Surgery

So I had surgery a couple weeks ago...no big deal. I had a benign growth on my arm called a dermatofibroma. My friend (and roommate's dad) Dr. Hatfield told me he would be glad to take it off for me, but I never found the time to schedule an appointment. He's an ear, nose, & throat doctor, but a doctor with a scalpel is a doctor with a scalpel, right? Anyway, two weeks ago, after our clinical, my friends Kari and Lea Ann and I ran into Dr. Hatfield and the subject of my impending surgery came up. Kari and Lea Ann both wanted to watch, and Dr. Hatfield said he wasn't busy right then and was on his way to his office if we wanted to come along and get the surgery done! Yes! Only Lea Ann couldn't go. She was pretty disappointed, and she made Kari promise to video the procedure so she wouldn't miss anything good.

Off we went for my surgery (after stopping at Kari's to get her camera). Thanks to lots of lidocaine, I was awake the whole time and didn't feel a thing! The only thing I felt was the blood that dripped down on the not-numb part of my arm. I didn't watch when Dr. Hatfield was cutting because I didn't want to move and mess him up, but I watched everything else. It was more of a "real" surgery than Kari and I expected it to be...we were pleased. Not to worry - Kari got the whole thing on video! Actually, her camera died just as Dr. Hatfield was about to sew me up, so she stuck her batteries in the charger real quick (she saw this coming and brought her charger to the office with us...anticipating problems and critical thinking - way to go, Kari) and got her camera charged enough to get some still pictures of the stitching process. I'm pretty sure everyone at Dr. Hatfield's office thought we were crazy, but we had a blast! Impromptu surgeries that you get to watch are always fun. My arm was really sore that night and the next day, but other than that the experience was pretty great. And I now have one less dermatofibroma on my arm.

I had my superficial stitches removed three days after the surgery and the deeper ones removed last week. Or at least Dr. Hatfield attempted to remove them. Those things were stuck in there! Apparently I have "very healing skin." Dr. Hatfield pulled and pulled, but the stitches just kept breaking off. We decided to leave what was left since it was under the skin and wouldn't hurt anything. However, a couple days later, I could see part of a stitch under my skin, and it was bugging me. So I decided to do a couple mini-surgeries of my own and, over the last few days, I've removed the rest of the stitches myself. Dr. Hatfield is very proud. And my incision looks great!

Okay, now for the good stuff...I should tell you not to watch the video if blood and that sort of thing bothers you (Jill), but Kari's commentary's pretty hilarious if you just want to listen. The pictures aren't that graphic. And if you're wondering why I'm in all white, it's because we had just come from clinical and our uniforms are all white (and therefore really terrible).

before & after

I haven't had any trouble with this video, but if it buffers a lot, just pause it and let it load for a minute.

Like I said, the camera died and the video cut off before Dr. Hatfield sewed me up. Here are some pictures of the stitching. Kari told me to "look excited" in the first one.

These two aren't bad, but I know some people can't stand to see blood at all. So I made them thumbnails and you can click to see them bigger.