Runs in the family

As many of you know my family has a long and close history of cancer, so I am always looking for signs of cancer in me. Now, I know what everyone will say “why do you participate in activites that cause cancer?” To that I have no answer. Anyway recently I found a lump on my neck. I was shaving and hit a little bump. I thought it was an ingrown hair, I get lots of those, so I wasn’t worried. My new job requires that I shave daily or wear a beardnet, and those things are scratchy so I shave my face daily. Everytime I shaved the lump got bigger. It didn’t hurt but it seemed to never stop growing. I still wasn’t to concerned. I assumed it was nothing and would go away on it’s own.

About a week ago I started to get concerned. I thought “either this is the worlds biggest zit or it might be something.” I call tumors “something.” I hate that word, and worry that by saying that word outloud it will be bad luck. I decided that I needed to do “surgery” on it to see if it was just a zit. I poked, I jabbed, I picked and bled, but alas the lump was still there and I was fairly certain it was not a zit. I started to freak out.

By this time the lump had stopped growing, but was getting hard. It was very noticable, probably because the skin was scabbing over, but mostly because of it’s size. As I have alluded to, I just started a new job and my insurance wont kick in for a few months, so going to the doctor seemed out of the question, it is just so costly. Two weeks after I first felt the lump it was bigger than ever, still not painful and I had ruled out an ingrown hair and a zit. So I decided this something was “something.”

To give you an idea of how big it was at this point, I would say it was the size of two marbles combined. It was protruding from my neck about 1/2 an inch. I decided to go to the doctor. I needed to know what it was, and I needed to get it taken care of. I am 26 and didn’t want to ignore something as potentially dangerous as this because of money. Can I honestly put a price on my health?  I asked around who I should go see, and  what people thought an exam would cost and got the name of a doctor to go see.  I really didn’t want to go to the Dr. and have him say  “oh it’s nothing” so I decided to do “surgery” one more time before I made the appointment. If I had the same luck as last time I would make the call.

So again I poked prodded, jabbed and picked and nothing. My heart sank I have “something.” In desperation I went hog-wild on my neck. I was going to win this battle on my own. Zit, ingorwn hair, tumor…whatever it was I was going to remove it. I was a man on a mission. I ignored the pain, I ignored the blood, I ignored the fact that I could get a staff infection, this was coming out now.  Imagine my surprise when I single handedly popped the worlds biggest zit! It exploded like a waterballon. I could HEAR and FEEL the pressure release. It was a mixture of blood…and whatever that white crap is in a zit. My neck looks like Hell, but I am cancer free…for now.

Peace