Feb 8, 2021
“The nurse said not to take the bandages off for 24 hours,” my wife scolded. “What part of ’24 hours’ did you not understand?”
“Hmmm, well, I saw that as more of a guideline,” I replied. “I’m a fast clotter. The bleeding had stopped so I didn’t think the bandages were really needed anymore, and this way more healing oxygen gets to the wound.”
“You just wanted to see your nose,” Honey said. “If your sutures get infected, it’s your own fault.”
Of course I wanted to see it: the surgical repair to my nose, the stitches around the skin graft above my right nostril, and the chunk of skin returned to fill the scabbed-over divot between my eyebrows. For three weeks I have had to wear a skin graft feeder, a strip of my own living, bleeding forehead tissue, laid across the bridge of my nose. For three long weeks I had to go out in public looking like I had a Vienna sausage strapped to my face, and the COVID mask didn’t even cover it.