Buzz and the Beautiful
February 20, 2007
Apparently my affections towards my little friend Buzz were not mutual. He decided he was very angry at me last night and he threw up all over me. He cost me a trip to the doctor's this morning and a little pain afterwards. It turns out he (I'm really not sure how he acquired this gender, probably because I'm mad at him right now) was not a burst blood vessel but a blood blister. According to the doctor, it is not uncommon for these things to gather beneath an incision and gradually "work it's way out" and eventually burst. So after a slightly panicked call, Mom and I trekked up to the hospital one more time. After getting cleaned up, we noticed a small (about the size of mechanical pencil lead) hole in the middle of the scar. I will give you a glimpse of another fun conversation I had with the doctor at this point:
"Well, it's not as bad as I was expecting. I think if we just put some Silver Nitrate on it, it should just cauterize that right up."
"Silver Nitrate, that doesn't sound scary at all." At this point I am not wanting to admit I have no idea what 'cauterize' means.
"Oh don't worry, it will just seal up the hole so it doesn't bother you anymore."
"Oh, okay I can handle that. Will it sting?"
"No, no! This is what we use on babies to seal up the umbilical cord. It doesn't hurt them so I guess we'll see how tough you really are."
"Oh, cool, knock yourself out then." Surely I am more pain tolerant than a newborn infant right? "Wow, that feels like hydrogen peroxide. It kinda stings a little...no a lot....oh my gosh....oh my GOSH....um, OW!!!!!!!!!....Should I be having shooting pains in my chest, not around where you just put that stuff?"
"Where is the pain?"
"Over here" I know... that is helpful when you can't see what I'm doing...Ok, I'll be nice, I was pointing at my heart.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can tell where I am experiencing excruciating pain."
"Huh....(for the record, it's never good when your doctor says that)...You aren't allergic to Silver Nitrate are you?"
"I don't know, I've never had it. Would that be bad considering you just put some into my blood stream that goes right to my heart?"
"Um....." Also not a good thing to hear from your doctor. "Try taking deep breaths".
Long story short, it somehow hit a nerve that eventually calmed down and I am unfortunately NOT allergic to Silver Nitrate. And as far as being tougher than newborns, I would just like to point out that: how in the world would you know if that hurt them or not? Isn't the infant already crying by the time they fix the umbilical cord? And I don't think infants' nerves are completely developed at birth so I stand by my pain threshold. I will share one last thing the doctor said to me, though. "Don't worry, Deya. Even the patients that call me everyday eventually call me less and less because they start to improve." Was that encouragement or a subtle hint?
Now for the weekly medical term vocabulary lesson. If you know this one, you would have been more prepared for the above situation than I. 'Cauterize' literally means to burn. Yes, burn. Not with a flame, but something more along the lines of, oh let's say acid. Yes, acid. Turns out Silver Nitrate is a type of ACID. So now I have a charcoaled memorial to dear Buzz in the middle of my chest. It looks like someone smeared charcoal onto my chest. Burnt to a crisp. Poor little Buzz. But I am all better and even got a great story out of it!

February 24, 2007
After Buzz's cremation, we had planned to scatter his ashes (he didn't have any family for us to take him to) but Buzz had other plans. He decided he wanted his remains to be pushed back into my scar and excavate his grave into a much bigger hole. Yeah, he always was fun like that. Living on the wild side that Buzz. So after another round of calls to the doctor at 10pm last night, we made a midnight run to the pharmacy for antibiotics and met the doctor at the hospital this morning. He promised no silver nitrate and he delivered (he is not the same doctor who gave me the oh so wonderful acid last time. He is the one who made my scar smaller. I like him)!!!!! I'm not saying it was a walk in the park. Although I think we did discuss walks in the park with our dogs as he attempted to distract me during the "cleaning". I will spare you the gory details, although they are quite good if you are interested. So we are back to cleaning and dressing open wounds. It does figure this would happen just as my final chest tube sight was sealing up. So I have to wait a little longer before I can do any girlie things like use my Bath and Body Works (as opposed to the smelly Dial soap) or take a bubble bath (long live Lush!!). I suppose I will have to satisfy my inner (and outer) princess with nail polish and the occasional make-up. The doctor did joke with me about all of this and I explained to him the Law of Probabilities which states, "If the probability of this happening is small, it will happen to Deya." He just shook his head and said, "I live by that same law only I call it 'lucky'. Lucky that I'm still here after everything." Touche Doc, touche.