I don't know how to start this without being all sensationalist about it but the tongue-in-cheek clickbait title is designed to get you reading so here goes.
I've spent the last few days mulling over the 'what if's' after an urgent referral to have a weird lump on my finger investigated. The main aim of this was to determine that it wasn't a cancerous tumour but sometimes it's the unsaid that makes you think the worst. Only a handful of people knew where I was going today although a few more have seen the recent dressing on my finger and tried to probe (no pun intended) as to what was wrong.
Let me backtrack slightly (this is the gory bit).
The papercut thing is true. I had a tiny nick on my finger (left index finger, on the left hand side of it, just below the nail) sometime after the New Year. It healed up with a small scab but the scab never really fell off. A small lump formed behind the scab and didn't stop growing. Plus it kept weeping and bleeding. It was more of an irritant because it was growing at the side of my finger
My initial thoughts were that I may have a cyst that I could pop on film which would go viral on YouTube however a quick trip to see the nurse practitioner at my local doctor's surgery didn't diagnose anything specific other than it should heal up / dry up if kept exposed to the air and a course of antibiotics wouldn't go a miss.
The lump seemed to stop growing but it was hurting. A LOT. I finished the antibiotics and examined it. The edge of the lump seemed to have come away from the finger and was attached by a 'root'. It was temping to try and pull it off but just moving it around made it hurt even more and just a small knock started the bleeding again. I kept it uncovered for a while but occasionally it was more convenient to cover it up - to stop it from getting nudged and also for aesthetic reasons. I was going through plasters and gauze at an alarming rate.
About a week after I finished the course of antibiotics, the lump started to grow again. This time it was growing rather quickly, had become more sore and was still bleeding. I left it another week then had to go and see the doctor again. He was so concerned about it that he put in for a dermatology referral there and then, prescribed another course of antibiotics and advised me to keep it covered up - this time giving me some proper dressings. This was on the 25th February.
The next day, I had a phone call from the appointments team requesting that I come in today (2nd March). In between then and now the lump has grown another 50% however the NHS wheels turn very quickly when they need to and for that I am so grateful.
So that is where I have been today. I've been informed that the lump is most probably Pyogenic Granuloma - so I'll let you Google Image search that one although I do have some pretty gory photos of my own - and the cause of it is unknown. I've been told that the lump probably isn't a tumour but there is concern about the size of it and the rapidity of its growth so it is to be removed fairly urgently by a plastic surgery team - as in next Wednesday. It will then be tested just to make sure.
My emotions are all over the place. I started off in denial (jokes about having fingers taken off - that type of thing), to not really believing what the specialist said today because she only looked at it and never touched it or poked at it with a big stick, to just wanting to get the whole procedure over and done with. I'm very much in a FML mood at the moment, veering between wanting to forget all about it and wanting to get horribly drunk and bawl my eyes out. It's all the 'probablys' that are making me over-think everything. Plus, you never really realise how much you use your non-dominant hand's index finger until you can't use it. It's my best nose-picking finger for a start and I've deleted so much of this - not because I didn't want to include any of it but the dressing that I'm currenly having to wear is so big that I keep hitting two keys at once... #firstworldproblems
I have no idea how to finish this without pretending to be upbeat or without being melodramatic so... to be continued...
I've spent the last few days mulling over the 'what if's' after an urgent referral to have a weird lump on my finger investigated. The main aim of this was to determine that it wasn't a cancerous tumour but sometimes it's the unsaid that makes you think the worst. Only a handful of people knew where I was going today although a few more have seen the recent dressing on my finger and tried to probe (no pun intended) as to what was wrong.
Let me backtrack slightly (this is the gory bit).
The papercut thing is true. I had a tiny nick on my finger (left index finger, on the left hand side of it, just below the nail) sometime after the New Year. It healed up with a small scab but the scab never really fell off. A small lump formed behind the scab and didn't stop growing. Plus it kept weeping and bleeding. It was more of an irritant because it was growing at the side of my finger
My initial thoughts were that I may have a cyst that I could pop on film which would go viral on YouTube however a quick trip to see the nurse practitioner at my local doctor's surgery didn't diagnose anything specific other than it should heal up / dry up if kept exposed to the air and a course of antibiotics wouldn't go a miss.
The lump seemed to stop growing but it was hurting. A LOT. I finished the antibiotics and examined it. The edge of the lump seemed to have come away from the finger and was attached by a 'root'. It was temping to try and pull it off but just moving it around made it hurt even more and just a small knock started the bleeding again. I kept it uncovered for a while but occasionally it was more convenient to cover it up - to stop it from getting nudged and also for aesthetic reasons. I was going through plasters and gauze at an alarming rate.
About a week after I finished the course of antibiotics, the lump started to grow again. This time it was growing rather quickly, had become more sore and was still bleeding. I left it another week then had to go and see the doctor again. He was so concerned about it that he put in for a dermatology referral there and then, prescribed another course of antibiotics and advised me to keep it covered up - this time giving me some proper dressings. This was on the 25th February.
The next day, I had a phone call from the appointments team requesting that I come in today (2nd March). In between then and now the lump has grown another 50% however the NHS wheels turn very quickly when they need to and for that I am so grateful.
So that is where I have been today. I've been informed that the lump is most probably Pyogenic Granuloma - so I'll let you Google Image search that one although I do have some pretty gory photos of my own - and the cause of it is unknown. I've been told that the lump probably isn't a tumour but there is concern about the size of it and the rapidity of its growth so it is to be removed fairly urgently by a plastic surgery team - as in next Wednesday. It will then be tested just to make sure.
My emotions are all over the place. I started off in denial (jokes about having fingers taken off - that type of thing), to not really believing what the specialist said today because she only looked at it and never touched it or poked at it with a big stick, to just wanting to get the whole procedure over and done with. I'm very much in a FML mood at the moment, veering between wanting to forget all about it and wanting to get horribly drunk and bawl my eyes out. It's all the 'probablys' that are making me over-think everything. Plus, you never really realise how much you use your non-dominant hand's index finger until you can't use it. It's my best nose-picking finger for a start and I've deleted so much of this - not because I didn't want to include any of it but the dressing that I'm currenly having to wear is so big that I keep hitting two keys at once... #firstworldproblems
I have no idea how to finish this without pretending to be upbeat or without being melodramatic so... to be continued...