Bartholin’s Gland Cyst

Boys, go away, you don’t care about this.  And for that matter, if you don’t like graphic medical talk, you go away too.

But I have to say, reading about someone’s medical journey can be interesting too.

Plus, I wholeheartedly believe knowledge is power and so many people are searching the Internet these days for medical info so I’m going to add this on here for Google’s sake. (Do I get extra points in my Google rank if I actually use Google’s name several times??)  Furthermore, you wouldn’t believe the amount of 13 year olds searching on forums about lumps in their vaginas which really turn out to be their cervix.  Not helpful.

Anyway.

Saturday I started feeling sore “down there”.  Sort of felt like I had been cycling for too long.  Except I haven’t done anything even close to exercise for months now.  I brushed it off seeing how clumsy I am and thought maybe I had bruised myself somehow.  And no, there’s no way it was some freak sexual maneuver…Scott’s been gone for 7 days now.

By Sunday, it was hurting bad enough I got curious enough and found a gumball size lump to the right of outer labia.  It was sore to the touch and hurt when I sat down, bent down or when I wiped.  Otherwise it didn’t hurt.

Well, by Monday it had grown to about the size of a cherry tomato and it was hurting all the time.  Not so much that I was taking any pain pills but I knew it wasn’t right and I had never had anything like that.  And well, when you go searching on the Internet about lumps, the Cancer word tends to come up and freak you out.  I made an appointment to see my GYN for this afternoon.

It didn’t take him long to determine I had one of my search results…a Bartholin’s Gland Cyst.  Basically you have a duct that produces lubrication and it can get clogged up.  And when it does that, it may or may not get infected.  My doctor told me there was no good way to tell if it was infected or not so they like to go ahead and drain it but they’d go ahead and put me on antibiotics to see if that helped.  If it hadn’t helped in 2-3 days, they’d put gel on it to numb it, give me a shot of Novocaine, cut the cyst open, drain it then stick in a catheter that I had to wear for about a week or until it fell out.

FABULOUS.

And guess when my appointment is?  Roughly 7 hours before Scott returns from his 10 trip out of the country.  And I’m going to have a catheter for 7 days.  He’s going to love this one.