Hello bloody piece of gum

Yesterday I finally dealt with something that had been bothering and frightening me for months. See, I had a little lump on the ventral side of my right fore-arm. I figured it was nothing, but over the past few months it's steadily grown. It grew large enough to occasionally see rather than just feel, and had an almost chewy, gumlike (but not hard) consistency. It was annoying, tender to the touch, and worrisome.

I didn't think it felt like cancer should, but nonetheless, the growing worried me. Odd lumps in your arm shouldn't exist in the first place, and having them grow is an even worse sign. So, last week I played Racquetball with one of my coworkers. I've never played before, and I tended to use my right hand. Needless to say, afterward the arm was sore. The rest of my fatigued muscles returned to normal within a day, but the soreness and weakness in that arm remained til Sunday.

My father, a nurse at St. Mary's Duluth Clinic, told me that I should go to the doctor after he felt it. So, on Monday, upon my return to Minneapolis I called and made an appointment. I saw a doctor at about 4:30 on Monday, and she felt the lump. She told me not to worry, but to make another appointment for a couple days later (Wednesday). I left after this 20 minute check up, made an appointment and worried slightly til Wednesday.

I had to fast, then go in to the doctor at 4:30. Dr. Kim came into the room after my basic check with a nurse. He was maybe 34 or 36, acne pitted, pleasant to be around and bespectacled. He made a few jokes before grabbing my arm, feeling the lump and reassuring me that it wasn't cancer. After that he gave me two options, leave it alone, or take it out.

I opted to take it out, so he led me to a greenish room with an operating table. There was no armrest on the table, so I simply held my arm in place. He then had a nurse grab several tools, injected my arm with lidocaine, and began to work. He made deeper and deeper cuts into my arm, trying to squeeze the thing out. At one point he cut something more important, caused a fair bit of bleeding and cauterized the wound with something I would have mistaken for an electric fountain pen.

The smell of my burning flesh, coupled with me lacking any ability to feel the burn was strange. It prefaced the stranger experience of watching Dr. Kim pull out what looked to be a bloodied wad of chewing gum out of my arm with some sort of fancy tweezer, perhaps forceps.
He then cut whatever was holding with with surgical scissors and closed me up.

The wad of gum was apparently fatty tissue.

I lost enough blood to find "Horton hears a Who" to be touching.