Cysts are doin' it for themselves

For years, it slowly grew on me. It became an old friend. We would talk about politics, sports, music...anything to kill time in this lonely world of ours. But alas, he grew too big and it was time to have him removed from my head. I visited a nearby ear, nose, and throat doctor to have my epidermoid cyst removed.

First of all, who decided that ear, nose, and throat was a standard doctor grouping? Why not tongue, armpit, and navel? Or scalp, eyelash, and buttocks? And why was I referred to an ear, nose, and throat doctor for something on my head? Perhaps we will never know.

I was called in promptly at 6:30 PM. Since he has a specialty, dammit, he looked in my throat and ears, and made sure I could move my tongue to both sides. He had a medical student observing everything, and peppered her with questions.

Back in the day, they would just take a scalpel and cut the whole cyst out. It was an operation that involved a scalpel, a lot of hard squeezing, and some stitches. That was my experience with the famous Dr. Klein, who later went to jail for firebombing a colleague's house. However, they do it differently now. They just poke a little whole, squeeze out all they can, and shrink it down. Then it's small enough to save effort on removal, if necessary. But it would have to wait an hour or so. It was back to the waiting room for me.

I sat back down, browing through crap on my Treo 700, and others in the waiting room continued to be called in. An Indian family, numbering seven in all, took their places in the room. They all needed ear exams at once. Finally, at around 9 PM, I was called in for the procedure.

The doctor advised me to take my shirt off because the procedure "can get messy." I said, "Warning - the front row WILL get wet." The med student laughed, and the doctor asked me what I meant. I got numbed up locally, couldn't feel a thing, and within ten minutes I was all empty. No stitches, but the doctor packed the pus capsule with gauze.

So on Monday, I will have a head that can be shaved for charity events. Pretty sweet!

Hey, wanna see a picture of it? Here you go.