To smash or not to smash?

I have a ganglion cyst on my left wrist. It appeared all the sudden. One minute there was nothing, the next a strange bump. I, being me, was of course convinced I had either somehow managed to break my wrist and didn't know it, or that I had a tumor. I asked the doctor to look at it, and he declared that it was merely a ganglion cyst. I could either let it go or smash it. I can't seem to do either. It's getting bigger, although not noticeable to anyone who doesn't know it is there. But it is freaking me the hell out! I am not a bumpy person. I don't get cysts, except maybe one on an ovary, but that only hurts every other month. Where the heck did this thing come from? It is driving me batty. I want so much to gain the courage to just smash it with a book, which apparently is the physician-recommended treatment. Seriously? We're still using the same method they used back in the 1600's? This is not reassuring to me. I want them to give me some sort of medicine, preferably in pill format, that will make it magically vanish.

In an attempt to educate myself on the ways of smashing this thing to oblivion, I googled directions. I refuse to accept that I can simply whack myself with a book and go on my merry way. One of the first phrases that stuck out was "There's no side effect to smashing a ganglion cyst except the horrid pain." I think horrid pain ranks pretty high on the side effect scale, just under imminent death actually. Minor pain freaks me out. Horrid pain pretty much has me running for the hills (Not the ones where cannibals eat you though. Getting eaten by cannibals ranks just under horrid pain in my book.) There is a really good reason why I don't have any tattoos, although if I'm trying to appear more brave than I am, I swear it's about the fact that I don't want anything permanent on my body that I could get sick of eventually. That actually is a blatant lie. I don't like pain. I don't get the whole "oh, it's just like getting scratched by a cat." I've been scratched by a cat, it was unpleasant. Why on earth would I want to be scratched by a thousand of them.

But back to the cyst. I want to smash the damn thing and be done with it. But I can see how this is going to go. I will make my friend do it, because she seems to really want to. She will come at me with a book, I will run and scream. This will last for about twenty minutes. She'll prevail. I'll faint. Several times. I will probably fall and hit my head, thus causing more horrid pain. Nothing good can come of this.