Strange Lump

I've had a strange lump on my right pinky for about 2 weeks now. It hurts when you press on it, but it's one of those strangely satisfying sore hurts, almost like a sore muscle. Pressing on it, despite causing more pain, feels like some release. I don't know if other people experience pain the same way, but sometimes something sore just wants to be worried, poked at and prodded.

The other night, I was watching a recent episode of Doc Martin (I just love watching my stories! You never know whose long lost relative is going to show up and replace a character who left at the end of last season for some ambiguous reason explained hastily at the beginning of an episode!) and I yelled to Ryan, in the kitchen,

"I think I have arthritis. What's arthritis like?"

You may think this a strange thing to say to someone, but I come from a long line of hypochondriac, hysterical, medical quasi-autodidacts, so "I think I have [blank highly improbable ailment]"  is not an unusual utterance of mine.

He said, "You don't have arthritis."

"How do you know? I have this lump on my finger. It could be a Bouchard's Node."

"Okay fine. You have arthritis."

"No, look at it."

"I think it's broken."

He said this and has continued to say this to me since that evening not because he thinks it's broken, but because once, a few summers ago, he banged his toe while sailing and came home and casually mentioned that he thought he'd broken his toe. I didn't believe him and the reason I didn't believe him is because if I'd broken my toe, I'd have complained a considerable amount more than he did. So, good wife that I am, I dismissed it as a sprain. It actually was broken, though and has caused him some amount of discomfort since.

 I can actually trace this pinky pain back to a specific incident, but it happened so long ago, I'm not sure why the painful bump has arisen recently - or if it has been there all along, why I'm noticing it now. Web MD has nothing to say on the subject.

The incident is this: Nelly is a big brown horse who takes after her big grey mother, Henriette, in a lot of ways that neither of them have any pain receptors in their big heads (I'm afraid to lead Henry - she just doesn't care where she puts that thing and it could kill seriously someone). They are both a bit territorial too. Henry once swung her big anvil of a head over the fence and bit my thigh while I was riding Firefly (to be fair, she thought we were too close to her foal; to be even fairer, she was standing by the ring with her foal despite a huge pasture behind her when she decided that I was too close to her foal - there is just no reasoning with warmblood mares!). I was loud and unpleasant to her for it, and she decided that attacking me was a bad idea (although I could tell she still sort of wanted to - I'd see a glint in her eye when we passed her the next few times). Unfortunately her much younger daughter, Nelly, has less sense and when she tried the same thing on me, I went as far as to wallop her across the nose. She barely blinked; I was in excruciating pain and had to cut my ride short so I could go an put my hand in a cold bucket of water.

It hurt for a while - I don't remember how long - and then I forgot about the incident. Until that discussion on the couch.

Just now, I let him know it was bigger today than it has been. I think he's tired of me diagnosing myself with absurd ailments (hey, we've all got our coping mechanisms) and said, "Cancer" which is probably one of those internet memes, like Godwin's law, something like, "Every medical discussion or question on the internet will eventually lead you to a diagnosis of cancer".

I don't think I have little finger cancer. I probably did break it when I walloped Nelly. I will keep everyone informed.