I saw my head and neck cancer specialist for my parotid lump. He did in fact do a fine needle aspiration (i.e., needle in the face) to remove some cells so they could be checked out. They will probably all be normal, benign cells... but you never know.
The procedure was fairly quick and easy. My doc injected a numbing agent into the lump itself. This felt like getting a bee sting. And there was some discomfort as the numbing stuff worked its way in. The numbing agent worked very quickly, so less than a minute later, my doc inserted a needle in to my lump and withdrew some of the fluid and cells. He prepared them for processing (I think he dropped them into a small sterile jar of saline), then stuck the needle in again. And a third time. This was to try and collect cells from a variety of locations in the lump and to try and reduce the size of the lump by removing excess fluid. It didn't hurt, but I could feel some poking/pinching type sensations as he worked. There was no bleeding to speak of.
Unfortunately, the lump didn't go down much at all. I still look like I have the mumps! And the lump still feels awkward and taut. Apparently, not every Sjogren's related lump is one giant water balloon that can be easily drained. Some are "multilocular," which means they have lots of small compartments. Without sticking the needle into each and every one, you can't drain all the fluid and thus can't get the lump down much at all. Rats.
In less than five minutes, the procedure was over and I was on my way. A few hours later, I realized that it felt like someone had punched me on that side of the face - the lump and muscles along my jawline were tense and sore. It hurt to open my mouth to eat my lunch. Two Advils later, I felt fine again. No pain. A few more hours later, I looked in the mirror and noticed that there was a small amount of swelling where the needle had been inserted. It looked sort of like a bug bite. By the next morning, the swelling was gone and the pain was gone, too.
Now I am just waiting for results, which should come in 1-2 weeks.
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