Staples Out!

Huge Relief!
Friday, November 2nd

Thursday night I started talking to Bob and trying to figure out how we could go out the next morning to find a place to get my staples out. By this time it was now 15 day that I had them in and they were really bothering me. I felt like if I got them out it would help me to start feeling better. I still was not able to get in touch with Dr. Tyagi or anyone in her office. I called the hospital to see if went down there, if they would remove the staples for me. They gave me a bit of a run around and kept trying to get in touch with my Dr. and telling me that if I went there it was going to be more expensive. At this point I really didn't care if it was more expensive, I was feeling awful, it had been too long, and I didn't see waiting until the following Tuesday when Dr. Tyagi's office might have office hours. I had already tried calling my primary care doctor's office and they were not open because of the power outage. We then heard that another nearby urgent care clinic was open so we decided to try them in the morning.

So, Friday Bob, Manami and I all got ready and set out on our excursion. This was after all of us being in the house since before the storm. Bob had made a couple of short trips out and we knew that it was going to be difficult to get around with all the road blockages. We headed to Mede Merge to see if they would take care of my staples and refill my prescriptions. I really thought that they wouldn't unless they could somehow reach my doctor. I also expected if they were the only doctor's office open in the area that it may be a long wait. What I expected was that we would go there, be turned away, and need to find our was to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick. When we arrived at Mede Merge it was obvious that they were running on a generator, there were only a few dim lights and all the workers were bundled up to keep warm.

To my surprise they took me right in and the doctor immediately came and took my staples out! As he started and Bob and Manami were on the other side of the table from me, I had to ask Bob to come over to hold his hands and get some support. I had to bury my head into his stomach and squeeze his hands. Each staple was a bit of a painful pinch and since my hair had started to grow back it felt as if the doctor was yanking out some hair as well. We decided to count the staples to make sure that they were all out, which was good because Dr. Pilla said at one point, "last one" and Bob was keeping track and said, "oh no, there's three more". I think maybe my hair was covering up the ones at the very top. It was all over very quickly though and I was so happy to have them removed finally!

I also explained how I was getting so sick when my medication started to wear off. I didn't feel pain in my neck, but was so incredibly sick to my stomach and I wanted to wean off the medication. He gave me a very low dose of Oxycotin so that I could take a couple of days to taper off. I really was quite concerned about getting off of the medication and felt like I would be doing so much better if I wasn't also dealing with all of the side effects. Of course then we needed to find a pharmacy that was open. Thankfully we thought to ask at the desk before we left and they had a list. We had to go to the Boundbrook Walgreens all the way out by Route 287. It was just such a relief that we didn't need to go sit in the emergency room and wait for hours to be seen.

That's not a Superhero, it's Dr. Pilla during the power outage

A bit painful...needed Bob's support

19 staples removed!

looks quite sensitive - ouch it was!