A Dog, A Nose, and A Plastic Surgeon

It has been an eventful few days! On Wednesday morning I rode my bike over to a friends house for a quick errand. I knew I needed to get back home pretty shortly because my sister-in-law was flying in from Minnesota that same day. Well, my quick errand became a very exciting day. Upon greeting me, my friends dog caught hold of a bit of my face! He's actually quite a handsome, husky fellow, who had no intention of hurting anyone, just a bit over-exuberant. Fortunately, my dear friend popped me in her car and we were off to the nearest Emergency Department. I knew it must be an impressive looking wound when the entire nursing staff kept popping in to taking a look. Words like "Wow", "Goodness" and "Gnarly" were mentioned.

Wouldn't you know, I had not showered or washed my hair yet that day! Thank goodness I had brushed my teeth before heading out on my bike. Bruce, who had been running 5 miles that morning, came home to a voice mail saying "honey, meet me in the ED"! He came in all hot and sweaty wondering what on earth I was up to now.

After some IV antibiotics and pain meds, there was a transfer to the Emergency Department at Banner Desert where a plastic surgeon would see me. We got over to Desert, got two more IV antibiotics and more IV pain meds. Late in the afternoon Dr. Fam came in, checked me over and said words like "gaping wound" and "impressive" and told me he could fix me up in no time. After some more pain medicine and some Ativan, I was happy and relaxed, while Dr. Fam reattached my right nares to my face. We even joked around while he was working (but I don't remember the details, little fuzzy........) I was really blessed to have such a great plastic surgeon available. He did beautiful work.

I got to come home that night all stitched up and feeling no pain, in fact about an hour after getting home, my daughter offered to walk me up the stairs to bed because she said I was totally "stoned"! Her word, not mine! My sister-in-law and her boyfriend were troopers through the next few days, everyone has taken care of me and the house, and I'm definitely on the road to healing up beautifully.