I told a doctor friend of mine about the suture saga. She felt the nurse was being somewhat overly cautious and offered to pop round and whip the sutures out for me. Her view was that “if brain or spine starts spilling out, that’s what gaffer tape is for.” I should point out she is a friend and not part of the care team. 😆 Deciding not to take her up on her offer, I went back to the GP surgery this morning and the nurse and an HCA were much more confident they knew what to do having looked at the photos I’d sent in. They took a look at my back and concluded it was relatively straightforward. The nurse supervised whilst the HCA started to remove the sutures and decided she was quite happy with how it was going and left the HCA to it whilst she went to see other patients. She popped back in between patients to check on progress. It wasn’t the most comfortable position to be sat, but had to be done. Mostly painless, but a few were quite tight and had started to embed themselves, and consequently were a bit painful to be removed. As the last few were removed the nurse gave me the news I was waiting for – all the wounds had healed really well and she saw no reason why I couldn’t get them wet as long as I kept soaps etc away from them, so a proper shower was now possible. Two weeks of bed baths and hair being washed with a cloth had made me feel pretty grubby. However, priorities are priorities, so I convinced Ruth that we should stop for brunch at Costa on the way home. 😉
