Staples: A Do-It-Yourself Repair Tale

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Day-Out-Of-Time
National Scrabble Championship
Birthday - 1st Test Tube Baby
Constitution Day (Puerto Rico)
Saint James Day (Spain)
Republic Day (Tunisia)

 

There’s internet here in the wilds of Wyoming. God help us all.

 

So.

 

When I was in maybe second or third grade, Mom had us out doing a Summer Activity—I believe we were painting garden tiles out on the front lawn. I was being the artistic one who could draw figures that made sense (this made me feel superior); my brother was doing some of his interesting colorful abstract designs, and my sister was doing five-year-old art, which we will also call “colorful and abstract.” We wound up using a lot of poster paint, so Mom went inside for a minute to get some more paint from downstairs. And on the way down the hall she tripped, or lost her balance, or something, and fell—whacking the back of her head on a corner of the wall.

 

She plunked to the floor, a bit stunned and dizzy. But she realized that the back of her head felt a little wet, and she looked up at the wall to see blood on that wall corner. Head wounds, even superficial ones, bleed a lot, so when she reached back to check her hand came away with a goodly chunk of that slightly more viscous blood you get from these things.

 

Hooboy.

 

Meanwhile, upstairs my sister, who at that age had some serious separation anxiety, decided that it was time to go looking for Mom. We went in to find her still sitting downstairs, and when she saw us she tried one of her usual, somewhat ineffective attempts to keep us calm in the face of disaster: “Hey, Amelia, I seem to have hit my head. Probably I’m bleeding to death. Be a dear and call your father?”

 

I know what you’re thinking—“For god’s sake, woman, call an ambulance.” But for our family, Dad is definitely the first go-to guy. So I gave him a call and let him know that Mom had hit her head and cracked her skull and was dying. Dad listened gravely. “All right,” he said. “Put pressure on it. I’ll be home shortly.”

 

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, towing his tools with him. “All right,” he said, with that Happy Cheerful Demeanor he puts on to reassure patients, “let’s have a look!”

 

So Mom staggered into the living room, and Dad studied the wound with a professional eye, poking and prodding and shining lights in it and doing all those doctor things. And, finally, he delivered his professional opinion.

 

DAD: You’ll be fine. A few staples right in there and you’ll be right again in no time.

MOM: Staples?

DAD: (fishing in his bag) Sure!  I picked a stapler up as I was heading out, just in case!

 

So he slapped on some local anesthetic, and then hefted up a surgical staple gun.

 

DAD: Is it numb yet? (prodding her skull) Can you feel that?

MOM: … No?

DAD: Right.  This may pinch a bit.

 

He tilted her head forward, held the stapler to her head, and fired.

 

The staple curled up into a twist and clinked to the floor.

 

DAD: Hmm. We’re going to need bigger staples.

 

So he called up his technician—a friend of the family—and waited around for him to arrive.  By then the anesthetic was wearing off.

 

DAD: Do you want some more?

MOM: (giggling hysterically) I’m fine!

DAD: Okay. Hold still.

STAPLER: KA-CHUNK.

MOM: Ow!

 

And then, six staples and six “Ow!”s later, Mom was all fixed up. We kids all stared at her with awed horror as Dad finished cleaning up the wound.

 

DAD: There! That should do it.

 

And it did. Mom went around with staples for a few days until the wound closed, at which point Dad helped her get them out.  And until that time, she had a great time showing off the back of her head and shocking people.

 

Even now, though, with the staples just a memory and any scar she may have invisible under her hair, it’s a helluva story to tell.

 

The best part is relating it before you tell people Dad is a neurosurgeon.  That makes it even better.

Comments

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

O_O! Dear God. That is quite a story, LOL.

(I once stapled my thumb as a child. Not as impressive, but it involved staples, so I thought it might be somehow relevant.)

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

My brother hit his head on a door one time and bled all over? Not as epic, but vaguely related?

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

That's the best story I've heard all year, although you could have hidden the neurosurgeon part from us as well. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Oh, holy crap! I was surprised enough even having known that. Even with that training, being able to operate on someone one has such an emotional connection to on such short notice seems like it would take Nerves Of Steel to me.

[10cents.livejournal.com]

That's the part that impressed me the most, too.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

hehehe... awesome!

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

My only home surgery story was using an exacto blade to get a splinter out of my little brother's foot. It had formed a sort of nasty irritated blister around it. My mother went to pieces at the idea, but I could tell it was only dead skin I'd have to cut away to get the splinter out. He didn't feel a thing and was fine. I think my mother had a worse time of it-- she had to leave the room.

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

...Awesome.