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OLDER

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D-LAND

GUESTBOOK

So I went on Monday to have my stitches removed. I was told to return to the doc about 10 days after surgery for that purpose. Monday was day eleven.

The nurse came in and unwrapped a sterile 'Suture Removal Kit,' which consisted of some rounded-tipped scissors and some tweezers. One of my stitches had shifted and moved so much that it came untied on Thursday. I took it out, and was left with 3 blue stitches for the nurse to remove. I expected that it would be a piece of cake. All that had to be done was to pluck up each stitch with the tweezers, snip it below the knot on one side and pull it out. No problem.

"These stitches are really in there," the nurse said. "How long have you had them?"

"About 10 days."

"Oh, that explains it. They're only supposed to stay in for about 7 days. See how the skin is beginning to grow over the stitch?"

"Oh yeah, lookie there. Isn't that fabulous?" I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

She finally got a good grip on one with the tweezers and pulled it up to snip it...only she didn't pull it up enough. She snipped it and the remainder of the knot snapped back, flush with my skin.

I don't know if you can visualize this or not, but there were no ends sticking out to tweeze and pull up at this point. There was simply a blue knot that wasn't even far enough above my skin to get to without digging and poking me. Finally, the nurse brought in reinforements--another nurse with Pippy Longstocking braids. "Oh, now I'm in good hands," I thought.

So Pippy comes at me with the tweezers and commences to try to pull up my scab to clip it off. "That's not a stitch!" I cry. "That's not it," the first nurse says, simelataneously.

"Oh. You mean the blue knot?"

I bit my lip. I shot a look at Justin, my eyes pleading for help. Apparently, Psycho Longstockings had flunked her Sally Struthers home course on stitches, because she didn't even know what one looked like. Now she was poised over me with sharp objects and an apparent learning disability.

She dug. She poked. She gouged and she hurt, but finally she snipped it out. I stayed sore for hours. The moral of this story is: Take out your own goddamned stitches in case your nurse is a flunky with a grudge.

design by fergie

Bits of fire in the sky push me east back home. I used to live in flames but it's hard on the wings. Choke me. Smoke me. Scare me back. You try but you just can't. I peel the layers in my spare time, and you're easy to see through. I can fly, I've discovered on my own. I may be the lesser butterfly but my wings are just as strong. Who are you to tell me to find a place to land? I may be the lesser butterfly but baby watch me glide.