Good God That’s Ugly

About a week ago, I began noticing that the cyst under my arm had started acting up again. That red bump started appearing just as it had a year ago. By Friday morning I got concerned and called my Doctor. As luck would have it, I could have gotten in that very day, but as bad luck would have it, I had no car!! So, I opted for an appointment Tuesday morning.

Dr. Reed gave me two choices – go home and put a hot compress on it, hoping to draw it out and then see her again when I was ready – or she could remove the blood swelling that morning in the surgical room. I opted for the removal that day. Naturally, not being a lover of blood and gore, I looked away as she froze that part of my arm and began the procedure of draining the blood and pus. I knew it would be sore when she started to freeze the area, but I had forgotten how much. Geez, that was wicked! Knowing the pain would only last a few seconds, I squeezed my fist and gritted my teeth as hard as I could. Soon the procedure was over and Dr. Reed had finished applying pressure to my arm to get rid of everything (trying not to use the proper words here), bandaged me up and away I went. I would have to arrange to have the dressing changed with the Red Cross Care Partners every couple of days until the wound is clear which I felt was a small inconvenience for a long term solution. I’ll return to Dr. Reed once the wound has healed in order to get the actual Cyst removed. Get rid of the damn thing so this won’t happen again. Twice in my life is bad enough.

Being close to lunch time, Nat and I drove down to the Food Court building in Beamsville to grab a bite to eat and would then drive into St. Catharines for an errand at Sears Pen Centre. Nat needed to get a new battery charger for a drill so I decided to wander around the clothing department on the first floor. I weighed my options on whether to tag along with Nat or check out the clothes – no brainer!! I’ve not been to the actual Sears Store in a long time and noticed a lot of the sections had been moved around. I couldn’t help but notice that I began to get a little woozy walking around the store and a little disoriented. I wasn’t sure whether it was just me getting old and could no longer tolerate a large environment with too many choices, or that it was the freezing from my wound was starting to thaw. Despite my disorientation, I soon found the section I wanted to browse in and was a little disappointed – a lot of the clothes looked like last year’s line – but I managed to find a cute pair of shorts and a long white blouse by the time Nat returned wherein I checked out and we were soon on our way home. It looks like the best of my “good” shopping days are over. The energy level and the smaller clothes size have both disappeared into oblivion and I’ll have to settle for the one smaller clothing store I’ve relied on since moving to Ridgeway. Whenever I go shopping now easy access, dependability and reliability are my priorities.

I arranged for a dressing change and my appointment was booked for 8:20 AM this morning. Where we had to go was another matter, as I had the right directions, just the wrong communication skills to tell Nat. He assumed the Niagara Falls Hospital and I knew the “pin” on the Google Map was down another road. At least this time we were a bit closer in proximity than last year where we ended up 20 minutes late, having arrived this time 2 minutes early. As the nurse began to remove the initial bandage I got a little gutsy and looked at the spot. I was mortified. I hate looking at any kind of gory medical scenes on TV and this was a little too close for comfort as I cringed and quickly turned my head the other way. God, it was just bloody ugly and disgusting. The nurse then began to remove the padding from the wound, re-padded it and bandaged me up for another day. I’ll have to return every other day to repeat the whole procedure until the wound is clear enough which should take a couple of weeks. Again, a bit more inconvenience for a long term solution.