The anxiety is building

 I decided to find out what exactly might happen and tried to look up what to expect with the biopsy and what exactly the procedure was like. Less than helpful and more worrying.

Here's a picture of Rocky laying on Jon's jeans while he's in the shower. He does this every time and it's absolutely adorable. 

Anyway, the only description was what they actually do, not whether there is any local anaesthetic involved or anything else. I know what a biopsy is, I didn't get any explanation other than that. So, the worrying thing is, if I had waited any longer it would be an automatic, go to surgery, do not pass go, thyroid is typically removed with lymph nodes around it if the nodule is 3 cm or bigger. So, hence the doctor needing a biopsy to determine whether it's benign or not. Typically after removal there's a very, very low (aka: zero) chance of anything like chemo or radiation.

Typically once they remove the thyroid and lymph nodes in the area you are on hormone replacement forever. That's essentially Amber right now, she had hyperthyroid 'Grave's Disease' (thyroid was enlarged) and it wasn't responding to medication so they irradiated her and killed her thyroid to get her system back in balance so she's on thyroid meds every day. Simple pill actually but it's another thing I need to look into to see how much (if any) it will cost me for that. I'm pretty sure it would be negligible, Tier 1 generic is $2 and Tier 2 is $8. There's also the chance of getting Medicaid to cover that so ::deep breath::.

It's the 'Outpatient' biopsy that I'm concerned about the cost. Less than useful information in my packet from Sharp. It may be 0-$100, it's technically not surgery that I could tell, it might fall under diagnostic services which is 15% coinsurance. It's in the ultrasound department so it could be as high as $75. I just had an ultrasound appointment and there's nothing showing up in billing for that. I had to pay $10 for the bone density scan but zero for the mammography

So yeah, biggest concerns right now is the cost of having all this done and what happens afterward. If they have to do surgery, in hospital stay is $225 /day up to 7 days, after that it's zero.  From what I've read, it's typically an outpatient situation that takes no more than a few hours. It's still surgery. 

BUT  This is all my going down the rabbit hole of worst case scenario because we know what happened last time. I like to know what's going to happen and what it entails to get mentally prepared for that.

 My prep right now is making sure my post nasal drip is minimal by Monday. Going to the pharmacy tomorrow (Sunday) and get some mucus medicine, will gargle with salt water the night before and the morning off, and hope for the best. Willing my body to stop with the serious stuff right now.