I'm an idiot - the swollen face

So apparently I'm an idiot. I had a strong suspicion but it was confirmed when I went to the doctors today to find out why my right eye is almost swollen shut. It all started Sunday night when I decided to try to pop this bump on my face near where my glasses rest that I thought was a pimple. Stupidly so because instead of being a harmless pimple the bump was in fact a harmless cyst filled with a "waxy, cheesy" like substance. The quotes are from my doctor but I'm getting ahead of myself. With some healthy pressure I managed to pop it somewhat getting about half of the stuff out. At this point I felt pretty good about myself and was only mildly concerned Monday when the bump and surrounding area was a little swollen. By Tuesday I though things were progressing nicely as the bump looked more like a pimple than ever with a white spot that was just begging to be popped. So I did what any dumb American male with good medical insurance would do, I lanced it myself with an exacto knife. This is where things started to go horribly wrong as almost instantaneously my face decided to do it's best Rocky impression and today I woke up to an eye that was almost swollen shut.

My eye was swollen but my head was clear and my vision was fine so I decided to go to work and see if I could make a doctors appointment something during the day. My co workers were extremely excited to see me. I think I make a girl pass out and my friend Booth decided to show me about 29 Yahoo Answers sites where people equally as dumb as me posted their non medical opinions about my affliction. Despite the wealth of online diagnosis I managed to book a doctors appointment at 11:45. My doctor took one look at my face, recoiled in horror then composed herself enough to get the story out of me. After a stern lecture about how she thought everyone knew not to pop cysts on their face I was further comforted when she had to bring in another doctor as none of her other patients had ever been dumb enough to try it. Shock, a lecture & ignorance is not something I'm really looking for in my doctor. I do however appreciate someone who recognizes their own limitations so she recovered a bit by realizing she was out of her league and sent me off to the plastic surgeon for a good old fashioned blood letting.

I had to call my insurance to make sure it was ok and they luckily said yes. I kind of downplayed my involvement in the situation and am hoping that won't come up later.

The plastic surgeon was a nice older gentleman who obviously had been doing this for quite some time. Like most doctors his bedside manner sucked ass. I was somehow oddly comforted by this but it might have been his business as usual attitude. Either way it was both comforting and annoying. He took a quick look at my face and decided to perform immediate surgery to alleviate the pressure. This is all fine and good but I was hoping he's be a little more communicative about what to expect. For example, I'm on the table waiting to get the ordeal over with when he muttered something under his breath, left the room, came back in and without a word lifted my lip and stuck something on my gums. I'm not sure about other people but a heads up like hey I'm going to use a topical mouth numbing thing and then jamb this huge needle up into your cheek would have been a nice warning. He unethusicastically agreed with my assessment. The injection is done and he peaces out for what felt like 12 hours but was probably only 20 minutes or so.

I had this view and was wondering how much it would suck to have that as my last vision on earth.



A ceiling hung flat screen would be a nice touch so that patients could watch ESPN or Oprah or whatever floats their boat instead of staring up at nothing contemplating their own mortality. Anyways, luckily for me when he came back the numb area wasn't big enough so I got a couple more shots and another 20 minute break to stare at the ceiling. When he finally took care of it it wasn't all that bad except for the blood/whatever running down my face into my eye and the sensation that he was scraping pretty hard in there. You can see the before here;



and after here;



Who's a pretty boy? My first thought looking at my gauzed face was that I looked like Jack Nicholson in China Town but way less cool. The doc gave me a script for antibiotics, no pain meds and the instructions to wash my face then change the dressing but that it's open so that it will drain. They called in my prescription to Wal-Mart and sent me on my way.

Wal-Mart ended up being an interesting experience. The Novocaine was wearing off as I lurched through the front doors with my busted face. I tried to ignore the stares from all of the classy Wal-Mart daytime shoppers but wasn't all that successful which caused me to be annoyed as well as hurt. I was told by the pharmacist that my prescription hadn't been called in yet so I bought some Tylonol, band aides & chocolate milk and went outside to call the doctors office. While I was in the car I noticed that my gauze was saturated with blood and needed to be changed. This is when I realized that the band aides were way too small. I doubled them up and lurched back into the store with confirmation that the script had been called in. While I was checking I bought some gauze, tape & bigger band aides. Good thing too as blood began dripping down by face while in line and I had to make an emergency change in the bathroom. If you've never changed the dressing on a bloody wound in a Wal-Mart bathroom you just haven't lived. The silver lining is that the pharmacist filled my script first to get my bleeding face out of his store, so that was nice.

Moral of the story, don't pick at shit on your face unless you know what it is.