If fate were to make me do it all over again, I would definitely choose to "hit the big luck" instead of "hit the wall". After all, that 2015 hit the wall laid the groundwork for my sad braincase.
When I say "hitting the wall", I am not making an analogy, but really walking without looking at the road, feeling the game of force and reaction. After the feeling of pain and confusion gradually subsided, a small bag swollen up.
With the passage of time, the feeling of pain gradually improved, but the small bag still did not subside, and it still hurt a little when pressed. Thinking that it was not necessary to go to the hospital for such a small thing, I chose to ignore it. "Maybe I'll wake up one day and get out of bed."
For two or three years, I have been living peacefully with this bag.
Touching the forehead, it was still there; but the size and shape had not changed much, it was a bulge the size of a soybean, and it didn't hurt much to press.
"Maybe something came in when it hit the wall?" I just muttered to myself, still not thinking about going to the hospital.
(At first, the bag on the head wasn't so obvious.) Patient courtesy of)
But by May 2018, things started to go as expected. I distinctly felt the bag growing and bulging.
At first, it took a long time for it to grow from the size of a soybean to about 1 centimeter, but it grew faster and faster.
Even more tragically, with age and genetic factors, my hairline retraced across those years, and the part of my forehead became more and more shiny.
In addition to looking in the mirror every morning, I was confused, and many people around me began to notice my unusual appearance: "You are a real version of the 'braincase with a bag'." ”
This slightly ridiculous phrase is heard at least once a day. People around me began to persuade me to go to the hospital for a check-up.
That was when I was busiest at work, often working overtime until it was dark. Occasionally one day I can rest, but I just want to lie in bed and make up for sleep, and the idea of "going to the hospital" has been repeatedly mentioned and repeatedly put down.
When I met people who advised me to go to the doctor quickly, I just stiffened my mouth with them: "Have you ever seen an old birthday star?" The forehead was also bulging with a bag, and it contained all the blessings..."
Later, when I recalled the mood at that time, I was also very surprised: the psychological burden of procrastination and medical avoidance was so strong that it could make this strange shape of "brain shell with a bag" accompany a person for more than five years.
In May 2019, the "unknown mass" on my forehead that was initially only the size of a soybean grain was no longer what it used to be, with a diameter of about 3 centimeters, and it was located in the middle of my brain gate, and I couldn't choose to ignore it.
In addition to affecting the appearance, the large bag protruding on the forehead pulls on the scalp to cause a feeling of oppression, and I often feel the discomfort of the head stuffiness.
And the longer and larger this lump is but the nature is unknown, it is inevitable that I will mutter, will I have a terminal illness such as "brain gate children's cancer"... No, go to the hospital!
(The swelling of the patient's head became more pronounced.) Patient courtesy of)
Finally plucked up the courage to walk into the hospital, the blood routine urine routine MRI did a big circle, I received a good news and a bad news:
The good news is that doctors think it is a benign lipoma, not a "brain portal cancer", and it will not directly bring life risks;
The bad news is that the tumor will continue to grow, fast or slow and uncontrollable, and I will probably not be able to escape a scalp-opening surgery sooner or later.
"Now MRI shows that the tumor is not very large, and it is located in the middle of the forehead. You can go back for the time being, and if it grows too fast, brings about a change in appearance or other discomfort that affects your life, you can only undergo surgery. The doctor looked at the examination report and said, "There is no better intervention except for surgery." ”
The doctor said a word.
(The swollen bag on the patient's head is getting bigger and bigger.) Patient courtesy of)
In 2020, the bag on the forehead is getting bigger and bigger, and it is becoming more and more convex. The sullen feeling of oppression gradually became a sense of pain, from a local hidden pain in the forehead at the beginning to a resonant, tandem pain of the whole head, accompanied by unbearable eye swelling.
And the frequency of this pain is also getting higher and higher, once every half a month, each time for a week; by October, when the headache attacks, I even have difficulty falling asleep.
That is when I fully understood Sun Wukong's situation: Why was he still afraid of the Tang monk who could only nag? Because Tang Monk would chant the Tight Hoop Mantra, the Tight Hoop Spell could make Sun Wukong roll all over the ground in pain, just as this tumor could make me hurt so much that I wanted to hit the wall.
"Can't bear it, don't delay it, operate on it!" I secretly made up my mind.
On November 28, 2020, the day after my birthday, I walked into the hospital again with a tragic, lethal mentality.
"Can you not have a headache?" The whole brain is filled with it! The doctor frowned at the results and said that the tumor "grew too fast."
And the position of my tumor is still relatively "lacking in morality", one is to compress the nerves will cause headaches and increased intraocular pressure, and the other is that there is a great risk of venous thrombosis, if a blood clot is formed, it is life-threatening in minutes.
"You have to be hospitalized. Schedule surgery as soon as possible to cut it. The doctor tapped my medical record with a pen in a tone that was unmistakable.
(For surgery, I shaved my hair.) Patient courtesy of)
December 3, 2020 is my "big day", being pushed into the operating room at 8 a.m. and rolling out at 3:30 p.m.
Later, I learned that because the area of the lipoma on the forehead was too large, the doctor could only open my entire scalp first, find out the location of the tumor distribution, adjust the surgical plan, and then suture the scalp, and finally "remove it from the hairline".
The knife scar on my head was 12 centimeters long, but the doctor was so skilled that he buried the entire scar inside the hairline, and the appearance was completely invisible — I was not disfigured.
Moreover, even if the wound is so large, it is still a minimally invasive operation. "As long as you don't open your skull, it's minimally invasive." After listening to the doctor's words, I still have a little bit of happiness for myself.
For me, the 7-hour procedure was the least frightening part of the whole treatment: anesthesia was applied, the eyes were closed and opened, and the "excess" had been excised.
(Me after surgery.) Patient courtesy of)
But when the anesthetic recedes, the ordeal really begins.
I can't eat or move casually within 7 hours after surgery, I endure!
However, the pain of the wound knife is completely uninterrupted, and even if you take fenbide in large doses, you cannot relieve it.
I almost forced my nurse sister to give me an analgesic pump, or I wouldn't have been able to sleep for even a minute; and the pain lasted almost a week.
In addition, the medicine needs to be changed every three days after the operation, a total of three times; the process of changing the dressing is as if the scalp that has just grown slightly is reopened... Can't look back, can't look back.
On the third day after the operation, I was discharged from the hospital. After half a month, the pain disappeared, and I got rid of the "braincase with bag" shape. After a month, the wound was completely healed, and I finally washed my head in a ritually comfortable dress.
By the way, there was also a small episode in the middle: two days after I was discharged from the hospital, the entire right half of my face was swollen to the point that my skin was shiny, and my eyes could not be opened at all, so I was so frightened that I quickly consulted a doctor and was told that it was a "skin effusion" and that swelling was a normal phenomenon after surgery.
(I couldn't open my eyes at all after the surgery.) Patient courtesy of)
At that time, I looked at myself in the mirror, and the image was awkward and funny: the bald scoop shaved for the operation was shiny, and there was a large knife scar more than ten centimeters long in the hairline.
The whole face was swollen and shiny, and the right eye was like a walnut... He looked like he had been beaten up.
Taking a selfie, I shared my worst appearance with my friends, and got a lot of emojis expressing panic as scheduled—I couldn't be frightened alone, even if the person who caused the fright was myself.
I never understood why this tumor had found me and grown in the middle of the brain gate. Was it that bump that planted the seeds for it? My unhealthy lifestyle gives it an opportunity? ...... Also, will it recur?
But my attending physician said that lipoma is a disease whose pathogenesis is "unclear."
"It's not that you eat it blindly, it's not that you stay up late, it's likely that it's in your genes, maybe you're more likely to grow this tumor than others."
As for the position of its length, there is no law to follow. Lipomas are possible to recur, but there is no better way to prevent them, "In case it grows again, let's talk about it." ”
(The surgery left a scar on the top of my head.) Patient courtesy of)
The pain of the operation gradually faded from memory, and the scar in the hairline was slowly obscured by the newly grown hair.
Unexpectedly, I harvested a happy "side effect":
The wrinkles on the face have obviously become smoother, especially the wrinkles on the head have been swept away, and the fine lines at the corners of the eyes have also been greatly improved - this ordinary surgical operation has even made a medical aesthetic effect; lying on the operating table, not only cutting off the large tumor that covers the entire forehead, but also making a "rappier" for free...
Doctor reviews
Li Jie
Chief Physician of the Department of Dermatology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University
Lipoma is a common benign soft-tissue tumor made up of mature fat cells that can occur anywhere in the body where there is fat. Patients with lipomas are usually middle-aged between the ages of 40 and 60, and are less common in children.
Superficial lipomas can see a single or multiple subcutaneous localized masses, and deep lipomas can cause pain, dysfunction, etc.
Lipomas tend to occur on the shoulders, back, neck, breasts, and abdomen, followed by proximal extremities (eg, upper arms, thighs, buttocks). The author's lipoma is located in the frontotemporal region, which is a less common location.
Patients speculate that their forehead lipoma may be caused by bumps, and its rapid development is related to their unhealthy lifestyle habits.
But in fact, the cause of lipoma is still unclear, most scholars believe that it is related to inflammatory stimulation, a small number of patients have a family history, and there are also views that lipoma is related to congenital dysplasia, systemic fat metabolism disorders, etc., but the evidence is insufficient.
Located under the skin is called superficial lipoma, which can also be seen between the deep part of the limb and the abdomen, called deep lipoma.
The lipoma of the patient in this paper "grows on the hilars of the brain", which is a typical superficial lipoma, and the doctor can basically make a preliminary diagnosis through physical examination and symptoms.
For lipomas located inside the body, it is more necessary to combine the results of imaging examination and pathological biopsy to make a comprehensive diagnosis, and some special parts, such as cardiac lipoma, need to be transferred to relevant specialties after diagnosis.
The lipoma body is generally small, but it can also grow larger, soft and elastic to the touch, and the nudge with the finger can make the tumor move slightly. Lipomas often rarely produce serious symptoms or effects, and in this paper, the authors' lipomas on the forehead grow larger and are accompanied by a feeling of pain, mainly because the tumor grows and compresses the surrounding nerves, causing pain and numbness.
If it is a lipoma located near the intestine and heart, it may cause more serious consequences, such as gastrointestinal obstruction or bleeding, abnormal heart function, etc., so even if the probability of malignancy of lipoma is very low, it cannot be taken lightly.
It must be stressed again that if a lump appears in any part of the body, it must be treated in the hospital and a professional diagnosis is given by the doctor to avoid delaying the condition. Most lipomas are asymptomatic and do not require treatment, and can be observed and reviewed regularly.
However, if the tumor is large or even compresses the organs, nerves, etc., there is a dysfunction or pain symptoms, or it affects the aesthetics, you can choose surgery to remove it.
The lipoma resection performed by the patients in this article is a minimally invasive operation, the wound surface is relatively small, the risk of infection is low; because the surgical site is more special, it also plays a cosmetic role of "skinlift", which can be said to be an unexpected gain.
Author: Aimina Yuan | Editors: Wu Jiaxiang, Ye Zhengxing
Typesetting: Han Ningning | Proofreader: Wu Yihe
Operations: Li Yongmin | Coordinator: Wu Wei
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