Little miss lippy…

For almost a full month now, I have had the pleasure of living with a strange bump on my lip. At first I merely shrugged it off, thinking that maybe I had accidentally bitten my lip while sleeping or that I was having an allergic reaction to something. I ignored the lump for a few days but the damn thing didn’t get any better. Strange…

Fast forward a few weeks and still nothing had changed. I stopped using lipstick or lip balm and I made a conscious effort not to poke at the lump. It wasn’t painful so much as it was annoying…kind of like constantly having a fat lip. At any rate, the damn thing was still staring me in the face every morning, so I decided to play it safe and went to my local clinic to see what the doctor would say.

Unfortunately my family doctor was not on call and I had to do a ‘walk in’ consultation with a new guy – my hubby’s new family doctor, who has somewhat of a reputation for being aloof with his patients. Typically I don’t care about the demeanor of the doctor, so long as he/she can tell me what’s wrong and fix the problem. He took a quick look at my lip, diagnosed it as a cyst and basically told me to try not touching it or sleeping with a bite plate (like a boxer) and it would probably go away eventually. He didn’t even attempt to touch my lip or feel the lump; he merely told me not to worry and that it was likely very small and just below the surface of my skin. I walked away wondering when the heck to expect this thing to subside and knowing, full well, that sleeping with a boil and bite wouldn’t work…I have a hard enough time catching Zs as it is.

I tried to ignore the lump again for another full week and still there was no sign of improvement. I had to call my hubby from Saskatoon to get him to make an appointment for me with my regular family doctor. Thankfully I did not have to wait long and met with him this morning. I am also thankful that this doctor is a little more thorough in his examination because his prognosis differed quite a bit from Dr. Apathy (not his real name, but I think it’s a fitting moniker).

While my regular doctor also agreed that I have a mucosal cyst, he did not hesitate to book me an immediate referral with a surgeon to remove the lump. After some probing around the cyst he declared that it is deeply seeded and not simply lying just below the skin’s surface as Dr. #1 decided. So there you have it, I went from “Meh…it will just go away,” to “This thing needs to be cut out and sent for a biopsy.” While I prefer the first option, I guess it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I don’t relish the idea of having surgery, although very minor, but I definitely want to get rid of this damn thing and be sure it doesn’t come back.

I’m not really worried at this point, just irritated and anxious to resume a normal lip shape so that people will stop wondering whether hubby hits me – lol. Mucosal cysts are fairly frequent in children who suck their thumbs or bite their lips, but that doesn’t account for why I have one because I don’t have either of those bad habits.