I noticed a little lump around my temple a couple of years ago, and made an appointment with my doctor to take a look. He set me up with a CT skull scan and they scotch taped a tums to my lump and ran the scan (apparently a 5 cent calcium taped to my head helps a very expensive machine give a more accurate result).
The scans at the time said the lump was a lipoma. A lipoma is just a growth of fatty tissue (guess I had a fat head), and are almost always benign. Which was a relief to hear.
The next step was to go to a plastic surgeon to have him take a look at it. For some reason going to a plastic surgeon spooked me a bit. Not sure exactly why, but I think I was just afraid I’d leave looking like Michael Jackson or something like that.
I nervously went to my appointment, and he confirmed he suspected it to be a lipoma and said he could easily remove it. I opted at the time to just leave it alone, nobody had yet to notice it beside myself and keep an eye on it in case it continued to grow or change.
A year later I’m pretty sure it grew a little bit and got it checked out again, but again opted to just leave it alone. I wanted to get rid of it, but was just too chickened out at to have it removed. I still feared looking like Michael Jackson.
Two years later I finally made up my mind to get this guy removed. I think it’d grow quite a bit more, though still nobody ever mentions it to me. But once I’d point it out to someone, they then saw it. I just didn’t want to wait until it got much bigger. It’s around my temple and the larger it got then the trickier the procedure could be to remove it.
I made my appointment with Dr. Rayfield (who was great) and got my jitters out of my system before going over. I was fine once I got there. I didn’t have to go to sleep for the procedure and it probably took a half hour total.
It was interesting in that I couldn’t feel anything being cut, etc. but being around my temple I could hear every cut, tug, etc. very loudly as it was so close to my skull.
Once he was in there, I knew pretty soon that it was giving a bit more trouble than was originally expected. When the doc asked for the cauterizer, I knew it must be in there pretty good (I watched a lot if not all YouTube videos on the procedure beforehand as if it would make a difference). He said it was in pretty deep and likely in there for over ten years.
He finally got it out and stitched me up. It wasn’t too many stitches and he did a great job in making the incision in an area where any possible scarring wouldn’t be too bad (around my hairline). He showed the lipoma to me when we were all done. I didn’t bring my camera with me, but it was a fairly gross yet smooth yellowish mass.
I went to work the next day, I think only 2 people bothered to notice the excision and stitches the following week. Either they are blind or don’t pay attention to me, or felt uncomfortable to ask what had happened. It probably just looked like I got into a little fight or hit my head on something, it wasn’t too bad considering how much came out.
Stitches came out a week later, and they were happy with how it was healing up. Results came up benign, which again was great as there is a tiny percentage where they can come up to be bad.
So now I’m just waiting for my little scar to fade away and my head to finish healing up. Outside it looks fine, but inside I can tell that it’s still healing up a bit. Should be all good in another week or 2.
Dr. Rayfield did an amazing job and made the process as easy and relaxing as could be. I’m finally glad I got that stupid bump/lump removed and am glad it wasn’t anything too dangerous.