It's been a month and I still don’t know if my neck ate my twin!

After seeing my primary care provider (PCP) and a dermatologist, the word is still out on my leaky neck syndrome.  All I know for sure is that my weird leaky neck thing really is weird.

Sure, it all started out as just an odd thing about me.  It wasn’t as cool as a third nipple or a vestigial tail.  I mean, it’s just a leaky neck.  For the most part, I assumed that it was either a hyperactive sweat gland or a nasal passage that took a wrong turn (hence, the idea that my neck ate an unknown/unborn twin). 

Usually, my weird neck thing goes unnoticed.  However, there are times when the usually trickle turns into a full on downpour, and a big ass drop snakes its way down my chest.  These rare occasions, when my leak kicks into overdrive, is when someone else notices it.  Of course, these other people are all convinced that I missed my mouth while taking a sip of water or that I simply drool a lot.  To cut down on all of this, I’ve even developed a subconscious habit of drying my neck with my fingertips.

Ever since an ex coworker started obsessing about it, I kind of just brush off the questions. And, when I say obsess – I mean, Melissa, the tiny 90-pound beauty school student who worked with me part-time at 7-Eleven threatened to bring in outside force to hold me down while she swabbed my neck to test the fluid.

The question about what exactly is going on with my neck has been percolating for the last 10 or 15 years.  Since it didn’t hurt and was more of an annoyance than anything else, I kept forgetting to ask about it whenever I would see the doctor.  So, when I went to see my PCP last month, I made a point to ask about it.  I even wrote it down on my wrist, so that I’d remember.

My PCP had never seen anything like it before.  To say that he was “weirded out” after he used an ungloved hand to examine my neck would be an understatement.  He pointed out that since he couldn’t identify it, I really should visit a dermatologist to have it examined.

I mentioned all of this to my youngest sister, who is in chiropractic college, in passing.  After going through “Stab Lab” to learn how to draw blood and other classes that joining a world littered with x-rays that have boners and model skeletons that get stuck in her hair, she suggested that it was a fistula.  (I strongly encourage you NOT to do a Google image search for that one.)

This afternoon I had an appointment at the dermatologist office.  I had scheduled my appointment with a physician’s assistant (PA), because I still didn’t think it was anything special.  Well, after the PA couldn’t identify it, she got the dermatologist who couldn’t identify it either.  So, with head tilted toward the ceiling and the top of my shirt pulled open to better expose the source of my leaky neck, they took photo after photo to present to a group of dermatologists that meet weekly at the medical school.  Right now, their best guess is a branchial cleft cyst, which is also known as a pharyngeal fistula.  So, Halley’s guess is right on par with two medical professionals – I’m so proud!

But, if Halley and the medical professionals are right, then my leaky neck is a type of birth defect.  I know it’s not an absorbed twin and I probably shouldn’t look the birth defect fairy in the mouth (it could totally be way, way worse), but if I had to have a birth defect I still kind of wish that it was a either a third nipple or a vestigial tail.