The Grilling of Doctor #1

A few days after we found out about Tomas, we met our first surgeon. The referral was put in and dealt with with lightning speed for military insurance.

In the meantime, I had been Googling like a fiend. I figured if my doctor was using search engines, they'd work for me too. I learned a lot in a very short time. One of the things I learned was that paragangliomas are super rare. And that Carotid Body Tumors/Paragangliomas occur in about every 1-2 out of every 100,000 people.

And then I bought a lottery ticket. Well. No not really. But I really think I should, don't you?

I also learned that it's even rarer for this type of tumor to occur in younger folks and often when it does the chance that it came about because of a genetic mutation is higher, and the rates for malignancy, recurrence, and metastases also increase.

So what did that have to do with seeing the first doctor? Well... I wanted to know I had someone on my team who knew the big picture.

So... I grilled doctor #1. How many of these had he done? (2). What were the outcomes? (Both were doing fine). What kind of follow up do you do? This was the game-changer so it's not parenthetical. Well... Not much. Largely because he'd only done this in older patients. But maybe he would with me since I'm not 60. *gulp*

The good news we learned was this: 1) The tumor is small which means that the scary, freaky complications I'd been reading about for days would be less likely, and 2) We could wait until after baby was born to do the surgery to keep baby safe.

That day I had another ultrasound and an MRI of my head and neck. The MRI was kind of nice. I mean... It was loud as all get out, but I laid in a tube and had nowhere to go and no one to answer to for a half hour while listening to Solid Gold Oldies. I was good with that. I think they should really bill the things as mini-vacations for overstressed Moms. It could really take off!

By the time we got home that evening (after a trip to Famous Daves... Either the baby or Tomas is craving BBQ... I'm not sure which one.), the doctor had called back and confirmed that he thought my initial diagnosis was correct. Also by the time we got home, we had decided that while Dr. #1s bedside manner was nice enough, we wanted at least a second opinion and probably a different surgeon.