284- A little dermatological update

Remember I discussed a biopsy I had 2 & half weeks ago ? Well, the dermatologist had stitched me, with the metallic, non-body degradable kind ; a choice I hadn't understood back then, nor today.

As he's away on vacation, I had to go to a local nurse office for the stitches retrieval. I'd taken a full gram of pain killer prior, and I asked my wife to accompany me as I feared a anxious experience.


 It was far worse than I had anticipated, as I experienced severe pain while the nurse was cutting my stitches. The pain, mingled with my anxiety ; I felt constricted and had to ask my wife to help open my jacket so I could breath.

My skin and hands became clammy and I broke a sweat, and as anxiety was mounting, my blood pressure dropped (my wife confirmed that my face change color to extreme pallor, a typical reaction I have for such cases), and I was about 2 seconds away from actually fainting, right there and then at the nurse's office. 

My eyes were shut and it was hard for me to open them ; I felt my hands out of my control and couldn't squeeze them when my wife asked me to do so. 

I was happy that I had asked my wife to come ; and that I had postponed lunch till after we'd returned from this office. 

The nurse was understanding and never showed any kind of judgment. She brought me a sugar cube and a cup of water, both of which helped me regain some sense of presence and avoided my fainting. 

I slowly regained color and self control, and got up very slowly, while leaning heavily on my wife and we walked back home, very slowly, as I regained my bearings, especially outside, in touch with fresh air and cold walls on the short way back. 

Despite my anxiety, pain and near-fainting, I'm proud that I managed to cope and have now recovered from the experience (it was 2.5 hours ago), but I don't look forward to do this again in about 6 weeks ; Indeed, I have to go back to the dermatologist for a second biopsy, taking the remainder of my dermatofibroma as the lab results were inconclusive. 2 or so weeks later, I'll need a final (I hope!) appointment to retrive the next stitches. So, this story shall have at least one more blog entry, if not 2.