The past month has been an interesting one for our family as far as medical issues go. Typically, we have been an extremely healthy family, but things took a turn for the worse in January and February. In the previous post, we noted Austin's broken leg. He has since had his cast removed and is slowly learning to walk again (he is favoring his leg a little too much). Jensine has also been a little laid up with a sore back for the past little while. And I have had my own issues with my neck, which seems to be taken care of now.
For at least the past year, though almost certainly for most of my life, I had a small lump just below my jawline on the right side of my neck. I visited the doctor in early 2010 for an annual check-up and asked about the lump. The doctor told me to give it a few months and then to come back if it doesn't go away. It never went away, so I went back to my doctor and he referred me to an ENT. In late January, I visited the ENT and he told me that he suspected that the lump was a brachial cleft cyst. He recommended a biopsy and an MRI and, if necessary, surgery. The MRI went fine, but the extensive prodding of my neck for the biopsy caused my neck to swell. Here is one picture of what my neck looked like.
For at least the past year, though almost certainly for most of my life, I had a small lump just below my jawline on the right side of my neck. I visited the doctor in early 2010 for an annual check-up and asked about the lump. The doctor told me to give it a few months and then to come back if it doesn't go away. It never went away, so I went back to my doctor and he referred me to an ENT. In late January, I visited the ENT and he told me that he suspected that the lump was a brachial cleft cyst. He recommended a biopsy and an MRI and, if necessary, surgery. The MRI went fine, but the extensive prodding of my neck for the biopsy caused my neck to swell. Here is one picture of what my neck looked like.
The biopsy was on a Friday. On Tuesday afternoon, I drove 90 miles to Willmar, MN (the ENT visits Marshall monthly, but practices in Willmar) and the doctor removed 50 mL of brown fluid from my neck. The swelling did not go down, but my neck continued to fill with fluid and got extremely painful. It turned red and three days later (Friday), I went back up to Willmar to have it looked at. Here was my neck the second time:
This time he cut a hole in my neck, put approximately six inches of packing in my neck which I was to slowly pull out one inch a day. My neck continued to drain and the pressure abated.
On the next Monday, February 6, I went back to Willmar and had a cystic excision and parotidectomy (removing cyst and small piece of the parotid gland). They knocked me out and the surgery took about three hours. They also left a little drain in my neck to ensure that my neck would not fill with fluid again. I was able to go home that night and took the week off from work to recover. The pain wasn't too great, but my neck would be very sore if I did not rest my head every couple of hours. Here I am a day or two after surgery:
It has now been two weeks, and I am pretty much healed now. Here is my neck now:
