Alien Ganglion

Remember that episode of Star Trek where after getting strange messages, Spock, McCoy and some of their colleagues are sent to study the remote Takunagi 4437 Quasar.   It looks like a pulsating blob of multicolored cosmic jello.  Once down on the ground, which is barren and strangely lacking in color or jiggly substances, they are  seized by a band of Ganglion Cysts.  Spock and crew are imprisoned and  experiments are performed on them. One by one the men turn into Ganglion Cysts.  Spock and McCoy are in dire straits! Their only hope of survival is if Captain Kirk can find the Ganglion lair and release them. Through deductive reasoning Kirk, Scotty and random dude almost reach them but then they also get caught.  Kirk ends up strapped down on a table and is interrogated by a shapely red vixen who will later fall for him.  As he slips into a sweaty haze he shouts to Spock to perform a mind meld to somehow convince the Ganglion Cysts to release them. This causes the Ganglion Cysts to get mad and suck the life out of  the insignificant Trekkie. They are eventually freed after Kirk makes out with the female captor.  We learn that they have all been effected by radioactive fallout from an explosion caused by the Klingons eons ago.  She helps Kirk and friends to escape before they too morph into ganglion cysts.  Already McCoy's hand is turning red and lumpy. They make it back to the Enterprise and go into the anti radiation super chamber. Safe at last.  McCoy wears a sling. The other crew members that were "turned" were strangely left behind to perish.
Remember that one?

Of course not, I made it up. Pretty good considering I was never a big Star Trek fan.

I went and saw the hand doctor today about the nodule on my index finger.  It is like a little ball bearing under the skin at the joint of my palm and index finger.  It hurts when I grab things and is annoying.
I have a ganglion cyst.
Here was my train of thought- "Seriously? Isn't that something from Star Trek?  Does it have anything to do with gangrene? Will they have to amputate my finger like Zsa Zsa gangrened leg? Can I plastinate it? Cyst? Tumor? Can it affect my brain? Is it like cancer?" I quietly nodded my head as if I knew JUST what he was talking about. "It is not a big deal at all, in fact it is very common." A Ganglion cyst is a mass that grows on the wrist of hand and are usually found at the joint or tendon sheaths.  They are not malignant and have nothing to do with age or arthritis. I am relieved that my mileage is slightly better at this point.  My auto trader value went up! Maybe I'm not a salvaged vehicle after all?

I ask what my options are.
I can either leave it and hope it goes away. Sometimes they do but mine felt particular tight so he thought it might not. Or I could get it surgically removed. Well what does that entail?  His answer was "First we hit you over the head with a mallet...." I LIKE this guy. Basically it is a less then 10 minute procedure where they would knock me out briefly, cut it out, stitch it and wrap my hand like "a little bear paw" It would heal quickly and in 2 weeks I'd be basically back to grabbing door knobs without pain.  My response to that was how long would it take the bump on my head to go away after being smacked with the mallet?  We laughed.  Refreshing when a doctor has a sense of humor.

So for the time being we are being conservative.  I will give it a couple months to see if it goes away on its own. In the meantime they will run it through insurance and get all the pre-authorization etc. If it doesn't go away and continues to be a bother then I will go under the mallet and float around in outer space for 8 minutes. Hopefully I won't see Kirk there. Or I could just follow the advice of my father (A doctor) and hit it with a book really hard to rupture it. hmmmm....