"Just use your common sense," nurses would tell me, when explaining the intricacies of dressing my own incision: "Just use a tiny amount of Bacitracin on the cotton swab, not too much, you know, just use your common sense."
Alas, I've never considered common sense to be one of my strong suits. I'm more of a "snippets of esotric but ultimately worthless trivia" type personality: more interested in the mythical Seven Labors of Hercules than the seven chores that really need to be done around the house.
Being too ashamed to tell the nurses this, I deceptively nod my head while they provide detailed and important instructions, as if even the most complex of surgical operations are mere routine tasks for a patient of my infinite experience, dexterity and courage.
"This is easy. I can do this no problem," I boast. Meanwhile, deep inside my foolish, reckless psyche, many anxious and desperate neurons are screaming for instructional booklets, step-by-step diagrams and in-depth how-to videos.
Standing in the bathroom later, equipped with a box of gauze pads, tubes of unpronouncable ointments and sticky medical tape that doesn't stick very well, I am all fingers and thumbs. Do I apply the Lollapaloozadrine first, or the Awopbobalooboppazone? And exactly how much of each should I apply to which gauze pad? What if my incision becomes infected because an escaped toenail clipping disastrously manages to attach itself to the swab with which I am cleaning my incision? The stakes are high and no nightmare scenario can be ignored by the man who has no common sense.
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