Three Pains in the Butt

Here is a partially gruesome story about my physical health. If you recently ate, I would recommend not reading this article in its entirety.

Around the end of July, I found a nodule on my leg. Inside thigh of my right leg just above the knee. I thought for quite some time that it might have been a bug bite that didn't go away, a bug inside my leg (like a tick head), or possibly a bug had laid eggs inside my leg. It stayed the same for about two months.

Last Thursday, it became infected. The nodule that was about 2.5 mm in diameter swelled to 2.5 cm in diameter. Around that area, my knee became red and swelled up with a diameter of 15 cm. For two days, I limped around at school. Finally on Friday, Katy and I went to Urgent Care to have it checked out.

The doctor believed that it was a sebaceous cyst. Basically, think of a gigantic zit that is too deep under the surface to come out, so it stores up to much oil and hardens into a cheese-like substance. So, the doctor prescribed cephalexin as a mild antibiotic. Then, the nurse gave me a shot in the right butt cheek of ansef (sp?). An entire gram of it. That's the WHOLE syringe. I had to sit and wait for a half hour to make sure I wasn't allergic to it. During that half hour, I was able to literally feel the gram of liquid very slowly work its way down the inside of my butt cheek.

I came back to the doctor on Sunday evening (after the Packers crushed the Vikings). The swelling hadn't gotten any smaller, only slightly moved. So, the doctor prescribed clyndamycin as a strong antibiotic. I had my blood drawn and tested for white blood cell count. Then, another nurse gave me a full syringe in the left butt cheek. She was not nearly as kind. Then, sit, wait, feel the liquid ooze down my bubble butt.

I almost instantly got a cold. It started as a bad head cold with strong headaches. After two days, the head cold moved into my lungs, which has been much more bearable. So I rested a bit on Monday, but I went back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.

By Wednesday, the infection was getting better. The cyst was drawing back into itself. So we went to the doctor for our last visit. My thought was that this would be the coolest zit popping session EVER. Second option was that she would cut it open and it would pop under the pressure and be easily drained. Reality: She tried to pop it with her fingers. Result: very painful. She injected the area directly underneath the cyst with an entire syringe of anasthetic. Result: more painful, the surface bubbled up more than I thought skin could stretch, and the cyst(s) became visible. She cut open my leg, then cut open the sac(s) of the cyst (a cyst can have multiple chambers that also need to be "loosened"). Result: maybe not weeping, but definitely gnashing of teeth. She pushed on my skin with her fingers as if she were popping a zit 3-feet down from the surface, and then she used forceps to pick at the cheese-like substance of the cyst to get out as much as she could until I couldn't bear it anymore. Result: after praying and finding more peace in the situation, I calmed my breathing, but the process went on for at least fifteen minutes leading to the anasthetic wearing off. When she felt like stopping, she packed the incision with a shoestring-length-and-width gauze and bandaged it with criss-crossed band-aids.

The next day, I skipped school. Katy had to lead most of the day alone, while the school's principal and administrator alternated who helped out. That night, we had to redress the incision. This meant first taking off the heavy duty bandages. This was a highly painful, hour-long process of pulling off a mm of the band-aid and clipping the leg hairs so I could continue. Next, Katy had to pull out the packing. It was a painful tickle for the first couple of inches of gauze. Then each fold became increasingly painful. Four things helped me through this process in this order: 1) Holy Spirit 2)Katy 3)my orange recliner 4)Get Well Dino-Sore that Katy bought for me (since Get Well Duck is somewhere packed in our garage). Then, the hot compress had to be a wet gauze pad, since it was an open wound now. Finally, more bacitracin and two large band-aids.

Now, I take 1 clyndamycin pill 4 times a day. I redress the incision twice a day, which is easier now that I can shower before I remove the band-aids. There's no stitch over the 2/3-inch incision. The doctor never told us to put a butterfly bandage over it. So I will have a football-shaped scar on my leg to mark the spot where the cyst is. If it gets inflamed again, they can lance it again or just surgically remove the whole sac. I'm praying it won't come to that. At least, not without some stronger drugs.