As I wrote about last week, I am a horrible patient. While I am very conscientious about going for my annual check-ups with my internist and gynecologist as well as my annual mammography, I rarely follow up with anything else. I am sharing my recent experience in the hope that, perhaps, I help someone else.

Three years ago, during my annual check-up, my doctor told me that she felt nodules on my thyroid and advised me to go for a sonogram. Totally negating what she was telling me, I did not go. She repeated her advice to me the following two years handing me a prescription for the sonogram every time. Making every excuse I could think to myself, i.e. I’m too busy, I still didn’t go.

This year, my husband made me go for the sonogram; even calling to make the appointment for me. The sonogram  showed that I had nine suspicious nodules on my thyroid all of which needed to be biopsied. Consequently, I had to endure a two hour procedure, during which I was awake but had to lie perfectly still, as a minimum of nine needles were injected into my neck one at a time and biopsies of each nodule were taken.

Thereafter, I was told that depending on the amount of testing that had to be done on each sample, I would have the results in five days or two weeks. After five days, I called my doctor who told me that more testing was required and that I would not have results for an additional two weeks.

Those two weeks were the longest of my life. During that time I imagined every worst case scenario. And, mentally, I kept beating myself up for not listening to my doctor and going for the simple sonogram three years earlier when she first advised me to.

Luckily, for me, all of the nodules were benign. But I now realize that I dodged a bullet and, subsequently, learned a very valuable lesson. While I am conscientious about my annual mammography as well as the importance of early detection for battling breast cancer, I have to listen to my doctor’s advice in every aspect of my health. The next time she tells me to go for a test, I will not hesitate and go.

You should never be too busy to take care of yourself.