o tempora, o mores!

My surgeon instructed me to change my bandages today.

“That shouldn’t be too bad,” I thought.

Ha. Haha. AHAHAHAHA. Right.

So first, I have to soak them off because they’re so damn sticky that they literally would not come off without ripping off a few layers of skin. Sorry, I just had surgery, I’m not trying for a self-performed impromptu skin-graft. No thanks. Even with that, it was still pretty damn painful, so I grabbed a few cotton swabs and soaked the tips in isopropyl alcohol and swabbed the lifted edges of the bandages until their adhesive dissolved and I could remove them with ease.

Today, I have made several discoveries! Hooray.

One: Total, I have thirteen staples binding me, total. Four in the top incision, five in the middle, and four in the bottom. As far as it appears to me, I could’ve had three in the bottom one [the smallest] and four in the middle.

Two: Such things look really, really gross.

Three: Not really, I’m just intensely squeamish when it comes to my own body being cut open and operated on and closed back up with staples.

Four: And being that I am squeamish over it, I started crying and hyperventilating [read: overreacting] upon having to look at them as I cleaned them and re-bandaged them.

Five: I randomly had to come to terms with something, and I’m not really sure what it was. Aside from things like my ankle and my ribs, I’ve never had any real injuries. Sure, I’m clumsy as hell, and it’s rare to find me NOT sporting a bruise of some sort, but uh…yeah. [Scraped knees, cat scratches, and random kitchen mishaps do not count as actual injury and I think nothing of them.] When I was nearly three, I needed to get seven stitches in my eyebrow; I remember being taken to the ER, being strapped down, cleaned, and getting stitched up. I remember having them removed. I don’t remember, however, ever SEEING them. I don’t recall seeing a mirror in which I could see the gash or its stitches. I mean, obviously I don’t think I’m invulnerable or anything–I mean, obviously I can get hurt and sick and stuff, and I don’t see any more than what I am–, that’s just damn silly…but it was a really weird feeling to see that…and I didn’t like it at all.

Hrm.