Devil, Be Gone!

I had my horns removed.

I didn't want to do it, but my sister in law noticed they'd grown when she was cutting my hair.

"Joe, these have gotten big. I can't comb around them.”

Aw well, they'd had a good run. Two deposits under my scalp, cysts, like my grandfather had been afflicted with.

Gods, will we ever rid ourselves of our ancestors?

So in I went to a skin doctor. I found her office clean, well decorated and inviting. She found 5 warts I didn't know I had. She blasted them all with liquid nitrogen and told me I was a good boy for not squirming too much.

I was just impressed she didn't laugh at my ceremonial loin cloth. Granted, a man shouldn't wear a loin cloth to the doctor's but my horns are on my head! How was I supposed to know she'd want to look at everything else?

Clothes back on and warts frozen she explained to me the intricacies of the procedure. I'd have to come in early and blah, blah blah.

Great Doctor, should I make my wife drive?

“Yes I suppose so.”

Fine, so I'll see you next week.

She nodded, clearly thinking I'd absorbed more than I had.

A week later the doctor came in to mark up my cranium. She went to town with a purple sharpy on my left horn. It's the bigger cyst of the two, 2.5 cm at its widest. I'd already tried to talk her into removing the pair, I mean, if I can't have two devil's horns why have one? And its not like the other one was getting any smaller. She'd explained that insurance companies don't like to see doctors going all willy-nilly getting these things removed. They're not dangerous, these cysts, so insurance companies will not pay for their removal unless they become painful or start to leak foul smelling fluid. There's plenty of reasons to abolish insurance companies, let 'the necesity of  foul smelling fluid' by added to that list.

But it was OK, I had a plan to lose the set.

“Doctor, this other one's really bothering me.”

I'd thought it out perfectly. What does bothering mean? It can mean a lot, maybe painful, or embarrassing, or I just don't like it. I left this to the doctor's discretion, and she, thank the devil, saw the light. She marked up the second horn and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The nurse came in to tape back my hair. Thankfully my doctor's such a pro she didn't have to shave my head. The downside is removing tape from my shaggy scalp but considering that I'll still have said shag, I call this a victory.

The 'hair-tape' aka the next big thing

The nurse got down to injecting my skull with local anesthetic. 4 injections, the first easily the most painful as the others were all dulled by its amazing properties.

What is that stuff and how did someone figure that out? Oh! Here's a werid chemical/derivivative of a poison herb, I know, let's inject it in someone! Whoever that first patient was, I'm thankful. I've been through enough surgeries to really appreciate a good local anesthetic. My nurse seemed to know what she was doing, for after a few minutes she poked my head and asked if I felt it and I had to admit that no, in fact I felt nothing. Curious business, this western medicine.

So injected I was, numb to the skull and ready to be operated on.

All these nasties came out of my head... 

I suppose the first thing she did was make an incision in my scalp, but the first thing I felt was her gently rubbing my scalp in a circle like a massage. Round and round she went, working my hair to the follicle. I relaxed, this felt… good! Until she slipped the scalpel in to pop the little bastard out. That didn't feel so good, even with the painkiller.

She went to the other one and got to massaging, round and round until the cyst's little roots had broken with whatever it was growing from and released me.

Praise Satan! I was free!

Just had to sit through a couple stiches and show up in a week to get them removed.

So all I have to show for my horns is a little bit of blue fishing line, poking out from my skull

I hope I don't miss it when I have to get it removed, but I make no promises.

If you'd like to see a revolting picture of the cyst after it had been removed, please leave me a comment asking for such a horrible sight!