What’s Wrong With Me?

What’s Wrong With Me?

It’s a question all of us ask at some point in our lives.  “What’s wrong with me?”  Maybe it’s after someone we love has left us, or after losing a job. Or maybe you are like me, and you locked your keys in your car 3 times in 2 weeks and the same locksmith came to your house each time and you walked away from that situation asking, “What is wrong with me?”  We ‘kind of’ mean it as a rhetorical question, but at the same time we ‘sort of’ want an answer—but only if it is a good one.  “Brice you are so focused on others you just forget where your keys are sometimes!”  “You were too advanced for that job and probably just threatened the CEO!” “They were broken and just didn’t know how to be loved the “right” way!”  Those are the good answers we want to hear but somewhere inside of us (me) I know that there was actually something wrong with me.  “Brice, you are too scattered and disorganized right now in life, slow down and pay attention!” “Your personality was too combative, you were too passive, your skill set wasn’t quite right, you didn’t fit on the team the way you should have so we had to let you go.”  “You didn’t invest yourself in the relationship like you should have and closed yourself off and became cold.”  What’s wrong with me?

It is a tough question to ask and an even harder one to hear an answer to sometimes.  Nearly three years ago I was forced to ask the question, “What is wrong with me?” After coming home from the gym to a group of friends who arrived early at our house.  I walked in the door and one of my friends who was an ER doctor came over and asked, “What’s wrong with your neck?”  There was a bulge on the right side. I told him I had been working out so there was a pretty good chance it was just muscle.  He told me to go get it checked.  Like a good man I did exactly what he said to do, ONE YEAR LATER.  The bulge continued to get bigger and when I lifted weights and strained, it protruded out of the side of my neck.  Personally, I thought it was pretty cool to brag about and for party tricks, but I finally relented and went to get it checked.  I started with my family doctor, who immediately sent me to an ENT. What’s wrong with me?

The ENT ordered an xray, CT Scan, MRI, and did an ultrasound on site. I started looking all this up to see what it actually meant and after the ultrasound I was excited to find out that I was not pregnant—it was only a tumor in my neck!  I thought he would just say something like, “It’s all good, bro! Just rub this cream on it and it’ll go away!” I wish it was that easy. The doctor said, “while you’re here today, we might as well drain it.” Honestly, I wanted to go home and keep my cool party trick in my neck, but I didn’t want to turn in my ‘man card’ for being a wuss.  “Okay, let’s do it”. What’s wrong with me?!

The nurse was very nice, but a little condescending when she took my hand and held it and said, “It’s going to be okay. The bigger they are the more scared they are (kind laugh ensues)”.  My first thought was—note to self, no Christmas card for her.  The doctor inserted the needle guiding it with the ultrasound machine so that he hit the problem area.  He started draining it and filled one giant syringe and then ½ of another.  He pulled out the needle and held gauze against the side of neck as if I were bleeding out and asked the nurse to get me a glass of water. Personally, I was thinking whiskey and a stick would have been a lot better twenty minutes ago, but whatever.  They sat me up and gave me the water and I asked if I could lay back down.  I about fainted, 3 times.  I WAS a wuss!  What is wrong with me?  I looked in the mirror and I had completely sweat through my shirt. I looked like I had run a marathon. Regardless, I was glad it was over.

I asked the doctor what was next, and he said, “we will let you know but don’t worry”.  Don’t worry?  Seriously?  I came in to have you give me topical cream to make all my problems go away and now I have been lanced and drained and my “specimen” is being sent off for pathology. Are we talking about cancer here? And I can’t even stand up straight without fainting. Don’t worry?  What is wrong with me?!  He told me, “You have nothing to worry about.  We see these all the time, although yours is bigger than most - almost all of them come back clear.  We will call you in 2-3 days to let you know”.  “Almost always?”  I am the guy that locked his keys in the car three times in the past two weeks.  I am the guy who has been trapped in the lady stall of the public restroom more times than I can count because I don’t pay attention to small details.  I have been lost driving, over-drafted my bank account because I tried to predict when my paycheck would get deposited and when the check I wrote would clear and usually always came up short.  I am that guy! so “almost always” doesn’t really apply here. Two days later I got the call that the pathology came back clear.  What is wrong with me? NOTHING—or at least that’s what I thought. 

I thought it was just a weird fluke cyst, until about 6 months later I was lifting weights and I noticed something bulging out of the side of my neck again.  My first thought was, “hello little friend, you are back to go do some more party tricks!” and then reality sat in and I thought well that has to be a muscle because I had the tumor drained.  So, I did what any good man would do, I watched it grow for the next month or so.  But I started having other symptoms, like losing my voice, having difficult hearing in my right ear, and trouble breathing and sleeping at night. After avoiding it for as long as I could and trying to hide it by wearing turtlenecks (which are very unstylish and hot to wear in Florida) I went back to my ENT.  I did not want the needle again, but knew I needed to get this thing checked out.  Upon looking at it this time, he told me I need to go see a different ENT.  My first assumption was I must be special and deserve better care than the medieval torture that I had received prior.  I came to find out they just have fancier equipment and charge your insurance company more, but they did have free coffee and bottled water in their lobby so I attempted to drink the value of my copay. 

After more weeks of waiting I finally got an appointment and went to see him.  After another x-ray and MRI, his first words to me after introducing himself were, “Man, that is a big bulge in your neck!”  My response was, “Actually doc, I am just excited to see you.”  The fun part about going to lots of doctor appointments is you can repeat the same jokes over and over to really perfect them and see what works.  So it was that response or “Thanks, I get that all the time!” The first one was a winner and got a good laugh out of him, although I have found that the ENT community lacks in humor compared to the Oncology department (those are some funny people). 

After telling me everything the last doctor told me, he said that the cyst had grown back larger and much faster than it should have, and he wanted to send me to a head and neck surgeon. Well, that escalated quickly!  Can’t we try the needle thing again? I was out of jokes. Cancer was back on the table now. What is wrong with me?!  This doctor was concerned how large it was and that it’s likely attached to some lynch nodes. He referred me to a surgeon in Pensacola that was supposed to give me a call in the next few weeks.  A few weeks? Whew, I thought this was important.  So I went home and downplayed it all again but told some friends and family who then started advocating on my behalf by encouraging me to call and push them to act more quickly.  This was too long to wait!  Well, I really wasn’t looking forward to having my head filleted open and what happens if they DO find something.  At least right now I just have a cool party trick that I can show off and share couple good jokes about. 

Long story short! A friend knew one of the surgeons in the area that specializes in this and he called on my behalf and they got me an appointment the following day. Other people told me this was God working in the details of my life and my story, but to me it seemed like things just kept getting serious faster than I was ready for. Honestly, I have a lunch appointment tomorrow so it might not be a good day for me.  I changed my plans (by request) and went in to get another MRI, CT Scan, and Ultra Sound (Still not pregnant). (keep in mind this is now the 4th doctor I’ve seen for the same issue). I imagine the people at my insurance claims division were cussing my name by this point, but little did they know it was about to get worse.  The doctor sat me down after looking at everything and said, “you have a cyst about the size of an oblong softball in your neck that you probably have had from birth, but for whatever reason it’s filled up and grown recently.” It’s called a bronchial cleft cyst.  It appears it is attached to a lymph node and runs down past your voice box into your chest cavity.  We do not know what damage it has done, and probably has all of the nerves on that side of your body wrapped around it.  It may even be pushing on neurological portions of your brain that could cause problems”.  My first thought honestly was that is why I keep locking my keys in my car and losing things!  I knew it wasn’t really my fault, it is a medical condition!  (I wonder if I will get a handicap sticker or if this will get me to the front of the line at Disney.)

What about a cancer doctor? We are not sure, but need to test for more types and places but it is definitely not in the cyst because due to the size you would already be dead.  Which I told him, would make this appointment very awkward, i.e. Weekend at Bernie’s.  So what do I need to do?  Drum roll… More tests. He sent me to Shands Hospital Oncology department in Gainesville for specialized cancer testing and… we need to drain it… AGAIN.  What is wrong with me?? 

At some point you start wondering where this is heading.  Does it really matter?  I am worth more dead than I am alive (at least on paper).  When you get to the point of 4-7 doctor appointments per week you start feeling like everything is slipping out of your control.  Here is the thing though, I know it is not too much different in most areas of our lives.  We all love control at some level.  Control of our job, our schedules, our relationships, where the peanut butter is on the shelf, if the toilet paper is rolled over or under, etc.  It doesn’t really matter but when you feel like everything is slipping out of your control I usually try to hold on tighter.  What is wrong with me?

“The pain we hold onto from our past only prohibits the purpose of our future…“

At our fundamental core all of us have SOMETHING wrong with us.  Past pains, problems, broken relationships, financial failures, sickness, depression, anxiety, pride, and a few of you reading this actually think you have it all together which is the scariest WRONG you could ever have because there is no acceptance or awareness of the issue.  Once we embrace our problem(s) and allow others to come alongside us, the quicker we are able to start growing through them.  Please don’t miss these steps:

1) Admit—you have something wrong with you.

2) Accept—that they have an effect on how you live your life.

3) Ask for and receive help—others to come into your pain and problems and know the real you.

When you do this, then co-workers become friends and family (good ones), friends who you watch the game with or went shopping with are now friends who are closer than a brother or sister.  They can see into you in ways you never allowed before, so that you can continue to grow as a person and as a friend. 

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay at Shands (this made the 5th doc I’d seen for this issue thus far). They stuck things in my nose, down my throat, needles in my gums, and did a head scan (was very excited they found a brain although it was not as large as I thought it would be) and no cancer was found anywhere.  I just had a giant cyst in my neck that still needed to be removed.  As much as I had been feeling sorry for myself and my “condition,” it was humbling walking through the oncology department realizing instantly how healthy and blessed I was. Perspective matters. I was reminded of something my grandfather told me one time: “Brice, if you can wipe your butt and tie your own shoes then you are in GREAT health!”  Pretty true statement right there.  As I drove home after Shands, I simply had to change my mindset to look at what was ahead and not focus on all I had gone through. 

What is wrong with me?  I don’t know, but I promise something is!  What are you going to do with it?  Hide behind it?  Get angry?  Deny it? Cover it up?  Lie about it?  Compensate for it? Or dig in and admit, accept, and allow others to be a part of it!  It is not easy, and I am living proof that these steps will take a can take a lifetime if you don’t face them when you should, but they not only allow me to grow as a leader but help everyone that I allow to come into my circle of influence.  I hope you will continue to grow as a Transparent Leader and show others the real you.