Stitches Out

After my ER visit last Sunday, I got a slip with a date and time and location. That was to get the staples out.

Now, the staples were not really painful, but I thought removing them might be. After all, they had hurt a little when they were put in, and now they had probably bonded with the tissue near them. Tearing them out was bound to cause pain, right?

Turns out it didn’t. The removal of the staples was about the least painful thing I have done in my life. I felt more when I simply touched the staples to check how they were doing during the day. Prodded by friends, who claimed I could do it on my own, I even pulled (gently) on one or two, only to find it was quite painful.

Not the staple removal with the appropriate tool. Looks like scissors, one-time use. My nurse went to work, and in five minutes the staples were gone, and if he hadn’t put them in my hand for safe keeping, I would have thought he hadn’t even started.

So, lil’ piece of advice: when someone says you can do it yourself, don’t. I went primarily because I wanted to have a medically trained professional look at the wound, in case something went wrong or looked wrong. But the comparison between what I would have done and what the nurse did… It was well worth the $40 copay.

(As an aside, it was the first time I went to Kaiser and they didn’t make me wait forever. Go Kaiser!)