Tissue from ear sent to pathology -- HELP!

[atleswoolf]

Just got back from a clinic.  I'd been having trouble draining the water out of my left ear for a few weeks in the shower, and had a much harder time of it earlier today.  I went to a clinic, and the doctor pulled out of my ear a nasty, bloody mass of tissue that he said looked like a bunch of dead skin with what might've looked like a wart or a mole as the starting point of it.  But he's sending it off to pathology to have it checked out, and I won't get the results for a week.  In the meantime, I'm naturally freaking out.  I've never heard of cancer of the ear canal.  Is such a thing even possible?  Or would that be more of a skin cancer, since it was on the skin?  Assuming it's even cancerous at all, which I'm hoping it isn't.  He didn't seem all that concerned, and said the pathology was a matter of protocol and required, since he couldn't identify it, but still...I'm a mess.

[gcalex]

I would trust the doctor on this one, I think it is routine to send anything that's removed to pathology, probably required by malpractice insurance.

[atleswoolf]

Thanks.  That makes me feel a bit better.  The fact that he couldn't identify what it was was a little freaky, however.  At first, he said that he thought it almost looked like plastic, like something I'd shoved into my ear had broken off.  I told him I never shove things into my ear.  He showed it to me, and it was bloody from the removal, but really just looked like skin.  So, I'm hoping it's nothing serious.  He gave me drops to keep the ear from getting infected, though it's still bleeding, slightly.

[mollyfin]

Probably just random skin growth, like a skin tag.  Skin cancer is usually pretty visibly distinctive so I doubt that's it. 

[atleswoolf]

Thanks, mollyfin.  That's what I was thinking, too.  To me, it looked like ordinary skin, quite frankly.  I have eczema quite often, and was told earlier in the summer that my ear canals both looked a little scaly and dry, probably from the eczema.  Could it possibly be a buildup of skin cells from that?  My skin often gets kind of thickened from the eczema.  And yes, it could also be a skin tag -- I have one or two of those elsewhere.

[oregoncoastlady]

I would think that it could be a mix of stuff. Skin flaking can get mixed in with ear wax and whatever else. Add some blood to the mix and you've got a pretty gruesome glob of stuff. Be glad its out of there. I'm sure it is standard procedure to send something like this to pathology. Just for identification purposes, if anything.

[atleswoolf]

Oh, I'm glad it's out of there, whatever the hell it is.  I can hear better already -- it was making my ear feel slightly full, probably due to the water that got in it earlier in the shower.  Still, I'll most likely be on pins and needles until I hear about that pathology report...

[oregoncoastlady]

I hear you. I would probably wonder what the pathology report was going to say as well. The idea of it being ear cancer would never cross my mind though. Try to relax about this. Easier said than done, I know.

[atleswoolf]

I guess I'm thinking less ear cancer per se than some type of skin cancer in the ear canal.  But, as was stated above, skin cancer is pretty readily noticeable by doctors, and since he didn't know what it was by looking at it, I'm hoping that it's not that, at least.

[mollyfin]

Oh say no more about eczema!  I totally know what you're describing and yeah that sounds very plausible.

[atleswoolf]

Just wanted to give an update.  The pathology results came in, and all is well.  It turns out that that glob of tissue that the doctor scraped out of my ear canal was just a mass of dead, flaked off skin cells that had clumped together and attached itself to the canal.  I realized that it's probably partly due to my flaky ears (thanks to eczema) and mostly due to my sleeping with foam earplugs -- I sleep with someone who snores.  So, perhaps I can't use those anymore, as I don't relish the thought of getting that crap built up in my ear again.  But thank you to all who replied and calmed me down.  Turns out it was absolutely nothing at all.

Reminds me of that great Woody Allen line: The most beautiful words in the world are not "I love you," but "It's benign."  :)