Hello strangers. It’s been a while since I even thought about this page and my previous blogs, let alone write a new post!
Turns out, I have another neck lump, which quite frankly, you could call third time unlucky, right?
Today, I’ve revisited my previous blog posts which detailed my two previous surgeries and I’m overwhelmed by the number of comments and messages from strangers, who, like me have found themselves with a mysterious lump called a thyroglossal duct cyst.
On logging back into this account – and yes, after resetting my password after three years away – I’ve been welcomed with many comments from across the world from people going through the same thing as me: asking about the prognosis; thanking me for putting medical jargon into layman’s terms; enquiring as to how I am and what the scarring is like; wishing me well. I only wish I’d logged back on sooner, to have a reminder that we’re all human, we’re all in this together, and a blog post, comment or smile from a stranger can feel like a light in the dark when it’s a scary or uncertain time in your life. Something I think all of us need after the 18 months we’ve had in the worldwide pandemic.
So, my new lump you may be asking? Well, it turns out this one is a ‘branchial cleft cyst’ (a further post to follow on the detail of what that actually means).
I noticed a swelling appear out of the blue on the side of my neck a couple of weeks ago, driving back from my first trip away in 12 months with my fiancé. We’d spent some time in London, the busiest palace I’ve been since March 2020 and I immediately thought ‘oh God, I’ve caught Covid’ and on arriving back home we both took lateral flow tests, which thankfully were negative. The lump was painless, hard and about 1cm beneath my ear and to the side of my jaw. The other thought, after much Googling, was that I may have mumps, however I had no symptoms – in general I felt well. I tried everything I could find online to make the lump go down, hot compresses, cold compresses, eating lemon ice cream in the hope it may be a blocked salivary gland and that the the lemon taste would set them into overdrive and the blockage would, hey presto, dislodge. But unfortunate no such luck.
With my history, and the fact the lump was painless, I called my GP first thing on the Monday morning and by 8.45am had been given a referral appointment to an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) fast track clinic. As you can imagine, with anything like this when you find a lump, it’s a tense wait to see a specialist, but luckily I only had to endure it for nine days!
The specialist appointment with my consultant was actually a lot less stressful that the first time I had to attend an appointment like it – maybe because I knew what to expect. I had a needle aspiration of the lump (I had to apologise several times to the nurse who had the job of holding my hand), and my consultant is 95% certain it’s a branchial cleft cyst. The green/brown gunk which was taken out of the cyst has been sent off for checks, and I’m now waiting for surgery.
I’ll do my best to keep updates of my journey over the next few weeks on this page, but for now, a few words of advice if you find yourself with a lump, bump, or something that just doesn’t feel normal:
- Get checked. You know your body, you know what right, what’s normal, and what’s not. Honestly, if you think something isn’t quite right, get a medical opinion.
- Don’t Google Diagnose. Leave it to the experts. Those sneaky little rabbit holes you’ll find yourselves down won’t help. Keep an open mind, take a breath and deal with the facts in front of you.
- You got this. I promise, you do.
My Sistrunk Procedure & Me 