Tuesday:
A week ago I noticed a lump under my tongue. It wasn’t painful if left alone, but it existed and it bothered me. If I ate, it got sore like an over exercised muscle. I poked at it and just made it hurt worse. What the hell could this be?
TO THE INTERNET! *whooosh*
First I asked The Google “lump under tongue.” Don’t do that. One of the first links was “Salivary Gland Diseases and Tumors.” AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Once that panic was over, realized that it was probably a blocked salivary gland. They happen. Not often, but they do. That calmed me down some. But in the back of my mind all I could think of was “CANCER! TUMOR! A BIT OF ABSORBED TWIN!”
I looked back at the last couple of weeks to see if something had changed. Well, I made a lovely (if dry) lamb’s liver pate. Was it an allergic reaction (oh god no. I love me some liver)? Well what. I don’t DO anything, I hadn’t speared the underside of my tongue with a mini trident, what the hell. Ah, it wasn’t what I DID it’s what I didn’t do.
I haven’t been thirsty. I haven’t been drinking hardly at all with my meals and I certainly hadn’t been drinking while sitting at my desk. Why? Fuck if I know. I just didn’t want to drink.
So, working on the assumption that what I had was a simple blocked gland, I made a point to drink a bit more, eat sour candies to stimulate the saliva and even went so far as to squish that sack of whatever to push out the blockage. Don’t. Don’t do that last one. That shit HURTS.
Saturday afternoon:
So, I went to the doctor that following Saturday. Where I was told 1) she had never seen anything like this before and 2) you don’t have salivary glands under your tongue. Oh really? Then what is a sublingual gland? *eyeroll* I walked out of there with a prescription for a lidocane gargle and a referral to an ENT doc.
Yes. Lidocane gargle. Lidocane, a numbing agent. Gargle, “to wash one’s mouth and throat with a liquid kept in motion by exhaling through it.” These things do not go together. You don’t want to gargle with this. And you certainly don’t want to swallow it. It’s a numbing agent. Meaning, if something goes down your throat, you can’t feel it and you could choke. Why are these two words together?!??! In any case, I filled it, but didn’t use it because it just stopped hurting. And it got smaller and firmer, which freaked me the fuck out. My appointment with the ENT wasn’t until Thursday. Leaving me a plethora of days to freak out about this stupid ass lump.
Thursday:
Finally, it was Thursday. See the doc, open wide, he pokes and prods and says “you been drinking your fluids?” “nope.” “Welp, that’s it. You have a blocked salivary gland. We’ll numb you up, try to push it through, but if we can’t, we’ll fish mouth it.” Do you know what that means? Think for a second how a fish opens it’s mouth. Yeah. he meant “cut a slit and push it out.” I’m okay with that, but the term “fish mouth”. Ew. Now I knew for sure what it was but I still had to wait until the next MONDAY (yesterday) to actually have it done.
Monday:
I arrive bright and early (11am). They sit me in a chair and hand me some lidocane (cannot seem to get away from this stuff) to numb the area for the shot. That shot. Best shit ever. I didn’t feel a damn thing. At all. I didn’t feel the shit, the cutting, the digging, the probing, nothing. The most I felt was pulling. Like he had the stone and it wouldn’t come out. Oh I didn’t mention that? The blockage was a stone. Like a kidney stone but waaaaay less painful. Yes, you can get these in your salivary glands. 30 minutes, two stitches, three stones. No I didn’t get to keep them.
Once I was done, that’s when it began to hurt. Almost as if someone had been cutting into my mouth! It was sore, it ached and ached all along my jawline. By the time I got to a bottle of Tylenol, I was ready to punch someone. Tylenol worked. Then it wore off a few hours later. Then I took another dose. I didn’t even notice the second dose wearing off. How awesome is that. Mouth heals incredibly fast.
So, what have we learned from all this?
–You can get stones in your salivary glands
–Your mouth heals very fast
–DRINK YOUR GODDAMN FLUIDS!