Trauma in the Doctor’s Office

Disclaimer: If you are squeamish at all, I don’t recommend you continue reading this post. If you read on, don’t say you weren’t warned.

I might have mentioned that last week I had a mole on my bikini line removed.  I’m a naturally moley person and have had several removed over the years. They are all completely benign and normal, but still, you have to get them seen to. Well, Sunday I popped a stitch on the incision. It wasn’t that big of a deal really, it bled just a tiny bit and I didn’t even call the doctor about it since it wasn’t bleeding. I just put two butterflies on it and kept on going. Yesterday late in the day, I popped another one. Well, Bridget did that. She was standing in my lap. But that one didn’t bleed at all and since they were supposed to come out today, I didn’t think twice about it.

Today I got up, got myself and Bridget up and ready for swimming, but first we had to stop at the doctor to get my stitches out. All was quick and wonderful (except for the multiple toddler tantrums - don’t get me started on that; that’s a topic for another post) until I stood up to put my pants back on. My doctor was washing his hands when it happened.

You know how sometimes your back pops and you wonder if you heard it or merely felt it happen? Well, I could almost swear that I both heard and felt the wound pop open. I looked down and was staring at flesh that should never see the light of day. I think I almost fainted - I’m not sure since I’ve never fainted but for a second, my peripheral vision went black.

Thankfully I hadn’t gotten to the car or the gym when it happened because I just hopped back up on the table, tried not to cry (because damn, I am having a shitty week) and let him stitch me up again. All the time I had to be cheery and play with Bridget. She must have sensed that Mommy’s world was about to explode because she stopped her caterwauling and looked at me with a very concerned face. We played the “where is your hair/nose/mouth” game while I got stitched up again.

The doctor isn’t quite sure why this happened except maybe for the two stitches that popped early. He apologized like it was his fault - I think it’s just a weird spot to stitch. There is hardly any way you can move and not have that skin move or pull or rub something. Granted my doctor is no surgeon and doesn’t do just a ton of stitching but I don’t think he did a bad job. Hell, at least he didn’t leave medical waste in me.

Now I have another week with stitches, which sucks doubly because I tend to have reactions to band aids on some areas of my skin and this is one of them. I need to keep it covered but that results in a very nasty skin reaction. Today at Target I bought some other brand of bandages with a different adhesive so hopefully that will help.  And on top of the pain in the ass of having stitches, swim lessons are not possible for at least another week. The class is only four weeks, we are in week 2, I have to miss week 3. That was money well spent. I’m going to call and see if I can move the classes back to August or something. Honestly I’m a bit relieved because I feel like I have too much stuff going on right now anyway. The class may only be 30 minutes long but the prep and follow up make it take much longer.

One might think then that this was a blessing in disguise. Perhaps it is, perhaps I had to learn the hard way to slow down and stop trying to do so much. But next time the universe wants to tell me that, could the message come via telegram, rather than painfully splitting open a gaping wound near my va-jay-jay?

Filed under Random Ramblings, TMI |