him. He couldn't eat or drink beforehand. When we arrived he was injected with a (low-level) radioactive solution which the scan would track once it entered his body.

He had to wait about an hour for the solution to be absorbed. We were allowed to sit with him, but he couldn't move or speak. I kept teasing him by telling his uncle that Enrique really likes some ugly new building downtown or a particular republican presidential candidate. Meanwhile, he couldn't say anything in response.

We'll probably get the results of this set of scans sometime next week - although possibly as early as later today.