Surgery Anyone?

I’ve always had the standing offer of anyone needing anything fixed can come over on a Friday evening after I’ve had drinks and then I’d perform whatever surgery may be required.

I’m good at cross-stitch so stitches are piece of cake. A big enough incision and I’ll even close it up with a little design. Vasectomy? No problem. Anything at all. You name it. I’m game.

I’ve even done surgery on myself and lived to tell the tale. The first time I had a corn on the bottom of my heel. At the time I had a friend with one too. She went to the podiatrist, had a very painful procedure, had it grow back and had to do it a second time. Um, no thanks. I decided to handle it myself.

The corn remover liquid, however, wasn’t working fast enough. So I used the wart remover acid. During the week, I’d keep it covered so it would get nice and soft. Then on Fridays I’d have several very strong drinks, get out my special, extra-sharp surgical knife and pare away the portion that was ready to be removed that week. It only took three weeks for the corn to be completely gone and mine never grew back. I don’t think it hurt nearly as much as hers did either. Of course it did take several months for the ¼” deep quarter-sized hole I gouged in my foot to fill in but we won’t talk about that. The surgery was a success which is what matters and that’s saying something considering it was on the bottom of my own foot.

I made an exception to my Friday’s only rule last night, again for myself. Hey, sometimes emergencies arise. The little boys were fighting something fierce on Wednesday and I inadvertently was bitten on the leg. I know, you’re supposed to let cats fight it out to establish a hierarchy but this one was too bad, I had to intervene. I thought I had the wound cleaned out but last night when I changed out of my work clothes it was a bit pinker and warmer than I was comfortable with. Two choices. One, go to the urgent care center, sit possibly for hours with people infested with germs while being infected with said germs thus requiring a return visit to deal with the resulting illness or two, do surgery myself.

Guess which option I chose? Only problem with this was being during the week, I had to work today so the several strong drinks step needed to be skipped. Didn’t matter, I’m out of drinks at the moment anyway. I know. Hard to believe but there it is. I’ve been too busy to restock. Don’t worry, that task has moved up on the list for this weekend. Okay, step two, reopen the wound. Can you say ouch as in oh hell yes OUCH! How? Trust me, you really don’t want to know other than that nifty little knife was involved again. Step three, or is it only two since I had to skip one, which was the drinks step? Whatever, next came the rescrub, wash and peroxide the hell out of the now open wound. Nope, not open enough to require stitches. That definitely would have needed the real step one. Last step, antibiotic cream and cover for the night. Hm, snag here. Only antibiotic cream in the house is meant for cats. After some thought I decided why not. I’m defending against cat germs. If one of the cats had been bitten instead of me, I’d have put it on them. So I used it.

I’m happy to report that when I removed the band aid this morning there was no pinkness at all. No warmth. No swelling. Another self-surgical success. Who’s next?