pre-birthday forced vacation
So, on Friday, I woke up with what I thought was a bug bite on my tailbone. This would not be out of the ordinary for me - I've been getting tons of bug bites this summer, especially while sleeping, in annoying places like on the soles of my feet. So I mostly ignored it, even though it hurt, and went about my day waiting for Scrabble tournament to start.
Saturday, it was bigger and more painful. I tried advil, allegra, zyrtec. Nothing seemed to help. Called the advice nurse on Sunday and was told to get to the hospital ASAP. I was in the middle of Scrabble tournament, so I had no plans to heed said advice until by Sunday afternoon games, I could barely concentrate due to pain from sitting. Car ride to ER was zero fun.
Turns out I had not a bug bite, but a cyst, pretty much right on the base of my tailbone.
The treatment for these cysts (which are called pilonidal, and apparently fairly common), is to inject local anaesthetic, then cut them open and root around in them to get whatever is causing them to break up and drain. This is a fairly painful procedure, especially the having a needle poked into your tailbone and being injected with liquid. I yelled at the NP a lot. I will not give you the rest of the details on the healing process, but it did involve vicodin, which rendered me useless on Monday and caused me to have to withdraw from the tournament. First time I've ever had to do that.
The best part is that these cysts are often recurring, which means I may have this whole procedure to look forward to again.
I've been out of work all week, since I can barely sit in a chair without pain unless I'm on vicodin, at which point I'm not actually useful to try to do work. I haven't had a week off in a long time, so I'm trying to enjoy this forced exile as much as I can. I've done a lot of knitting, and will finish season three of Dexter today. Of course my only Red Sox tickets were for yesterday, so Tim went with his surrogate girlfriend and brought me home a jersey. Their seats were about half a section up behind home plate. Jealous.
And that's the story of the lead up to my 33rd birthday, which is on Saturday. At least I think I'm well enough to go out and celebrate. And I had enough houseguests that they could entertain each other for most of the time that I was on drugs, which was good.
This adds to the list of things that I may or may not have inherited from my family's gene pool. I'm a little tired of the congenital defects that I have been given (poor vision, 45 degree spine curvature, proneness to fainting, and now tailbone cysts) but I realize that it could be much worse. Tim has taken excellent care of me. My friends were sympathetic, and I have a great house to relax in until I'm back on my feet (or on my butt, as the case may be).
Saturday, it was bigger and more painful. I tried advil, allegra, zyrtec. Nothing seemed to help. Called the advice nurse on Sunday and was told to get to the hospital ASAP. I was in the middle of Scrabble tournament, so I had no plans to heed said advice until by Sunday afternoon games, I could barely concentrate due to pain from sitting. Car ride to ER was zero fun.
Turns out I had not a bug bite, but a cyst, pretty much right on the base of my tailbone.
The treatment for these cysts (which are called pilonidal, and apparently fairly common), is to inject local anaesthetic, then cut them open and root around in them to get whatever is causing them to break up and drain. This is a fairly painful procedure, especially the having a needle poked into your tailbone and being injected with liquid. I yelled at the NP a lot. I will not give you the rest of the details on the healing process, but it did involve vicodin, which rendered me useless on Monday and caused me to have to withdraw from the tournament. First time I've ever had to do that.
The best part is that these cysts are often recurring, which means I may have this whole procedure to look forward to again.
I've been out of work all week, since I can barely sit in a chair without pain unless I'm on vicodin, at which point I'm not actually useful to try to do work. I haven't had a week off in a long time, so I'm trying to enjoy this forced exile as much as I can. I've done a lot of knitting, and will finish season three of Dexter today. Of course my only Red Sox tickets were for yesterday, so Tim went with his surrogate girlfriend and brought me home a jersey. Their seats were about half a section up behind home plate. Jealous.
And that's the story of the lead up to my 33rd birthday, which is on Saturday. At least I think I'm well enough to go out and celebrate. And I had enough houseguests that they could entertain each other for most of the time that I was on drugs, which was good.
This adds to the list of things that I may or may not have inherited from my family's gene pool. I'm a little tired of the congenital defects that I have been given (poor vision, 45 degree spine curvature, proneness to fainting, and now tailbone cysts) but I realize that it could be much worse. Tim has taken excellent care of me. My friends were sympathetic, and I have a great house to relax in until I'm back on my feet (or on my butt, as the case may be).