Lump

I noticed another lump on my wrist today.

I had a ganglion cyst growing in my right wrist two years ago. Its increasing size and location finally cut off enough sensation and circulation to my hand that I opted to have it surgically removed. The removal of such a cyst is normally a simple procedure, but complicated in my case (naturally!) due to its location beneath a tendon, and compressing both artery and nerve. Six weeks off work, four weeks of wrist immobilization. I was counseled that some nerve injury might remain, and true to warning, I have residual and sometimes severe radial nerve pain -through my fingers and up to my elbow at times.

When I asked the surgeon where the cyst might have come from, he credited it to my car accident - "tearing in the joint capsule" that there is no way to diagnose or treat in advance of the cyst's appearance. I found that upsetting at the time - 7 years out, I was still paying - physically, emotionally, and financially - for a decision and experience that I had long hoped I was finished working through.

The pain hasn't so much gotten worse over the two years, but it certainly hasn't improved. Not only is it an ugly scar, on a location on my wrist that often incites inquiry, but it interferes with my yoga, with prolonged writing or typing, and with piano or guitar playing. Exercise, writing, and music: three of my most treasured healing arts that are now always tainted with the pain of that day.

Needless to say, when I noticed the pronounced cyst-like swelling in my wrist today, I could have just cried. Now 9 years out, and $2300 in the hole for my car, I pay once again for my mistake.

And giving full acknowledgment that in the grand scope of life and its tragedies, this is relatively nothing to endure, I still wonder: just how long must I pay for that day? Will the pain ever be done? Will I ever stop crying?