I was sitting on a table in a cold hospital room,staring down at the fleshy peanut-shaped-bump on my right wrist, shivering in the cold room awaiting the doctor to give me the diagnosis on that cold October night...

The doctor’s name was Nathan Donaldson DO. At first when I was told I needed to go to the doctors to get my wrist checked out I was extremely nervous, but when I got to the hospital and met his assistant I was not that nervous anymore because her name was also Kayla.

When Dr. Donaldson entered the room I ran to hide behind my mom. You see I do not do well with change especially change with new doctors. He came in the room trying to keep me from running and screaming out of the room.

When he entered he introduced himself to my mother and I, still uneasy and stricken with fear I reach out to shake his cold and clammy hands.

“Lets see what is going on with that wrist of yours, shall we?” asked Dr. Donaldson.

As I was stretching out my arm so that he could see it he grabbed my wrist right on the fleshy bump that I had been in there to get checked out in the first place I let out a loud yelp.

“Owww! Don’t do that. It hurts already you big meanie” I said in my mind. I knew if I said it out loud I would have been in so much trouble. So I just screamed in agony as he twisted and pulled and pushed my wrist back and forth.


“I see we have a Ganglion cyst that has made its way underneath your radial nerve which is the nerve that connects to your thumb,” he said with great enthusiasm as if he, a doctor let alone a surgeon had never seen one in real life before.

“You have two different options to try to get rid of it. The first one is that we could give you a brace for your wrist to see if it will go down on its own, but there is a 90 percent chance that it will come back. Or the other option is doing a surgery to get it removed, with that there is a 10 percent chance it will come back,” said Dr Donaldson,”What I think would be best is if we sent you home with a brace to wear when you are at school and doing major activities because the more you move your wrist the bigger the cyst will get and then here in about two weeks come back and see me if it hasn’t gone down you will need to have it surgically removed.”

Already eager to run screaming out of that room I look at my wrist than my mom than at Dr Donaldson than back down at my wrist.
“If it has to be done let it be so,” I said with an uncertain voice.

Soon days became weeks and weeks turned into a month when finally it was time for my surgery on November 20th, 2013 at 7:00am, but we had to be at Children’s Hospital all the way in Aurora to check in at the desk by 5:00am. So we all piled into the car my mom my older sister Megan my dad and myself with a winnie the pooh blanket I’ve had since was 2 years old, a stuffed James P Sullivan from one of my favorite movies Disney Pixars Monster Inc., and my favorite teddy bear that I got a couple years before when I had to go to the same hospital for a sleep study (but that is a whole other story) from the doctors. I was still half asleep because I had to be up so early that morning that as soon as I was in the car and snapped my seatbelt I fell asleep. When we got there we checked in at the desk and waited for half an hour before we could go upstairs and go to the hospital room I was going to be in for recovery.

“Hey there! How are you this morning?” said a very enthusiastic Kayla, Dr Donaldson’s assistant said as she gracefully entered the room. Right behind her was the one person I really did not want to see at that time: the man who was going to cut open my wrist dig out some of my flesh and stitch me back up.

When they walked in the room, Dr. Donaldson pulled out a blue marker and took the cap off. Walking towards me and asking for my arm and writing something on the bump. After that he took me to the operation room and asked me to untie the back of my hospital gown so when I would lie down I would be comfortable. As soon as I did a nurse came and wrapped me in a nice and heated blanket. I lie down on the operation table. Staring at my doctor I was thinking to myself “You better not screw this up!” As I was lying on that table thinking to myself and listening to the doctors and nurses ramble on about nothing they placed an oxygen mask on my face. Slowly my eyelids began to get heavier and heavier when all of a sudden I am fast asleep. After that I really don’t remember much all except everything for once was right with the world.