Really Just a Cyst

So, as everyone has appreciated the story of this thing in front of my ear was freighteningly similar to the original story of the mass in my ankle. I wanted to believe what everyone was telling me, but as it grew and started to bug me the similarities were just too much. A strange mass growing that everyone claims is "Just a Cyst." Fortunately, the head and neck oncologist who I saw last week got that. She is taking it seriously which I appreciate as last time no one really took me seriously. All that aside she just called me to say that the biopsy report is back and this time it really is "just a cyst." Thank goodness.

All of this makes me think back to last year when I blithely believed something I should have questioned. I sometimes get mad at myself for that. However, now I look at this situation, and i wish I was still that person who believes that as a healthy 30something nothing bad will happen to me. I know better now, but I miss that old me. A few days ago I was talking to my mom about something and she asked if I'd ever be the same as I used to be. I couldn't help but think of the song from Wicked "For Good" in which Glinda and Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) are declaring that knowing each other has changed their lives forever in many ways and they can never go back to the person they were before. The change isn't necessarily good or bad just permanent. I feel a little like that. I am different now because of having spent a year as a patient, different in many ways, and it is not necessarily better or worse- it is just different. So tonight I will celebrate this good news and continue to move on as tomorrow I become a doctor again.