Monday, September 27, 2004

Is that a blowtorch?

Today I had a doctor's appointment at the clinic with Nurse Judy.

Last time she removed several moles from the right side of my back by using anaesthetic and then slicing them off, followed by a couple stitches in each. I went home wrapped up enough to feel like a mummy and the anaesthetic did weird things to me. I'm discovering I'm a little sensitive to drugs in any form.
Today she took off a bunch of oversized skin tags. I've never had skin tags removed so I wasn't quite prepared for it. Just as she was getting ready with the first one my phone rang and being the cell phone slave I am, I answered. Silly me figured she's hold off, but no. I was talking and she dove right in, grabbing tag after tag and snipping them off with scissors. Yowch. Why didn't I think to take tylenol beforehand? So as I made little gasps into the phone with each one and after hanging up she said "Well, I figurd you'd be distracted." I wish. I now had little bleeding wounds and the next step is cauterization. If you haven't had anything cauterized externally without anaesthetic before, it's not quite what you'd expect. Ian suggested it was very hot and felt like fire.
It's not. What it does feel like is quick repeated bursts of thousands of tiny needles simultaneously jabbing into an open wound. Of course a couple decided not to cooperate and kept bleeding anyway requiring more bursts of pain. I told the nurse the only saving grace was that the instant the cauterizer stopped, so did the pain. I had to look up and see what the machine looked like that caused that amount of pain and questioned whether it was just a miniature blowtorch. The nurses got a big kick out ouf of that. But wow. No wonder it took me so many months to go back and get this part done. It'll probably be a couple more months before I get the last portion completed.
At least I'm not loopy while recovering this time like I was last time. It's what I have to look forward to though.

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