Our patient made a follow up visit to the doctor yesterday where they removed the 40 odd surgical staples that had been holding the incisions closed. The one on the outside of his ankle was about five inches and the one on the inside was about half that long. I had been so caught up in the mechanics of bone repair (plate and screws) that I completely forgotten that they would have had to cut into his leg in order to get access to the bones.
In any case, he tells me that when the staples are removed they are in the shape of the letter M. Well, that's weird, so I go a Googling. I don't recommend it. Ask Google for images of surgical staples and it serves up an endless supply of pictures of wounds that have been closed with dozens of surgical staples. Too grim for me. A little more digging gets us some information about the nice, clean, bloodless machinery.
I surmise that closing a gash is now a do-it-yourself procedure. Here's a couple of illustrations that show the mechanics of insertion and removal.
Ran across a c
ouple of stories this morning that give you an idea of
how weird our bodies are. Kind of weird because
one of the illusionists we saw earlier this week stuck a coin in his eye socket and pulled it out of a gash he made in his arm, which is
not even possible.
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