Oh, I’m so glad this is resurrected! I was just looking at this thread a few days ago, because I recently had a not-exactly-a-pimple story come to an end. Yay!
I’ve had this… lump… on my back for at least the last six years. It was on the upper part of my right shoulder blade, in a position that I could juuust reach by reaching behind my head with my left hand. It started off small, I figured it was just another pimple, but when I tried to pop it, I realized it was completely under the skin and just would not come out. I tried various pins and needles and eventually just gave up on it.
Gradually, over the years, it grew. Until this… lump… was just a little smaller than a ping-pong ball. Every time I wore a shirt with a low back or someone gave me a back rub, they’d ask, “D’you know you’ve got a thing on your back?” And I’d explain that yes, I was aware of the thing. But it was still completely under the skin, no surface pore whatsoever. It didn’t hurt, even when I poked it, and it was just kind of there.
So I got health insurance about a year ago, but I hate doctors so I put off going to the doctor… finally a few weeks ago I went in for a long overdue physical and mentioned the lump to my doctor. She looked at it and poked it, stated it was probably just a lump of fat and if I wanted it removed they could have it done, but it probably wasn’t necessary. I just wanted the damn thing gone, plus I have a high family history of cancer and “probablyjust a lump of fat” wasn’t a good enough answer for me (Plus, I gotta admit, I was really curious about what interesting stuff might be in there). So I made an appointment to have it removed.
The surgery was fairly simple. Local anesthetic, a nurse holding my hand… I heard the doctor go “There it is…” after quite a bit of slicing and tugging. The worst part was the sound, that horrid scraping-cutting sound of scalpel on flesh. He cut it out, stitched me up, said they’d send it to pathology just in case, but it looked like an overgrown sebaceous cyst to him, so no worries.
As I was putting my shirt back on and the nurse was cleaning up, she turned to me and said, “Do you wanna see it? Or will that freak you out?” Of course I wanted to see it! THis thing had been growing in my back for over half a decade!
It was about the size of a large grape. Somehow they managed to cut it out intact, without popping the membrane that contained it. He did nick it a little, and there was some cheesy white ooze that smelled completely horrible. They also cut out some of the surrounding tissue so there were like, little globs of flesh stuck to it. Ewwww. Horrible but somehow completely fascinating. I should have taken a picture. I can’t decide if I’m glad they didn’t pop it or disappointed that they didn’t. It would have been way more mess if they had, but it also would have been freakin’ awesome. But… then again, it was on my back so I wouldnt’ have been able to see it and it would have gone to waste.
So now it’s gone and I have six stitches in my back. One of my friends suggested I get someone to slice open my other shoulder blade and let that scar so it looks like I had wings that got cut off. :-p
Man, that wasn’t as interesting as I thought, really…
