relief...and guilt.

[97tbird]

for about a month now, I've been feeling this "lump" in my throat, which is totally painless, and doesn't make it hard swallow or anything, but i always just "felt" it, sometimes to the point where it was like choking me "softly"..i only felt it between meals...i kept putting it off, and finally went to the doc and he was puzzled too, and just to make sure nothing is sinister, he wanted me to have a CT scan with IV contrast...we really started freaking out, and my wife came to the hospital (this was the ER doc @ the hosp that I work at), did the CT, and waited for results...nothing; no tumors/cancer/growths of any kind, and doc & radiologist said i have a "beautiful" trachea

...
They finally decided it can be acid reflux, and 2 days later, after going on Prilosec and Claritin, i already feel better...(one of my friends last yr went thru EXACTLY the same thing, did CT and all, and he also ended up being diagnosed w/ acid reflux damaging/swelling the throat, which cleared later)

I feel gulity about getting the CT done...wife says there's no price for the relief of knowing that there's no cancer etc, and says I only think it was a "waste of money" because they did not find anything.
wifey will be working as a pharmacist in about 9 mo. and we had enough savings to dig into, and my BCBS plan will cover 70% of the cost fo CT, etc, but I feel like I was silly, but i really was scared about it, so hopefully it was worth to get it done...

..just sharing.

 

[Matt_S]

Lumps and bumps are something you just don't mess around with. I'd have done the same thing if I were you. Besides, the piece of mind you have now is priceless. You did what everyone thought was best and what happened was arguably the best case scenario. What's to feel guilty about?

 

[CivicFan]

This is a scenario when spending money without finding a bad thing is good

. Don't be disappointed.

 

[Kestas]

Some time ago I went through the same thing with the same diagnostics... Zantac for acid reflux, Claritin for hay fever. It turns out I had low-level hayfever. I guess this is more common than you realized. The only difference is that my doctors didn't bother with any CT scan.

As an afternote, I used to suffer horribly with hayfever (Aug-Sep). Lately, my body doesn't react to this hayfever anymore... probably grew out of it. This episode above was at the cusp of those waning years.

 

[Pablo]

Glad you are OK! You can go back to worrying about important things........ like oil.

 

[NJC]

I have a small lump in my neck that I noticed ~6 months ago. Initially I thought it was a lipoma, since they run in the family and my Dad also has in his neck.

Finally dragged my carcass into Doc - expecting an instant diagnosis of hellacious cancer cells - and he said it was just an enlarged lymph node and nothing to worry about.

I also think it was it was worthwhile to have Doc check you out.

 

[Sparkman]

My wife has what they think is a lipoma on her back, going in for a biopsy on the 18th. No messin' around with lumps. CT was the right thing to do IMHO.

 

[Papa Bear]

Don't feel guilty .......
You have fire insurance on your house, do you feel guilty if it doesn't burn down ??

 

[Virtuoso]

I know, I hate spending money on medical care for myself; it feels like a waste (and we're more strapped than most at this time). I'm one of thoes "let-nature-handle-it" guys, I guess.

But to know what's really going on, is worth every penny. Especially if it rules out (or confirms) things like cancer, ect.

Now the wife or the kids is a different story. I never hesitate to have them go to the doc. Weird, huh?

 

[CBDFrontier06]

Nah, not weird. You're a selfless person. But don't hesitate to do this as many times as it takes to get peace of mind. Every lump or bump....have it checked. Letting nature handle it is exactly the same thing as saying 'let cancer eat me alive'.

 

[johnd]

I went to the dr with symptoms of having trouble swallowing a couple of years ago. Everybody took this as a sign that I was going to die. Fortunately I did not. I had a Zenker's diverticulum-a bulge in my esophagus. I had to have it surgically corrected and stay in the hospital for a week with a feeding tube afterwards but I'm ok now. I'm glad I acted on it but boy do I hate barium swallows.

 

[wantin150]

One way to look at it is this:

If you neglect yourself, and something bad happens, who will be around to take care of your loved ones?

Early detection is the key man. Glad you came out OK.

A short story:

When I was 14-15, I got sick. No one knew what it was, even after a Dr. visit. Finally one day, my Mom literally threw me in the car and raced me to the Dr's office. I had no clue why. She demanded a blood test. Evidently, something freaked her out and what I had was either "cat scratch fever" (the disease, not the song) or leukemia. Nice huh. Turned out to be the former and it was cleared up in a few weeks.

Better safe than dead.