Surgery Tale

Hello there. This is my story of cysts, surgery, and grossness. Prepare yourself.

As with all good stories, this one doesn't begin as they tell me to count down from 100 and give me The Good Stuff which puts me into the comforting sleep of hospital grade painkillers.

No, this story begins with a mole. Matter of fact, the preface to this story has already been told. The problem is, I'm a picker. I picked at that damn mole for weeks, until it would bleed, at which point I would freak out, leave it alone for the rest of the day, only to pick back up later that evening or the next day.

Well, lo and behold, you pick at something long enough and it causes something bad to happen. Enter the cyst. A sebaceous cyst is the inflammation of an oil gland on a hair follicle. I'm convinced that what would end up being two cysts were a direct result of messing with that mole-wound. The two cysts are directly below it, so any leaking or fluid or whatever that came out of that mole could back up those glands and cause the cyst.

Of course, the doctor told me I was completely wrong. And I'm just going on common sense here, so don't look at me. I also read it on some random medical website, and as you and I know, random things you read on the internets must be true, because they're on the internets.

Anyway, I tried to pop the bump like any other, assuming nothing was wrong. Of course, it hurt like all hell and wouldn't pop.

So I left it alone. And it grew.

Once it got big enough to begin worrying about, squeezing it not only caused massive pain, what little would come out was ... gross.

This whole damn story is gross. But you know that by now.

Anyway, we got the stellar idea of lancing it with a metal pin.

Important Medical Safety Note: Do NOT use safety pins to lance a damn thing. Safety pins do not sterilize under heat because of their non-reactionary metals.

As you can imagine, I didn't know this. So after giving it a good lancing, it still hurt like hell but it did relieve some pressure.

Soon it got more red and more infected. Finally, I drug myself to the clinic. After doing some research and figuring out it was a sabecious cyst (and what that was, exactly), I told the doctor as much.

"Well, you're right," he said. "And up here," he said, pointing to another painful spot, "you have another one."

"Well, shit." Pretty much sums it up.

I got a consult with a local surgeon who took one painful look (I say that as he poked the hell out of it and I go "Ooooow!") and tells me it's infected. No shit. Good thing you're a doctor.

Anyway, I tell him my mole theory and he says its bunked. After putting some local anesthetic, he takes a sample of what was inside that bastard and then bandages it up.

The clinic doctor had given a prescription for an antibiotic that cost $70+ which may not be much to some, but in my household that's too damn much. After explaining to the surgeon I had went a day without antibiotics--a day I shouldn't have gone without--he grimaced, then gave me a much cheaper antibiotic, I thanked him as much, and I'm taking it to this day (got something like 3-4 days left).

He then scheduled surgery for a week and a half later. It shouldn't be infected by then, or if it was, perhaps he would remove it and we'd just have to pack and repack it with gauze until it healed completely. Another bit of grossness I could do without.

A few days later, my wife got a phone call.

"Is this Evan Erwin's wife?"

"Yes?"

"Is he taking his antibiotics?"

Such a strange question, particularly in that they called me to make damn sure I was doing as much. After Ericka told them I certainly was, they dropped the bomb: The wound had both Staph and MRSA. Holy shit. That's bad stuff. The MRSA was probably picked up by Ericka at her job, where one of the mentally handicapped individuals there has it.

Either way, not good feelings.

Not to mention my damn neck was throbbing most of the day. Constant pain is not something I'm used to, and thank God the clinic doc gave me some Darvacet derivative to take care of it. I was buzzy for a few days, but otherwise okay.

Then, of course, I get sick. That helped things.

After a few days, while I had a cold, my neck stopped hurting. It was no longer painful to sleep and the wound was closing and rapidly at that. Soon, they began to shrink in size as well. Yay!

Arriving at the hospital I was ready to get this over with. They told me to show up at 11AM, and there I was, fifteen minutes early ready to get the show on the proverbial road.

Forms and an armband later and I'm in the Embarrassment Sheet (i.e. The Gown) waiting for surgery.

"It'll be about 30 minutes to an hour," the nurse warns.

Holy cow, what a damn liar.

After 90 minutes the kids were bouncing off the walls, whining, and bored. I had Ericka take them home and told her I would call her when something happened.

For the next five hours, nothing happened at all.

Earth-crushing boredom set in and I was ready to beg them to cut me open and finish this thing.

At some point I laid down and fell asleep. Partly from boredom and hunger--due to the surgery I hadn't eaten since midnight the night prior. It was going on 5PM.

After being wheeled into pre-op (remember when you watched ER and learned stuff like this?), I chatted with the nurses and begged them to speed the process up. They laughed.

"Honey, I wish," she said.

One of the funniest moments was after getting a shot of versed (technically Midazolam), I was talking with the nurse and felt its effects go over me. They didn't knock me out or anything, but I felt a wave of numbness go over me. However, it didn't impair my speech so I just kept on bragging on Annie or Abby or whomever.

The anesthesiologist came in and the nurse whispered, "I gave him versed but it didn't work."

Ha, it worked lady. Maybe that was why I was so damn doped up when I left the hospital... "Just to make sure," I can imagine her saying, pumping me full of the stuff.

Anyway, I get in there and I have to crawl on a bed where they have some sort of bean bag setup, a bean bag which can harden on demand or something. I'm not sure, I didn't have a great deal of consciousness before I woke up thirsty and with a sore neck.

My first thoughts: What the hell is on my...

"DON'T TOUCH YOUR NECK!" I hear, startling me awake. What the hell?

Nurse Ratchet was across the room, her grandmotherly looks and spiteful voice. Her scowl told me not to push it, so I merely traced the lines of tape around the wound and was satisfied at that.

Over the course of the next few days the bandage was removed the cauterized scars laid bare. He had 'cleaned out' the cysts instead of removing them (WTF?) but said they look great. With that said, they are healing nicely.

I also had that damn mole removed. We got another funny call today. They said it has "absolutely no cancer." Which I guess is better than a smidgen of cancer.

Lengths better than a smattering of cancer.

Few yards shy of a dash of cancer.

And in southern Florida is the tropic of cancer...

Told you people. Puns are friends.

When every star fall brought you to tears again
We are the very hurt you sold