Last night, I had a new stitches patient. She is a 12 year old who goes to the LL school. I guess she was walking/running along the edge of the canal and fell. I was really bummed about how the pictures turned out, for the before picture I forgot to pull down her lip so you could see the really bad part. It was pretty deep and long, going almost clear to her gums. She was pretty scared, and I almost forgot to pray before I started - so I asked her if I could pray and after that she was totally relaxed! PTL! I think she was half-asleep by the time I was done with the 10 or 11 stitches. It was my first time with such a thin & almost invisible thread. I used absorbable stitches so they won't need to be taken out. It kind of looks like it's still open in the after picture, but I assure you it closed up very nicely. She was a perfect patient!
Next, sorry I am going to show the before picture again but I just wanted to refresh your memory. Sorry for those (John) who don't really dig the whole open wound thing. I kinda do though. (just don't scroll down) This is the woman who was in a motorcycle accident.
Two weeks would have been yesterday, so I was planning to take the stitches out then. I told her that was the plan - the last time I saw her, which was Sunday. Her neice (the arm cut) has still been coming everday to get it re-dressed. She told me Tuesday that her aunt took out her stitches.
Well, I was just kind of baffled. After verifying again and again - making sure I wasn't having some communication breakdown, she said that yes, auntie here removed her stitches.
I was ..... surprised, worried, and angry all at once. First of all, I was thinking why in the world would she do that? - she only had a few more days left to go. Then I got to thinking: well what if a piece of the thread is stuck underneath her skin? What if she cut them out with a big dirty machete and re-opened the wound? What was so bad about me doing it? So that's when I became rather annoyed and angry and obsessive about the whole situation.
I honestly thought I wouldn't see her again, that she just wouldn't come back. Ti-pap and her neice told me that she took them out because she was afraid that it was going to hurt when I took them out. I've fought with her these whole two weeks .... her pain tolerance is zero. That's OK but ya, I thought it was clear that it was just a few snips and really no pain.
She took a 'gillete' - a little razor blade and cut out them out. Oh well. But it is kind of satisfying to take them out yourself, or at least I think so. It looks alright but sorry about the blurry after picture, the camera is weird about up-close photos (or I just don't know how to make it work like it's supposed to.)
Before:
Fini!:
Sorry about the annoying picture spacing --
it is not allowing me to have them side-by-side.
Au revoir, I'm going to go eat more watermelon! We recieve two more today. And yes, we've been forced to re-gift (at one point we had 7 total - how were we gonna do that, one per person?! I think not.) So far, though, I am enjoying watermelon season much more than mango season.
~Britt (a current/future victim of watermelonitus)
