We all have regrets, but last year I had what I thought was the biggest regret of my life.

It started out as a subtle bump on my lip. It would grow, then pop, and then grow again. It wasn’t too serious; it was just annoying.

As the months went by my “subtle bump” grew giant.  It now seemed to get in the way of everything. Whenever I would brush my teeth, when I would eat, and even when I would smile, I would be constantly reminded of the bump that loomed on my agitated mouth. My life was altered with this bump, so I decided to consult a doctor about it. For a while this decision was something I would regret.

I went to the doctor and showed him my lip. He looked at it and said it was a mucous cyst. He looked at me and explained what I could do. “You have two choices,” he explained to me. “You can either get surgery or hope it goes away at some point.” My heart dropped at the unavoidable difficult decision, because I didn’t want to have stitches again; I had already gone through that once. Getting stitches was an anxious and terrifying experience. I remember the needle slicing through my broken skin, stitching it together. I didn’t have much time to think, because he was expecting an answer now. My heart begged no, but my mind knew that the “mucous cyst” had to go, and this time my mind won. We set the date to a few months ahead, and as time went on my nerves slowly disintegrated.

Then all of a sudden the day came, and the suppressed nerves resurfaced. When I accepted the surgery, we set a date that seemed so far away, and now that the day was here I didn’t know if I really wanted to do this. I wanted to turn around. I started to prepare myself for the unavoidable pain that was coming my way, but the last time I had stitches, I was fully conscious.  Now I was going to be forced unconscious, by using anesthesia, which I had never experienced before. That brought back more fear than I had experienced before with the stitches. Now I had to face that fear once again, but doubled.

Heart racing, eyes darting, I walked into the silent, foreboding waiting room. The eerie silence was like a fox sneaking up on his prey, growing the turmoil within me.

I was brought to the holding room, a place filled with beds and curtains to get everyone ready for their surgeries. The crowded room was noisy; my hands found my pockets, and my eyes followed the floor.  I looked around my small enclosed area. I was on a bed with a bag of clear liquid at the end. I didn’t know what was in the bag, and I didn’t want to.
          Finally the nurse came over and was going to put a small needle she called an IV in. My eyes widened, and my stomach lurched. She pulled out a blue rubber strip. She wound the band around my arm and tied it. Startled, I gave a gasp, for the band’s grip was like a viper wrapping around its prey. She found a vein to put the needle in, and I looked away. My heart raced as the needle punctured my skin. Just as my arm started to get numb she untied the rubber strip, sending a wave of relief through me. She packed her things and then left, leaving me all alone in the crowded, ominous room.

Eventually some nurses urgently came over and said it was time. Then they wheeled me over to the room where the surgery would be performed.

          This is it! This is when the fox will strike!

          Upon entering the room my stomach turned, for the moment I’d been going over and over in my head was now happening in real life! As I looked around at the enormous lights, and the big clear cabinets filled with supplies,  my heart skipped a few beats.

This was it! This is not just another dream, this is real life, and I can’t pause and rewind anymore.

          They were all surrounding me, and they said their names. I didn’t understand why they needed so many people for my surgery. Then they injected the anesthesia. I couldn’t tell at first, but then the room blurred, and their voices sounded confusing and rapid. I couldn’t hold my focus on anyone, so I closed my eyes and fell into the welcoming blackness.

When I saw the light of day again, it felt as though a hammer was relentlessly smashing my lip. My tongue slowly grazed my lip until it found the place where the startling  plastic stitches were lodged in my flesh.

          My mom and the nurse came by with a wheelchair. I laughed to myself because it was my lip that got the surgery, not my legs, but as I got up and tried to walk over to the wheelchair, the room swirled, and I started to lose my balance.

As my mom wheeled me down to the car I relaxed, knowing that the big angry malicious bump was gone; I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. Even though for the next few days my lip bruised, and I couldn’t smile very well, I was still smiling on the inside because I was happy to have one less concern in my life.

Looking back on that moment I realize that the discomfort of the surgery and the healing afterward wasn’t as bad as having an angry red bump on my lip forever. The mucous cyst was a big problem that got in the way of my normal living, and with it gone I could live in my normal way once more. I learned that sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to do so that you can get what you want in life.

 

 

 

 

-Erin K.