The Cyst On My Wrist

I like to think that I do a pretty good job of taking care of my kids.

But when it comes to taking care of myself? I could do better.

Self care is not high on my list of priorities, not because I don't want to be healthy, but because the logistics of getting myself to a doctor can get complicated.

After all, I must find a place for these children so that I can leave the house. Alone.

Hiring a babysitter for a doctor's appointment or asking The Husband to take time off from work are not great solutions. And then the whole getting-to-a-doctor-ordeal becomes a hassle and I'm not good with hassles.

So if something health-wise comes up for me, my usual course of action is to follow the Wait And See approach. Otherwise known as the Ignore It And It Will Go Away approach.

More often than not, this works.

But sometimes it doesn't

When I noticed a teeny tiny lump (not the scary kind of lump that you think of when you read 'lump', but a little cyst-like bumpy lump) on my wrist last September I decided to ignore it.

I ignored it through October and November.

I ignored it when it doubled in size in January.

I even ignored it when it kept me from bending my wrist backwards (did I really need to do a full bridge in yoga? Nope.).

In February, when pain started shooting up the back of my hand, I consulted Dr. Google, who assured me it was a harmless cyst.

So I ignored it in March and April too.

But then along came May, and with it, warm short-sleeve kind of weather.

My disgusting little lump of a friend could no longer be ignored. People were starting to stare and I was getting uncomfortable wearing long sleeves in the hot sun at the playgrounds.

So I caved, unearthed my doctor's phone number and entered the health care maze.

Which is how I ended up at the hand surgeon's office on Tuesday.

The hand surgeon whose name was Dr. ALTER.

I kid you not.

Not a people person, that Dr. Alter.

He took one look at my hand, tossed me a pamphlet and muttered something like, "Read this. It's what you have".

After three normal looking x-rays of my hand were taken, he stuck a needle in my wrist and sucked out the fluid from the cyst.

Just like that, my little lump friend was gone.

Syringe in hand, he asked me if I wanted to SEE the fluid.

To which I shrugged my shoulders with a, "Sure".

And then I was kicking myself because I thought it would be just like the time my mid-wife asked me if I wanted to see the placenta after my son was born and, caught off guard by the question, I said, "Sure" and then almost threw up when she showed it to me.

Dr. Alter squirted out the clear looking gel taken from my hand onto a paper towel in front of me.

Happy that the sight of it didn't want to make me hurl, all I could think of to say was, "Gross".

"Yeah, that's what everybody says," he told me.

Then he ace-bandaged my wrist, speed-talked into his tape recorder to document my visit, and told me to come back in 4 weeks (at which point we would most likely do this little exercise again and THEN when my little lump friend comes back a 3rd time we would go for the gold and perform the big S word. Like in a hospital. With drugs and everything).

But for now I can wear short sleeves again.