The dermatologist and her physician’s assistant have decided that my leaky neck is a branchial cleft cycst, which has resulted in several versions of the following conversation:
Me: What records do you need sent to offsite storage?
Co-worker: The four boxes along that wall and… and… Your neck is wet.
Me: It’s a birth defect. So, you needed to send these four boxes, and what else?
That’s right, my leaky neck is a birth defect dating back to my embryonic development.* Oh, and the good news is that the liquid, I habitually dry with my fingertips 20… 80… a billion times a day, is probably fluid draining from one of my sinuses.+
Also, my leaky neck may provide helpful clues to my past life or lives!^ But, then again, maybe it’s nothing more than a weird neck thing that makes me a special and unique snowflake. Either way, it’s nice to know that it’s not leaking something horrible like spinal fluid~ or tears from a parasitic twin. =
* Maybe something did go wrong when my mom smoked that marijuana laced with opium while she was knocked up with THIS GIRL. (True story. My mom decided to purge her soul of this deep, dark secret when I was in college. Because, she knew by then that it hadn’t “messed” me up too terribly.)
+ I’m not sure whether feel more disgusted by the fluid or less disgusted when I run out of Kleenex and am forced to wipe snot on my hand. Or, maybe I need to embrace the fact that I’m 65-years-old and buy more pocket packets of Kleenex.
^ Okay, I’m torn on the topic of reincarnations. Similarly, I’m undecided on aliens, ghosts, and marriage (homo- and heterosexual). But, right now I’m reading Mary Roach’s Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, and she points out: “Among cultures that believe in reincarnation, congenital abnormalities are commonly viewed as clues to a child’s past life. Often they are tied in with the death of the supposed previous personality.” (Roach 37) So, maybe in a past life I was shot in the neck. OR, EVEN BETTER! Maybe I was a Native American and in the heat of battle, I was stabbed in the neck with an arrow.
Of course, Roach goes on to say,
Facets of a past life are suggested as explanations for complexion irregularities, stockiness, third nipples, albinism, posture, gait, fear of women, fondness for toy airplanes, cleft lip, pimples, speech impediments, widely separated upper medial incisors, and “a fondness for eels, cheroots and alcohol.” Viewed through such a broad eyepiece, reincarnation is an easy sell. Take a child and all her hundreds of unique features: How hard would it be to find one or two that seem linked to a feature of someone you know who has died?
(Roach 39). Okay, maybe my leaky neck is nothing more than a birth defect. But, now that I’ve been thinking about Native Americans, I have a jonesing to hit up the Spirit Mountain buffet…
~ There’s a distinct possibility that I watch too much TV and that medical shows like House leave too much of an impression on me.
= It’s been confirmed – I watch too much TV, and that appears to include movies such as The Dark Half and Basket Case.
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