Rod's Alien Arm, February 2, 2011

WARNING--GROSS Pictures to follow...

Got a guy in your life?  Well, then you are probably familiar with the Tough Guy Act.  You know, they are on their death bed and they refuse not to get ready for work??  Well, a couple weeks ago Rod comes home and says his arm is hurting.  He is prone to cysts and he had one on his upper arm for years and years--it was like a small fatty tumor under the skin.  Think the size of a pea.  So, he slides off his shirt and this is what I find!!!

According to the Tough Guy, it had grown over the last 4 days or so!  Hm, this thing is about the size of a hockey puck and is sticking out about an inch.  It literally reminded me of a movie--I was Signourney Weaver and Rod's arm was now the Alien.

So, being a dermatologist in another life I can't wait for this thing to pop.  I told him we would do warm compresses (it was his Friday night) the rest of the day and the next.  If nothing happened by then we would let the real doctor do it.  Plus I was pretty darn sure he would need an antibiotic.  Oh, that gross little thing do at the bottom of the picture above is an enlarged blackhead.  Eekkkkkk!  Don't let them get this big!!!

So on Friday morning after the soak, this is what we had.  The thing was not going to go by itself.  So our dermatologist fit us in before their Friday afternoon off.  It was hilarious. The nurse took one look and  said, "Wow, that's huge!"   The doctor took one look and said, "Yep, let's get that drained".  And then every nurse, receptionist and every other interested party still in the office came in to have a look.  Turns out I am not alone in being fascinated by this kind of thing.  I asked the doctor if I could stay, because I really, really, really wanted to see what came out of it.  

It had to hurt like hell, but my Tough Guy survived the needles--it took six good sized syringes of "numbing stuff" to start the work.  Don't worry, I didn't have the camera, so you won't be treated to that nastiness.  But let's just say the remaining cyst material that popped out of there looked like a good size shrimp.  And the pussy green bloody mess that came out was incredible.  I learned that that was what was left of the cyst material after the body had gone to work trying to fight the infection.  Yuck!   If Rod were here he could tell you how he had to doctor himself the next two days since I was at a show.  He pulled about a mile of the packing stuff out of the hole and then had to flush it with saline solution.  It looked like the picture above three days after the lancing.   

And, the near final result, after TWO WEEKS on Cipro is above.  It is still a little hard to the touch, but, the redness is nearly all gone and his arm is back to normal size.  The whole is already starting to fill in.  Cool!