Rhinosinusitis, Baby!

It’s official.  I’m that can of soup with the dent in it that no one will buy.  I’m the puppy with the different sized ears that no one wants to adopt.  I am the lone irregular shirt marked 80% off at The Gap.  I am that misspelled tattoo.  I am damaged goods.

I had to wake up super early this morning to get dressed and go to the doctor.  Let’s see, he’s about the fourth doctor and second ENT that I’ve seen, all in the hopes of determining what this lump in my throat is, the one I affectionately call the Branny Bump, aka Goiter McGoiterson, aka Chick Magnet.  I have to admit, the lump is way more persistent than I am as he’s stuck around for three plus years.  Sure, he’ll go away for a few months but always come back to visit when I get a cold or when allergy season rolls into town.  Douche.

So, basically I wasn’t satisfied with what previous doctors have told me.  I’ve gotten everything from birth defect to possible Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (sweet!) but the general consensus has always been, "We don’t exactly know what it is or the cause of it but we should probably dig it out!"  Um, no thanks.  Maybe I’m just a little scalpel shy but I’m not titillated about anyone Ginsu knifing my throat all willy nilly, especially without knowing exactly what’s going on inside me.  It didn’t help when I watched an episode of Mystery Diagnosis when this woman had a large lump removed from her neck and, in the process, had one of her salivary glands or nerves or something severed and it jacked up her face and she ended up looking like a stroke victim, half of her face paralyzed and her speech slurred.  That really scared me.  And with my luck, that’s exactly what would happen.  I can’t imagine having a smooth operation.  They’d end up severing a nerve or decapitating me or even worse, circumcising…oh, wait, never mind.  You know, it’s like I can either look like I’ve swallowed a golf ball or look like Larry Flynt.  Take your pick.

At this point, though, I was just thinking that I didn’t care.  I just wanted it out of me.  I mean, maybe I’d be okay.  Maybe the operation would go smoothly and I could walk about the streets without worrying about angry villagers with torch applications on their iPhones.  I’m just tired of looking like a freak, of always being aware that I’ve got a lump there and that I shouldn’t turn my head too much or lift it too much because that makes it all the more noticeable.  You know, it’s just hard because I’m already self-conscious enough and that was just some totally cruel and unnecessary extra "freak attachment" that was placed upon me without my consent and I was tired of it.  I guess I’d rather take that chance and risk further disfigurement for that ever elusive chance at normalcy.

We went out of town for this new guy and I felt a bit better for doing so.  I don’t want to say that the medical care in my town isn’t sufficient for me but I’ve heard some not so amazing things and after my encounters with them, I wasn’t quite comfortable going back.  I felt like I wanted a definite diagnosis before any sterilization, lubrication and evisceration began.  We walked into the doctor’s office and it looked really nice inside.  As I was filling out my paperwork, I noticed they had advertisements for facial care products and services such as Botox and facial rejuvenation.  It almost looked more like a plastic surgeon’s office.

I was called in and the nurse anesthetized my nose and throat so the doctor could stick his snake cam up my nostril.  It wasn’t as sexy as it sounds.  It didn’t exactly hurt, just felt like it usually does when I go too deep when picking my nose.  And speaking of the doctor, he was pretty cool.  He was kind of goofy and talked at a frantic pace.  I almost couldn’t keep up with his breakneck language.  And then he went into Docto-speak, basically explaining what he believed was wrong with me using those hundred dollar words and then breaking it down into laymen’s terms.

Here’s the situation:  In high school, some dumb jock jumped in front of me to hit a volleyball that he was sure I was going to miss.  In the process, he slammed me in the nose with his mountain of an elbow and fractured it.  And chipped my front tooth.  But he won that point and that’s all that matters, right?  Well, turns out his meatheaded need to score not only fractured my nose and caused it to become crooked, it also caused my septum to become deviated, something that the doctor who treated me for the fracture failed to mention (which is another reason why I wanted to go to someone different for this latest examination).  Seems as though this severe deviation caused some drainage problems that effed up a branchial cleft  cyst, which just so happens to be a birth defect that I’ve always had.  When I got severely sick a few years ago, that cleft was affected by my sickness, which caused it to inflame and enlarge.  Isn’t that great how it all just worked out?  Man, I always knew I was defective.  And I always knew I hated volleyball.  I tried to tell them!  It really makes me think, too.  I wonder what other kinds of damaged I have lying dormant in me, just waiting for some kind of sickness or other trigger before it surprise attacks my body.  So, it seems as though each doctor I’ve seen discovered something about my situation but could never put it all together.  The first doctor I saw thought I might have a branchial cleft cyst but never mentioned my deviated septum.  I went to an ENT and he discovered the septum issue but acted like it wasn’t a big deal.  And as soon as he said I had a deviated septum, I kind of put two and two together and thought maybe since I had that, the phlegm wasn’t draining properly and maybe it was going into some sack in my throat or something.  I assumed this because the lump only gets large and painful when I’m sick and when I’m sick I produce a lot of phlegm.  It just seemed logical that there was a connection there that the first guy seemed to miss.  Well, this guy finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together and said, yes, the breaking of my nose triggered the inflammation of the cyst.  So, I’ve basically been spending this summer undoing all the damage this jerk off jock inflicted upon me so he could win the big game.  And the funny thing is he probably wouldn’t even care that he’s done all of this to me, that his douchebag decision to jump in front of me would cause a chain reaction of bodily malfunctions that have marred and scarred me.  Not like it matters to him, though.  I’m sure he’s off being successful somewhere, humping his football and getting his.

The doctors plan of attack was to first fix my nose.  He said he hoped straightening out the septum will allow for proper drainage, which will shrink the cyst so that it’s small enough to become virtually undetectable.  I liked the fact that he didn’t want to go cutting into my throat straight away like the other doctor.  He was thinking the least invasive, the better.  I concur!  He said he’d want me to wait around six months after the surgery to see if the cyst goes away and if it does not, then he’d want to go in and remove the cyst.  He reassured me that he would go in through a neck crease, though, to minimize scarring.  I appreciated that because one of the fears of mine, besides losing the ability to move the left side of my face, is having a huge scar running along my throat.  Not only did this guy sound like he knew what he was talking about but he put me at ease about it as well.  Not only do I trust him not to paralyze me if he does have to cut into my throat but I feel confident that I won’t look like a recovering slasher victim afterward.

All in all, I feel much better about everything.  Turns out the cyst removal might not be necessary at all and recovery from the nose surgery would only take around two days.  I think the most reassuring fact about this whole situation is that I feel like I’ve found a doctor that not only knows what he’s talking about but is comforting as well.  Another good thing about having the surgery is the fact that I’ll hopefully breathe better and not have as many  nasal problems.  I can breathe out of my nose pretty well, according to what I know but I’ve had this problem so long I might not realize I could be breathing better.  It’s like the first time I got glasses and when I put them on, I never even realized how blurred my vision was.  Might be the same way with breathing.  I also hope it will alleviate my generally annoying nose problems, such as having chronic runny nose and constant snot storage, or what the doctor says is rhinosinusitis.  It might even help the next time I get sick because when I get sick, I produce an inhuman amount of phlegm.  I know.  Try not to get too turned on as I describe my alluring qualities. 

I’m scheduled to have my sinuses scanned in a couple of weeks.  The doctor will look at them just to make sure that surgery is the way to go and to see if there’s any other funky stuff going on and I’m guessing if that all works out, the next step is surgery.  Kind of scary but I’m just glad to finally be making some progress at getting rid of this lump that has haunted me over these past few years.  Although I might not get as many ladies without that magical mass secreting the sexiness, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.  

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Everyday Entropy