Video of Staple Removal

Today was staple removal day, as you know. The YouTube vidoes are ready.

First, before you watch the video, I'd like you to first watch a video of our dog, Spunky. This will prepare you.



Now that you are prepared, here is the real deal. You can hear me talking to one of the PAs, Josie, about this blog. There was a recent episode of House where a patient had a blog. Now I'm the patient!

Though, unlike the House episode, I'm smart enough not to ask all of you about what I should or shouldn't do about my ankle. Then again, I wasn't smart enough to avoid an immovable tree on a snowboard. Go figure.


Some of them hurt, some of them didn't. Look how she gets her arm into it and really wiggles the staple remover to get them out. Apparently, when they removed the staple from the right side of my foot, the wound opened up to reveal ground beef. And apparently that was just fine. I don't understand medicine.

You may also notice she's holding gauze against my leaking, bleeding, draining foot. It was really going by this point.

Good day out there today. Good day.

Oh No, They Have to Remove These Staples!

I don't know how I could have missed this. How could I forget?

I woke up this morning and realized that, at some point, the 4 million staples in my ankle and foot have to be taken out. What's worse, I don't think I'll be under general anesthesia at any point in the near future.

They'll be removed while I'm awake!

Actually, something like what you see below was probably used in both of my surgeries, not Milton's red stapler as seen above. But that doesn't matter. Staples are serious and deadly. It's a proven fact. Google it.

The last time I had incision staples removed, I was under general anesthesia. It was March 1st and it was awesome. I didn't feel anything, and, I didn't die.

Since I'll be awake next time, there's a chance that a.) I'll feel something awful and b.) I'll die. Think I'm over exaggerating? Let me remind you of what my foot and ankle looks like.

I have 16 staples on the top of my zombie foot. I have 3 staples on the left side and 2 on the right side. The 2 on the right are barely containing the skin necrosis explosion in place. One wrong move and that stuff could spread to my face.

That's a total of 21 staples that have to be removed. While I'm awake with the ability to feel pain and hear metal tearing skin.

Meet my enemy, the skin staple remover.

As you can see, he's been specifically designed to kill the patient while the staples are removed from the skin. I'm not making this up! Look at that picture.

My next doctor's appointment is on Tuesday, March 23rd. There's a chance I might be killed during this visit. In fact, there are 21 opportunities due to each staple embedded in my corpse foot.

Dang it! Brooke just did a walk by and look over of what I'm writing. It's one of her classic moves. She says, "you're an idiot." I think she's referring to me. She also says, "most patients feel relieved when skin staples are removed."

Being married to a nurse has yet again been proven to be a good move on my part.