Monday 3/17/2020 was the first business day after my initial Dr. office visit the previous Friday. I received a call that afternoon and was scheduled for an appointment the next day. During my appointment, the Dr. took a look at the lump in my neck and suggested that they perform a fine needle aspiration in order to get some lymph fluid out of the lump. The pathology department could use this fluid to determine whether the lump was the result of cancer cells. He was available to schedule me for the fine needle aspiration that same afternoon a few miles down the road at the hospital. The doctor also suggested they do bloodwork and run a special test for Bartonella or “cat scratch fever”. They also switched my antibiotic. The new antibiotic would be the appropriate solution if the Bartonella test came back positive. At that point, I was really hoping this whole thing could have been due to “cat scratch fever”.

The fine needle aspiration was somewhat unpleasant, but not terribly painful. Due to the location of my lump, they performed an ultrasound guided aspiration. The ultrasound allowed the doctor to work the needle into the proper area without hitting any nerves or the carotid artery. Overall, he used two separate needles to get the fluid he needed for pathology. After inserting the needle, he had to move it around a bit in order to draw up the fluid. This was the most uncomfortable part, but as I mentioned it wasn’t terribly painful.