As it turns out – My Neck Didn’t Eat My Twin

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.

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.