Have you ever had surgery or care for a part of your body that you didn't previously know existed?

I just had a frenectomy. There are these little folds of tissue in our mouth that prevents tissue from moving too far. One is on your jaw between your lip and your gum line. There’s another on your upper gum line and a third under your tongue. Babies frequently get the third one removed because a too tight frenulum causes the babies to be “tongue tied” and they can have trouble nursing or bottle feeding. Anyway, before last week, I had never heard of a frenulum.

I had what I thought was a receding gum line on my lower teeth. I’ve always had a problem there—since I was a little kid. Dentists have always said that I’d need surgery for it in the “near future” and I got scolded for not brushing well and allowing the gum to erode away.

I finally got a new dentist. He said the problem wasn’t periodontia. He said my frenulum was too tight and it was pulling the gum away from the teeth. He said I should have had my frenulum removed decades ago and was surprised I didn’t have it done as a teenager.

So I just had surgery and had a tiny body part removed. It’s a little body part I had no idea existed until I was told it had to go. Anyone else have an experience like that? You had to get work done on some odd body part you never knew existed?