Mucous Cyst!!!

Spoiler Alert:  The picture at the bottom of the post is graphic in nature, and shows my stitched up lip.  I was hesitant to do this post, but Cory told me that our children would be particularly interested in posts like this....we also learned from Google while writing this post that "mucus" is actually spelled "mucous" when used as an adjective, which neither of us knew.  The things you learn while blogging...

So about a month and a half ago, on a day like any other, I found myself eating lunch and had the misfortune of biting my lip.  It hurt, but I continued chewing and the pain subsided.  I knew it was going to be a long day when, not two minutes later, I bit down on literally the exact part of my lip I had bitten earlier.  Not only that, but the second time I really connected.  The pain started to sear, my eyes started to mist, and my appetite went on a quick vacation.  My emotional state went from that of a docile cow grazing in the pasture to that of a frustrated bull elephant raging through the savanna.  Cory says that is an "over-the-top" explanation, but she doesn't understand.  

Anyway, so it hurt, but I didn't think anything of it until about a week later, when a little sore had formed.  I thought, "wow, I really did a number on my lip".  A week after that, the sore had turned into a small lump.  I though, "wow, it isn't really going away."  A week after that it had grown to about the size of a marble and was fairly firm.  I thought, "wow, this is actually impeding my speech now." and "wow, when I smile I look like a freak."

After reconciling that I would be the first recorded case of cancer caused by the biting of a lip, Cory finally suggested that I just go see the doctor.  I made an appointment with Dr. Gibb and when I saw him he diagnosed it as a mucous cyst, caused by "severe trauma" to my lip.  Pride swelled within me as I realized that my jaws had the power to cause "severe trauma".  He said it was benign, and although I didn't really think there was a chance that it was cancer, it was good to hear all the same that it wasn't.  The hard lump was actually a sack that had formed in the salivary glands in the lining of my lip that had filled with a thick saliva.  He numbed my lip and then reached into his bag of medieval torture devices, only to pull out some strange metal clamp that he used to isolate that part of my lip.  He then went to town "scraping" out the cyst wall.  A few stitches later I was sent home and this was the final product: