Fine Needle Aspiration

I saw Dr. Surgeon this morning, luckily they were able to squeeze me instead of me waiting until my next follow up appointment the end of October.  Whoah, if they would have made me wait until then, I would have freaked myself out for sure.

He said that he was glad that I came in because Melanoma is nothing to play with, which I obviously know.  He thinks that it's weird that I have this lymph node on the back of my neck and if it were Melanoma then it would have typically gone to my left pitter.  As he felt it more he said that he was pretty confident that it wasn't Melanoma but that he'd need to do a biopsy to confirm.  I totally wasn't expecting that.  I was expecting full removal, as in surgery, to make sure that the entire node is checked out.  I guess it's a good thing that I didn't need surgery; I just don't want anything missed.

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB, FNA or NAB), or fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), is a diagnostic procedure used to investigate superficial (just under the skin) lumps or masses.

Basically what happens is they take a needle/syringe, stick it into the lymph node itself and then move it quickly in and out and side to side while pulling back on the syringe to suck some of the tissue into the needle.  JOY!  It was just as fun as it sounds!  He did this twice...  All jokes aside - it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anywhere near being comfortable.  It sort of stung.  I should get used to this because I've got freaking infant veins and whenever I am getting blood work done the nurses dig around in my arms trying to find a blood line.

The reason for the double biopsy is to get tissue samples to test for Melanoma and then also Lymphoma.  He said that in some cases peeps with Melanoma do get Lymphoma, but to try not to worry about it.  I think it's somewhat normal for anyone with any type of cancer to get other kinds.  It could just be an angry lymph node and it may stay that way for the rest of my life if it's benign.  What I do know is that it's angry right now, the biopsy left it not feeling so great.  It's bruising up a bit, too.

Picture of bruising (this is taken in reflection of mirror - the node is on left side of neck)

A shot of where the lymph node is.  It actually isn't swollen from the biopsy, this is the size that it has been this whole time.

It takes around three days to get the results; hopefully by Friday I should know whats up. I'm actually not worried about it.  In a strange way this is all very interesting to me.  At this point, there's nothing that I can do to change this.  If it's the worst case scenario, then it is what it is.  At least I'll be able to get all of the scans that I've wanted to get :)