BAM! BAM! BAM!

Yesterday I had my first appointment at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The night before Jim and I went there to make sure I would be able to find the way on Wednesday. It really is a little city of itself there, one gigantic hospital building after another. It's unbelievable. I should take pictures...
Anyway, the night from Tuesday to Wednesday I only got about 3 hours of sleep. My mind was racing and mulling things over and jumping back and forth, pondering options, pondering possibilities. I kept waking up. So I woke up even earlier than I had intended and made it to my appointment just fine. The hospital is an insanely big place but pretty well structured so I had no problems finding the right offices. At first I did all the paperwork (among that an agreement that MD Anderson can use everything they take cut out of me for research. Alrighty then.), then my bloodwork got done. The wait time was not bad anywhere, although there were hundreds of people. Most of them looked very, very sick. Some looked like this was going to be their last place they turned to... Just made me think how I stood out there, all young and healthy looking and everything. And yet I was one of them. With the little "cancer patient" wristband and all.
After my blood got drawn I went to the radiology department for my ultrasound. It was the looongest ultrasound of my life and not very pleasant either. The us-technician did my entire neck veeery thoroughly. I have difficulty swallowing and breathing as it is and it feels like i have a very sore throat. So getting all the pressure over and over again was not a nice feeling. I kept talking to her and asked her what all that was and if it looked ok and it did. Until she said that 2 of my lymph nodes on the right side (the tumor side) looked suspicous. So they decided to do a biopsy to find out if the thyroid cancer cells had spread into my lymph nodes. After only about 20 minutes of waiting I got the result: positive. The lymph nodes contain thyroid cells, meaning the cancer has spread. BAM! Yet another piece of bad news. I didn't know what to say and pretty much fled this scene of misery. I just wanted to go home. I had been there for almost 5 hours anyway.
After I was over the initial shock and all the crying I researched some more. Many websites suggest that with thyroid cancer, spread to the lymph nodes is not only rather common but also not as bad news as it would be with another cancer. I'm not really buying that one yet, I will ask the surgeon about that later on today. I don't really feel ready to go back to cancer city again, but I certainly want the surgery scheduled. And they better let me do that today. I try to stay strong. But, frankly, I'm having a fucking hard time doing so. It was just yet another blow and I do not know how much more I can take.