I think it would be really, really cool to get to give myself stitches. Don’t throw up yet. I don’t want to get anything amputated by mistake and then have to sew my own arm back on with some spider silk or anything Bear Grylls-ey like that and I really don’t want to have to do my own emergency appendectomy in the middle of the desert and sew my stomach closed. I’m not a complete weirdo. But if I were just a little bit hurt, like I’d cut myself a little bit on something that was sharp but still really clean and it wasn’t all covered in tetanus and then the cut was already numb because they’d given me a shot, it would be neat to get to put in a stitch or two with proper supervision to make sure I didn’t go crooked.
But when you ask the doctor if you can try out the liquid nitrogen blow torch that she’s about to spray onto your face growth, she looks at you funny and tells you no. And that’s just bogarting that blow torch.
I’m a teacher and I would never be stingy with my teacher stuff like that. I would absolutely let you jump up and come to the board to show the class how to work that problem. I don’t have to be selfish with the chalk just to prove that I went to college to do this and you didn’t.
But the doctor who was freezing the thing on my face wouldn’t even let me hold the mini-blowtorch and I don’t think it was because I’m not qualified to do it. It could be because I asked before she started if my nose would come apart if she held it on there long enough like in those videos where they drop a mouse in liquid nitrogen and then drop it on the ground and make it shatter. Maybe I sounded too excited by that idea. She was also both impressed and a little bit alarmed that I had a picture of my nose-growth in my camera phone. When she asked me why I had taken a picture of my own nose, I blew my chances of ever playing with the blowtorch by saying, “I blogged about it and let people vote on what it is.”
I still think she’s hoarding her toys because she wants to look super professional and important. Why else would she wear that white coat ALL THE TIME? I get it already, you have a coat, you’re a doctor. Maybe she was actually a little bit insecure, like she thought I might do a better job than she could. Or it’s possible she never learned to share back in kindergarten. She was probably in a really strict academic program for little kids who were going to grow up to be doctors, so grew up knowing only cutthroat competition and her parents made her neurotic and gave her an eating disorder by riding her case all the time to be valedictorian of the preschool. Poor Dr. Stingy-Pants. Now I feel bad for her, and I’m the one who didn’t get to use the blowtorch.
Lorca Damon 
[…] How Hard Can It Be? (lorcadamon.com) […]
My proctologist was equally stingy. He wouldn’t let me push the pedal to raise the table–the one you kneel on that lifts your butt into the air and makes the blood rush to your brain–if your brain is in your head and not the part of your body that’s in the air, so I left with a purse full of gloves, cotton swabs the size of a drum major’s baton, and other accoutrement that had me so befuddled, I just had to have them. I forgot I had moved everything into the glove compartment in my car and when my adult son opened it, he just looked at me and said, “I don’t ever want to know how you came by this stuff, or what you plan on doing with it.” Like I’d ever tell him.
Bwaahaaahaaahaa! PLEASE tell me you had to inform him that you were a fetish escort!
My cousins and I would stitch each other up all the time. When my cousin did something even we couldn’t fix so his mom brought him to the hospital, he stole a bunch of needle and thread packages from the hospital cart. This brought our home stitching to a whole new level.
You are so lucky. My parents never let us do anything cool like that.
I performed minor surgery on myself once. Since I’m a nurse, I knew where the doctor hid the good toys. 🙂
You are my hero.
Yeah. Drs are really stingy with their stuff. My friend had outpatient surgery on Monday and I wanted to stay and watch. They said no. I mean, they didn’t even put her to sleep or use a real operating room. They just numbed her nose and let her sit in a dentist chair type thing. Since she came out with about 15 stitches it would have been neat to watch them open her whole nose…..Of course if we learned to do all this stuff they couldn’t charge us the GDP of a small country to take a wart off our noses.
I so wish I thought like you! btw, I am reading your book. Thanks for the laughter!
According to my previous post, I’m required to say, “You totally should have bought the other book. It’s way better.” Thanks for reading!!!
actually, I’ve read it too!
Oh, and another thing! I HAVE given stitches. Not to myself, but, to… other things… 😀
Pfffft… Those medical professionals suck. Way back when I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, I remarked to my chemo nurse that I’d seen her do the prep so many times that I could probably do it myself. “Really? You think so?” “Yeah, I’m sure of it.” “Ok, go for it.”
Alcohol rub to the port-o-cath site, swab in circles moving outward, say “Breathe in!” and jam that fucker home. No problem. She drew the line at me collecting her pay for doing that, though.
She only let you cuz she thought you were cute. My doctor isn’t hot for me like that. And I still think she’s just selfish.
You are a FAAA-RE-E-E-E-EEAK! I’m just happy I wasn’t in bed trying not to laugh to the point of blowing boogers out my nose again while reading one of your posts! OMGeee.
Oh my god, Susan, so far you’ve peed yourself and snotted on yourself! There aren’t a lot of bodily functions left. It might be worth getting a medical evaluation. Or at least joining a fetish site, if you’re happy with these results. Thanks for reading!