Stebby, I had a ganglion surgically taken out of my left wrist about 5 years ago. It was on the TOP of my wrist, above my actual wrist and at the base of my thumb, and it was quite huge, just over 1 full inch wide when they took it out (does that make sense?). I had decided on the surgery after trying a bunch of things, many of them old wives' tales about smacking it with a Bible, getting it drained, etc. It eventually started hurting when doing push ups and other stuff, so I decided to bite the bullet and have it taken out.
I had a plastic orthopeadic surgeon do it and the scar is very minimal, but visible. Doc said when they went to actually remove it from my wrist, it had a 'tail' that had wrapped itself around some of my veins and it 'tugged' on everything on its way out.....they said that's RARE, but that's what happened to me, they think, because I left it go so long. It was an out-patient procedure and I was wrapped up in a compression bandage for about 4 days. Then they took that off and I was instructed to keep my hand UP at all times to keep the blood from going back into the still-healing scar area. Well, I didn't listen and began working out after about 5 days, with running being my main cardio. With all the swinging of my arms, the blood and other liquids seeped back into the area and I had to have it drained with a pretty big and scary-looking needle, THREE TIMES because I wouldn't follow doctors orders.
ANYWAY.................I finally decided it wasn't worth the further delay so I stopped my workouts for about 2 weeks till I got the green light. At that point, I started with push ups from my knees with my hands on an 8" step. I lowered the step to 6", then 2" and eventually did push ups from my knees with hands on the floor. THEN, when I was FINALLY strong enough in the wrist, I was back to full-on toe push ups.
Sorry to ramble. But there ya have it.