I’m 28 years old and like many of you, I noticed the first signs of a cyst forming around age 16, in fact I could pinpoint the exact moment while I was sitting in English (with horrific posture as sloppy teenage boys do) I adjusted in my seat and was met with tendrils of searing pain.
Also like most, I shrugged it off for the rest of the school year as I used to suffer bad acne at the time (for which I took Accutane….it worked, but good god) and thought it was complications due to that. It wasn’t until my senior year (also in English) that it started draining for the first time, and I became aware of the smell that emanates from it when not paying special attention.
Mostly I found it embarrassing so I told nobody about it, and went out of my way so that nobody would even be near it, especially during a flare-up. Well, about another year went by where I couldn’t bear the pain or the obvious sitting problems that went along with it, so I told my dad (at the time it was my last year of being able to be under his insurance until Obama kicked it up to 26 which wasn’t until 4 months before my 26th birthday.. irony) and he took me to a GP to see what could be done.
Well, not a lot could’ve been done there. The doctor lanced and drained the few that formed over the 3 years of keeping them to myself (which hurt like all hell, as he used no anesthetic) packed it, told me to keep it clean and dry. But as a self-reliant person primarily, I couldn’t afford to miss even a day of work, and when I put in for sick time, I was denied (as I was also working under the table at the time).
Now years later, I finally have insurance (with a just lovely deductible to meet) but can’t miss more than 5 days of work without suffering some sort of corporate consequence, especially after our PTO and sick time was redone this past year. And the longer I go just suffering these bastards, they just keep multiplying, draining more frequently and bleeding like a MF. I’m seriously considering biting the bullet on my deductible and just paying it off over time, but negotiating that kind of recovery time with my employer will land me in hot water with them, and out on the street with the money I won’t be making while recovering. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here.
And while I’m just mostly ranting about my luck with my cysts (as there are now 5 of them or so) and dealing with them, my suggestion to anybody here would be to get it taken care of immediately. Especially if you find out during high school or where you aren’t 100% dependent on yourself to survive. Living with them doesn’t get easier, and in my case I’d give anything to have sought out a second opinion the moment the recurrence happened.