Earlier this year Joe noticed a lump under his left arm. His primary care sent him for an ultrasound which was inconclusive so he had an MRI done. That was inconclusive as well, so he referred him to a surgeon.
I went with him to the appointment. The surgeon walked in, felt the area and said “yea, it’s a lipoma” (not to be confused with a lymphoma). He went on to explain it wasn’t cancerous, but would continue to grow, so he’d have to schedule surgery to have it removed. He remarked that he wished Joe’s doctor had sent him over before having all the unnecessary scans done. Luckily our insurance is very good and the ultrasound was $45 and the MRI was $100, so it could have been worse. But that’s still $145 we didn’t need to spend.
Joe’s surgery was scheduled for November 18th since we knew he’d need time off work to recover and two of the days would be covered by Thanksgiving. The day of surgery we got to the hospital at 5:35 am to check-in for his 7:30 am procedure. We’ve never had a procedure at this particular hospital (Central DuPage) before but I liked how organized they were. Not only is there a screen in the waiting room updating the status of each patient (using a number they give you at check-in to keep everyone’s privacy), but they also text you updates. Unfortunately those updates tend to be delayed. By the time I got the one stating Joe was in surgery and doing well I was being led back to a consultation room to talk to the surgeon. That part freaked me out a little but luckily he was just telling me everything went well.
Everyone was really nice, everyone except one douchebag in the waiting room were wearing their masks properly, and all things considered it was uneventful. We were home by 10:30 am.
One snag was when I was talking to the surgeon I realized no one had ever scheduled Joe’s follow-up visit he’d need before being released back to work. We were under the impression it would be on November 29th so he could go back on the 30th but when I called the office (from Joe’s recovery room), they had no appointments available so he had to wait until December 1st with a return to work on the 2nd (assuming no complications).
Update 12/6/22 – He was cleared for work and returned on December 2nd. Everyone missed him as they fell behind without him there and also having people out sick. He got his biopsy results on the 1st and they confirmed the growth was benign. It had almost doubled in size between when he first saw the surgeon in mid September, though.