Thursday, January 8, 2009

Surgery *Warning* This post is not for the faint of heart!

I underwent a little minor surgery today. Nothing major.

I intended to take a before picture, but I forgot. It dawned on me while I was sitting on the "operating" table at the doctor's office.

For the past six months I've had a little lump on my left knee. I noticed it sometime last Summer, thinking it was a bug bite. It was tender to the touch, and about the size of a dime. Then it went away.

A couple of months later, it came back. Same place. This time it swelled up to about the size of a quarter and really hurt to touch it. I figured it was a spider bite or something, and had gotten infected. So I took a safety pin and tried to poke it, to drain it out. Got nothing out but a little blood. A week later, it just went away.

Fast forward to last Monday. 5 months later, with no occurrence with "the bump", when suddenly it starts to swell again. And hurts. Like the dickens! It's GARGANTUAN, and turning a purplish-red color. I can't even stand to have my pant leg touch it, it's so tender. I've started to feel the circulation cut off in the back of my knee and down my leg.
This morning when I got dressed for my run, my running tights rubbing on my knees KILLED!
So, I decided it was time to get it checked out.

I imagined to myself all the crazy possible causes of "the bump": a spider really did bite me, and then planted it's spawn under my skin, and the swelling is all the baby spiders trying to get out.
Or, it's a malignant tumor, and I have some kind of weird bone cancer that presented in my knee, but is now spreading through my whole body.

Or, it's just some weird infection, caused by who knows what. Shaving my legs? Bumping into a table? Falling down? Or a spider bite? That's what my doctor thinks anyway. So, his solution was the drain the fluid out of my bump. So he took me into this sterile room. Has his nurse unload all this sterile equipment onto a sterile tray. I got a little nervous when I was needles, scalpels, scissors, and other stuff scary doctor stuff. So, my doctor numbed the surface, then took his scalpel, and cut open my bump. Then he proceeded to squeeze.

The squeezing was COMPLETE TORTURE! Apparently the anesthetic only worked for my skin and not underneath. HOLY CRAP it hurt. Massive amounts of puss and blood came oozing out of my knee. What, TMI? I warned you this post would be gross, so Wah.

So, after all is said and done, I can only surmise that what I had on my knee was just a completely freaky, huge, ginormous ZIT.

19 comments:

Peggy said...

Thanks for not sharing a picture! I'm glad it was nothing serious.

Anonymous said...

Ew. I'm glad baby spiders didn't come crawling out of it! How weird, though that it kept coming back to the same spot. Persistent zit from hell, maybe. Wow.

Thanks for your vote! You are awesome. Actually, though, you'd still be awesome even if you didn't vote for me!

Erin said...

I would totally be thinking that something was horribly wrong with me if something like that kept coming back. I have a touch of hypochondria. Okay, maybe a lot.

Are you doing better now? I bet it's still tender.

Kristina P. said...

Wow, I would totally assume I had leg cancer or something. I tend to do that.

Glad you're OK!

Shauna said...

Glad you are okay. L♥ve and Hugs to you my sweet friend!

Anonymous said...

oh my gosh! i had the same exact thing!! and i freaked out about it FOR LIKE EVER!!!!!!!!!! then spencer was like--"it is a FUNKY ZIT LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!"
so i did and it went away!!!!

i think it would have went away sooner if i had stopped picking at it!!!! i'm a picker.

Sarah said...

Thats OK I get weird things too!

Annette Lyon said...

I was expecting so much worse based on the warning. But maybe I just find gross things fascinating.

All I can say is OUCH!

Cynthia said...

Ack! I'm glad you got it taken care of but eeewww for you! I'd be freaked out if it were my knee too.

Jen said...

Serious?! Eww. Yuck. Gross. I hope that takes care of it. I would have passed out when I saw the scalpel, scissors and all. I'm a huge wuss! You are much braver than I! I hope it gets better now and that took care of the problem.

Love Fam said...

You seriously crack me up! I don't always leave a comment, but I love reading your blog! Hope your knee gets better!

Devri said...

whoa!! Glas your ok, and dang, I wanted to see the shots...

CJ, The Purple Diva said...

Well goodness. I'm so glad they got that zit out! I hate it when that happens! :-)
Glad you're okay and it was nothing really serious! Thanks for sparing us the pictures! Your description was good enough for me!

Mikki said...

Eeww! Gross! Ok, not really, well, kind of. Anyway, I'm glad you're ok. That's pretty strange though. Is there any way he can find out for sure what it was?

tammy said...

Sounds incredibly painful but I am laughing a little at the thought of a ginormous knee zit. Glad they didn't have to amputate or anything.

Shelle-BlokThoughts said...

HAHAHAHA...k i was way scared...thinking it might be a tumor or something. Wanted to give you a hug!

Then it was a ZIT!

LOLROFL!!!

Word Verifier reads THILLY--think your verifier has a lisp...because that story WAS really SILLY or THILLY as your Verifier says it! lol!

Lisa Loo said...

HOLY CRAP is right!! Love that someone else has nightmares about spider bites. Glad you are alright--maybe if you just rub your knee with zit cream daily--in the future?

mCat said...

Nice to know that it's nothing serious, but would have LOVED pictures!!

Elisa said...

Glad it wasn't knee cancer. That would not be good.

But then again, knee zits aren't either.

Here's to hoping you do not get any more knee zits!

Miss you.