Despite my tendency to be dramatic, I am not very interested in getting all worked up about my tumor. I mean, he’s my buddy right? Last night I was feeling pretty fragile—I have a tumor, my biopsy hurt like a bitch, I have a cold… I was sniveling in my room and suddenly it occurred to me that I have Vicodin for my upcoming foot surgery (Feb. 8) and that I was in pain, so taking pain killers was not out of the question. I have never taken pain killers before. When I had my wisdom teeth out I only took ibuprofen… So anyway, wowy, it took the edge off. According to my medically-inclined housemates, it’s a rare person who can get good and stoned on Vicodin, but I am that person.
Fast forward to this morning. The internet makes not worrying difficult. For about 20 minutes I was sure I had finally come upon the answer: I have fatal, Merkel cell, skin cancer. I couldn’t be dissuaded by the fact that the average Merkel cell patient is 69 and has suppressed immune system problems (HIV, organ transplant, etc.) I was sure that I was actually one of the 5% (of 1200 annual cases) of people under 50 who get this kind of cancer. It grows quickly and metastasizes to your lymph nodes and I have a lymph node poking out!
You can imagine my relief when I found out that Merkel tumors are fixed and mine is not!
Lesson: stop google-ing scalp tumors! My doctor told me the name of what I probably have. It’s something like “truculoma.” But that is not google-able. Also, “benign scalp tumor” yields nothing of interest. Here is the info I do have: this is a rare kind of tumor, it is benign, it occurs in the scalp, it’s not fixed, and it usually runs in families. I won’t know anything else until next week when my biopsy comes back. Until then, I’m not going to act like my mom and emotionally manipulate people (in a loving way) into thinking things are more serious than they are. Sorry if you felt emotionally manipulated by the second paragraph, I can empathize.
No skiing today: the pass is too snowy. Boo.
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