Warning, long boring rambling about my recent medical experiences follows.
Off and on for about 2 years now I've been having sinus and ear problems. Mostly, my ear will feel clogged up and once in a while I will feel sinus pressure. When it gets bad I'll go to the doctor, get some antibiotics, and take those for a week or so. After feeling no improvement, the normal treatment is to give me a shot of antibiotics and a steroid shot and that usually clears it up for a few months, but so far it has always came back.
During this time, I have noticed some redness/swelling in the back of my throat and it almost looks like little bubbles on the same side where I have the ear issues. I've shown this to doctors and they usually say something like "yes, it looks like there is some irritation on that side" and they seem generally unconcerned about it, so I have also not been concerned.
Well, a couple of weeks ago my wife told me one of her coworkers had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The way he found out about it was when an ENT looked up his nose to diagnose head congestion and spotted a growth in his nose. They did a biopsy on the growth and it turned out to be a very serious type of cancer and it was already far advanced. With treatments he has maybe 4-5 years left to live if he is still in stage 3 (whatever that means), less time if he is already to stage 4.
Being somewhat of a hypochondriac, when I heard this I became really scared about this thing in my throat. The next day I scheduled an appointment with an ENT just to get it straightened out once and for all. He looked around, stuck a camera up my nose and down my throat, felt the bumps, told me everything looked normal and the bumps look like inflamed lymphoid tissue, similar to tonsils and adenoids. I have had my tonsils and adenoids removed when I was younger, but the ENT acted like it is almost impossible to remove all of the adenoids and this was just that same type of tissue left over and had been irritated due to allergies and drainage. He suggested getting a C.T. scan of my head to verify that nothing showed up that he couldn't see. I had the scan the next day (last Wednesday).
Today I went in to review the scan. He said everything looks good, there is no visible mass/tumor anywhere and the only thing that really shows up is the thing I have been able to see in my throat for the last few years. My options are: 1) continue to treat it as I have been and keep an eye on the thing in my throat to make sure there are no changes 2) have it removed and do a biopsy on it just to make sure.
I get the impression from him that he doesn't think it is anything to worry about, but he is willing to remove it and check it if I feel like it would make me feel better. It would definitely make me feel better to have it out and know for sure, but the process of getting it out would not be fun at all. I would have an outpatient surgery, be unconscious for 30 minutes to an hour while he cut it out and cauterized the cut. For the next 2 weeks I would have a sore throat, wouldn't be able to talk much, and wouldn't be able to exert myself.
Another advantage to having it removed is that I think it may be blocking my eustachian tube and causing the clogging of my ear.
Right now, I have allergy testing scheduled for Friday afternoon and I think I'll continue to think about the other decision for a while. I'm leaning toward having it done but any type of surgery scares me a bit. But, I think the end result of having it out and knowing everything was OK would do a lot for me just emotionally. And, it might actually clear up a lot of my problem. Also, if I do have a serious problem (the doctor said the chance is "very very very remote") I would need to know about it as soon as possible.
In any case, I'm sure I'm being overly cautious and probaby don't have anything to worry about, but I'm not sick much and when something is wrong with me (especially if it lasts for 2 years!) I fear the worst.
*sigh*