When You Lose a Second Head

For a number of months I have had a bump on my neck--some kind of cyst, I guess. It wasn't beautiful, but it wasn't terribly ugly either. A couple of weeks ago it became larger, and my husband (gracious man that he is) said it looked like a second head. It was very ugly and very painful. I decided it was time to go to the doctor and have it removed.

When the doctor saw my second head, she said I needed to be on antibiotics for a week before she worked on removing it. So I took antibiotics and it diminished in size and pain. Because it was still ugly, I kept it covered with a large band aid which had the added benefit of irritating my skin. So now I was sporting a second head and a skin irritation that made me look like I had been exposed to something like agent pink.

I went to the doctor again this past Thursday. After many little shots of anesthesia and after she worked on the head for about 50 minutes, it was all removed. Four stitches were added to seal the deal, and I was told to put cream on the site along with a bandage and to use paper tape to help the skin irritation.

Now three days later the whole thing is looking much better. The stitches aren't pretty, but they have reaped some sympathy for me here at home, and I think they'll do the same thing at work. The paper tape has not worked very well--it tends to migrate to other parts of my neck or onto the neck of my shirt. I think I will only wear a band aid when I'm out and about for just a couple more days.

I hope with the removal of my second head that I didn't lose any important brain cells. It didn't seem to know much anyway, so I think I'm good.

The moral of this story seems to be when you have a growth, have it taken care of before it morphs into something very painful and unpleasant. I probably won't learn that moral. I'm a great one to procrastinate. That's one of the rules I live by.