Nothin' like kickin' ya while you're down

It's not like there hasn't been enough going on in my life. I'm barely grasping my sanity, my patience is tried on a daily basis and there are times I feel like exploding into a ball of rage.

Tuesday I noticed the underside of my chin was sore. Extremely tender and as I felt around, I noticed a lump. This has happened in the past, and it has resolved itself. This time it's a little more painful, and the lump is bigger. I ignored it as best as I could (which ain't sayin' much) for two days until Friday when I decided to call my doctor.

So, off I go to the doctor, where I explain what's going on, she checks me over and seems puzzled that this lump is not accompanied by any other sickness/symptoms. Then she whips out a little tape measure to actually get a measurement on said lump.

At this point, I'm starting to freak out a little.

She tells me that she's pretty certain it's an infection, but that she wants to send me for a CT scan. Right away. This is the point where the tears fill my eyes and she asks if I'm okay. Then the tears spill over and she says "You've been reading awful things on the internet, haven't you?" and I nod.

She says again that she is doubtful it's anything other than just an infection, but to go ahead and get this checked out, to be on the safe side.

I'm sent off to the waiting room with a script for an antibiotic, while they call my insurance to get it all approved and off I go to the hospital. I sit in the car a moment before I start to leave, and I call my husband to tell him what's going on. And I cry. And I get angry. And then I realize I need to concentrate on the road because even though the hospital is just 2 blocks over, I don't exactly want to end up there in a body bag.

I get there, and lucky for me, I find where I'm supposed to be on the first try. I get through registration, make my way through the maze of hallways back to where radiology is and then I wait.

And I try to keep my shit together because there's other people in the waiting room. But on the inside I'm FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. This is not something you exactly want to do on your own. I wished that I had someone - ANYONE - with me right then, if nothing but to just hold my hand while I waited.

I had no idea what to expect from this test - so imagine my surprise when I found out they'd be injecting me with iodine. The woman that did the scan was wonderful, and she explained everything and told me about how I'd feel a warm sensation throughout my whole body once she injected me, and that I'd probably have an icky taste in my mouth. It didn't take long, and other than the warmth and feeling like I peed my pants (the warm sensation doesn't miss ANY body part) and then the weird spinning I felt (I'm not even sure I can explain it - it wasn't the type of spinning that makes you queasy -- this was crazy spinning as if I was out of control and losing consciousness, but even that didn't feel the same like when you're about to pass out ... really it was just weird).

After the scan was done, she told me that since the doctor ordered it "stat", she wanted me to wait there for the results. This freaked me out even more.

And so I sat. For probably 40 minutes. When the woman came out, she took me aside and said she spoke to the doctor on call at my practice (not my regular doctor) and he said the results were normal and I could head on home and follow up with my doctor if I needed to.

I was relieved and immediately exhausted. It took so much out of me mentally & physically, it wasn't even funny.

I'm on the antibiotic now (taken 3 doses) and am waiting (not so patiently) for it to start working. The lump is still there, and it's still painful. I will follow up with my doctor on Monday, and hopefully by then it will have started to go away.