Two-fer

As CrankyProf discovered (and so graciously informed the internet) I often meet patients at the office after hours when they need special care (and I'm not in the middle of doing anything else.) Many times it's quicker for them and just as easy for me. Every now and then, though, I get into more than I bargained for.

One lazy Sunday afternoon, the phone rings:

"Dr. Dino? Adam just got this huge gash in his head at a rugby game. We're still at the field, but I know it needs stitches. I really don't feel like sitting in the ER with him for hours and hours. Would you please please please do us a huge favor and come in and stitch him up?"

Sure, why not. As it happens, Adam was even in scouts with the Nestling so we'd run into him outside the office from time to time anyway. May as well do my Good Deed for the day.

So I putter out to the office, unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Within a few minutes their van pulls up. In walks Adam, his head covered in a huge swath of white bandage, followed by his mother, contrite and grateful.

Followed by ANOTHER kid with bandages around his head, and yet another mother.

"Hey, Dr. Dino," says Adam, "Right after we called you, my friend Brian here also got hit. He has a cut over his other eyebrow." (The opposite side from Adam's wound. Just my luck: symmetrical ruckers.) "Any chance you could sew him up too?"

Both boys were grinning the shit-eating grins of teenagers in trouble that wasn't their fault; both mothers were saying "Please" with their eyes. At least the second kid -- who wasn't my patient -- had really good insurance, so I figured, why not? No one had lost consciousness. Everyone remembered everything that had happened. No concussions involved, so all there was for me to do was tend to the wounds.

Adam came back first. He admitted that the guy who had done the bandaging had gone somewhat overboard as I cut off roll after roll of gauze. Just above his right eyebrow was a deep, gaping laceration about two inches long.

"Wow!" I said. It was gross, but gross = "wow" to a teenage boy.

"Can I see it?" he asked. I handed him a mirror. "I wish I could take a picture of it," he said.

No problem. I trudged back out to the waiting room and addressed his mother: "He wants his phone." I busied myself assembling my wound irrigation and suturing supplies while they recorded the wound for posterity. It was deep enough to require a few deep absorbable sutures to pull the skin edges close enough together, but when it was done I thought it looked pretty good, in a Frankenstein's monster kind of way. Adam and his mom thought it looked great.

Brian's gash wasn't as deep or as long, and was closer to being actually in his eyebrow. It turned out he'd had another cut in the same place a few months ago, so they thought maybe the scar had opened back up. Just a few stitches almost completely hidden in his eyebrow and he was good to go.

Both boys healed up fine. I even got paid for both procedures. But they're both still playing rugby, so who knows? You may meet them yourself some weekend, CrankyProf.