Worried more than ever

Hi everyone 

was recently referred to ent due to lump in neck. Went to ent appointment and was referred for ultrasound and back of tongue biopsy. As most of you know you need to go to pre op first which I attended today, however was quite surprised to hear that I have had an mri and ct scan booked in. As you can imagine was quite worrying. Don’t really know how to feel at the moment.

any info would be greatly appreciated.

jaqui 

  • Hi Jaqui,

    Welcome to the forum. 

    Waiting for a diagnosis is pretty scary and we all tend to read too much into things and our imaginations work overtime.

    Half of us worry that not enough is being done and ask why is it all taking so long, the other half worry because we're having more scans and tests done than we expected and everything is moving so fast! 

    Try to remember that the NHS works to pretty rigid guidance set by NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). Their own guidance to clinicians on this guidance states "that: "Once NICE guidance is published, health professionals are expected to take it fully into account when exercising their clinical judgment." They are allowed to depart from the guidance BUT they need to have good reason and if anything goes wrong they could easily lose their jobs and be sued for negligence, so this rarely happens.

    So whatever tests and scans you go for are dictated by the symptoms you present - the clinicians who deal with you have little control over which of these you are referred to.

    What NHS staff should do is explain this to people, but so often this doesn't happen.  

    I realise none of this will stop you worrying, but it may help explain what's going on in the background. 

     

    Good luck with your scans!

    Dave 

  • Hi davek

    thank you for your feedback much appreciated. I always struggle this time of year aswel as I lost my mum 19 years ago to cancer so pretty much all over the place at the moment I’ll let you all know as soon as I have my results. 

    Like you say some of us don’t get all the necessary checks and I know i shouldn’t complain. 

    Thanks once again dave for your reply

    jaqui