Follow up appt for my throat
I had my follow up appointment at NorthBay today and my 10 days worth of penicillin have done nothing to reduce the swelling in my throat. The nurse practitioner informed me the other swab of my throat was also negative for strep throat, so he has recommended I go see a specialist named Dr. Woolf in Fairfield.
I went along with Denise to see Dr. Woolf in Fairfield the same day. He examined my throat for a while and decided to perform a needle biopsy to take sample that could be examined by a local lab. This is where it started being uncomfortable. He sprayed a substance into my throat that tasted like burnt bananas and that was supposed to numb things back there. It did. He also sprayed a numbing mist into my nostril so he could route a small remotely controlled camera down my throat to assess the swelling, (which he now referred to as a tumor). Once he was able to determine the tumor was not down into my throat, but was more confined to my tonsil, he stated what I had was most likely a parapharangial space tumor. According to Dr. Woolf, most like benign, but the needle biopsy and lab results would confirm this either way.
Now came the needle. Once my throat was sufficiently numb, he stuck me about 5-6 times and smeared the extract onto some slides that would be sent away. I was able to hang in there pretty well, but when someone comes at you with a needle into your mouth, your first reaction is not “sit still”. But I did pretty well and after leaving the office and when then the numbing subsided, I was left with a reasonable amount of pain throughout the rest of the evening.
Denise was a real trooper sitting through all this with me. Talk about your front row seats! We both had a nice lunch at Red Robin after that. Hell, I deserved a great tasting cheeseburger after that ordeal.
Now we have to wait for the results. I’m encouraged that the odds are in favor for a benign tumor, but my thoughts are going in all different directions tonight. Geez, I’m only a 46 year old guy, who’s never had any real health problems and I think I take pretty good care of myself. Time now to simply sit and wait.
