A Big Finger

One night last week I looked at my left index finger knuckle and gasped. It was enlarged and lumpy. I remembered my mother’s arthritic knuckles and winced.

But this was different. It wasn’t in the joint, but rather it floated on top of the knuckle and it actually moved as I flexed my finger.

My husband quickly suggested that I go see Dr. Barth, the hand specialist who would probably have charged me $120 to walk in the door. But I was not so quick to rush off to a specialist, especially for something that didn’t hurt at all, just looked weird.

So instead I arranged to see one of the physical therapists at the place where I do personal training, suggesting it might be a ganglion cyst. I described it as something perhaps connected to the tendon sheath that runs over the top of my knuckle.

Within about 10 seconds, Lauren confirmed that I was right. She knew all about those cysts -- where they often show up, the fact that no one knows what causes them, the fact that they often simply disappear on their own, and the historical remedy of smashing them with a book (which she did not recommend). She suggested that I hold off seeing a doctor as long as my cyst was not causing me any discomfort.

So I continue to go through life -- chopping, playing the piano, doing everything I would normally do -- with my strange lumpy knuckled finger, which looks so much worse than it feels.