The Cyst

Tuesday I went in for surgery to have a cyst that was in my neck removed.

I thought I would take a minute and write the story behind the cyst. When I was in high school I was in choir.. not just one choir, a lot of choirs. I also performed out side of high school, not including the extras that high school choirs brought (ensembles, solos, special choirs, etc.) When I was a senior I was selected to be a member of All-State Choir. I cant even begin to tell you how excited I was to be a part of this amazing choir with other students from around the state that were selected to go. We went to early Saturday morning 6am practices at Alta High School with other students from our district to learn our parts. On top of all state I was a member of the A Capella and Madrigal Choirs. I also had a vocal coach who I met with weekly and performed with him and my 'class' after school every other week. It was in the middle of doing all of this.. which at the time I did not think was all that much since I seemed to manage my time and still hang out with friends on the weekends and get good grades... that I had a swelling in my throat. It was HUGE... I would easily say that it was the size of a golf ball if not a Clementine. I went to an ENT where he told me that my vocal cords were swollen due to "excessive use" He put me on steroids for my vocal cords and I was not allowed to talk louder or softer than my regular voice or sing for 3? weeks, until further follow up with him. The steroids seemed to work magic and cutting back on singing... I was after all a complete choir nerd and couldn't imagine not singing for weeks... seemed to do the trick. I never thought about the bump again until...

I was pregnant with Tait. I walked in the mornings with a neighbor friend, even on red burn days. I figured it was swelling again because of things like singing in the ward choir, a solo I had just done a few weeks before, and the smog. Either way Bret told me to go see a doctor to get it taken care of. I tried to find the doctor I had originally gone too so he could pull my records and see. After seeing about 4 doctors and speaking to many not so patient secretaries in attempt to find him. I found out he had since retired and his son had taken over the practice. So I went to him. None of these crazy doctors could tell me what was wrong. They never gave me any medication, any treatment, no tests to do, nothing. I gave one final attempt to see and found Dr. Bradly. He figured it was because of heart burn, due to pregnancy, but just to be safe wanted to run a CT scan. But since I was pregnant the techs wouldn't do the test.

I gave up and it never went away.

After losing weight last year the bump became more noticeable, at least to me. In some pictures I could see it and it really began bothering me. After mentioning it to my dad.. who has had tumor in his salivary gland.. he told me I really needed to go get it checked out. I went back to Dr. Bradly and he said instead of running test after test to see what it is, if I really hate it to just take it out and then run the tests. That way if it was something serious it would be gone and if it wasn't serious it wouldnt bother me again.

So here I sit with a huge bandage over my throat, with a 4 inch incision, part of my hyoid bone now gone (since the cyst had attached itself to it) and I couldn't be happier that in a few weeks I wont even be thinking about this silly cyst that has been with me for the last 8 years of my life. Now I am just keeping my fingers crossed that it is cancer free.