lump

Good news! I don't have throat cancer.

And you're all, "Wait, wait. Back up. Throat cancer?"

I have this lump in the back of my throat that I noticed over a year ago. I went to my doctor, and he checked it out, and said it didn't seem sinister. This is a very smart and nice man whom I trust. But I was still freaked out about it. So I started asking pretty much every doctor friend I know what the what was up. And they all suggested I see an ENT doctor, because they weren't about to stop eating chips and hummus at a party and stick their fingers down my throat. Which makes perfect sense, because those guys do nothing but looks at throats and gross earwax and booger stuff all day.

So I went in yesterday, and had a doctor put his finger down my throat and feel around, and I gagged a bunch and it was super attractive. His conclusion was that I have a huge styloid process, which is a bone that grows on the skull beneath the ear, and comes out like a rhino horn. Mine happens to be large enough that I can feel it in there with the back of my tongue, and when I turn my head sometimes. It's gross, man. Gross. But not painful or scary in any way.

I had been quietly freaking out about this for some time now, and have not wanted to even say it out loud because I didn't want to give those fears any more ground than they deserved. But you guys, have you ever Googled a medical malady? Of course you have. That shouldn't have even been a question. You know that every single time you Google something, it comes up *CANCER! CANCER! CANCER!*. So this rock hard lump in the back of my throat has been troubling me. And this super sweet doctor whose job it is to look at boogers and earwax all day long calmed my fears by taking his time and explaining exactly what was up, and even showing me a diagram of it. Bedside manner to the max. He said, "It feels rock hard because it is! It's a bone!" And told me that it wasn't some kind of scary throat tumor, or some weird absorbed twin with teeth and hair and a little Voldemort face.

So now that I don't have throat cancer, I am feeling a lot lighter today. And of course, I will not be referring to the lump by its actual name, the styloid process, but rather, my "throat boner."