Tying Up Loose Ends

I finally got my stiches removed today. Too bad it was one day too late since we had a formal group photo taken at work yesterday - there I was, almost dead center, with a mongo bandage on my nose. Priceless. The sun was probably glinting off the plasic surface, creating a nice focal point for the photo. Needless to say, I was mortified. Dave said I should just have removed it for the photo, but I really didn't want to subject my co-workers to the sight of my stiches. Oh well, I'll look back on it one day and giggle.

As for the actual removal - no novocain, thankfully - and it wasn't that bad. A little pulling and pinching, but nothing horrible. I was willing to withstand a significant amount of pain if only to get that fucking bandage off my nose. I was over the whole "I'm embarrased to have this big bandage on my nose" stage and I moved to the "If this bandage stays on one more day I'm going to be placed in a padded room" stage. I had a constant feeling that I was wearing glasses because of the pressure on the bridge of my nose, and I was endlessly swatting at my eyes to remove those invisible glasses. The bandage adhesive was starting to make me break out and it was quite itchy, not to mention the little cotton fibers from the pad of the bandage tickling my nose. And, as I found out yesterday, waiting in the sun for a half hour for the photographer to arrive, bandage adhesive tends to "melt" in the sun. The damn thing was starting to slide off my nose! I actually left work after the photo was taken to buy new bandages and replace the adhesive-slimy thing on my nose with a new one.

I think the doctor did a pretty bang-up job on the stiching, though. I did take a picture just now, but I refused to take a picture of the area while the stiches were still in. This photo is exactly one week after surgery, right after I got the stiches removed. The nurses in the office told me they call him Doctor 90210 because he does a great job with cosmetic reconstruction after removing these BCCs. The area is still a little red and bumpy, but I'm told there are still stiches on the inside (translation: yuck) that will make the area bumpy until they dissolve. I have to put vaseline or the like on the area at nighttime and sunblock on it in the morning.

Now there's only a couple of months to wait until I do the Intense Pulsed Light to control my rosacea and get rid of my sun damage. Maybe by next summer my skin will look normal again!