So on last Friday morning, like the Friday before it, I found myself waking up at 8 in the morning, not having to attend school due to one of my weekly hospital checkups, where they basically charge you a bomb for some information you probably already know.
Except that this Friday was an exception. After the usual mandatory x-ray scans and being told I won't have to come back for a month because the bone doesn't heal itself in a week anyway, and that I can remove my splint and start exercising the tendons and ligaments in my left wrist again, comes the stitch removal part.
Its supposed to be a very simple procedure. Just use a pair of tweezers to pull at the wires, insert a blade into the gap, nick the wires, and withdraw the wires from the holes. So simple that the middle-aged nurse said the following to another younger nurse after looking at my stitches, "Aiyah, so simple to remove lah this one, you go attend to the other patients first let me settle this one".
The key word is supposed. Life likes to throw in a few unpredictable factors, like the flesh which isn't supposed to grow around the knot tied in the wires, but does anyway.
So I have two incisions, four stitches. The first one is removed easily, and we move on to the troublesome knot. And the middle-aged nurse is like, "Oops the flesh has grown around it. We'll need to pull the knot out of the flesh to cut the wires."
WAIT. DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT?
Any remaining doubts I have about my hearing is instantly erased as the nurse starts to tug at my stitches like a dentist extracting a tooth. Blood gets on the tweezers, the stitches, the table, and the nurse. Pain is one thing, but watching oneself get mutilated is another. I turn away, not bearing to look.
And when I finally think its over, the nurse says, "Let's move on the the other stitches and come back to that one later."
Thank god the remaining wires were removed smoothly. Then we return to the problematic one...
An agonizing five minutes later the day is saved by the knot which came loose from all the tugging, saving us from the trouble of pulling the stitches out of my flesh enough for a blade to be inserted to cut the damned things. Thank god.
Then I go home and grab my equipment and head to school for bowling.
