By the time you've reached your forties, chances are good you've had stitches a few times depending on how accident prone or unlucky you've been. I can think of four sets of stitches I've had in my lifetime. I think that's a pretty low number, especially for someone who spent a number of years being a teenage boy.
My first set of stitches resulted from a yardwork accident in 1989. I was trimming some hedges with a set of electric clippers that had once belonged to my grandmother. It wasn't equipped with any of those fancy-schmancy safety switches that folks are so fond of these days. If you turned on the clippers and then let go with one hand, they just kept running. They were generally indifferent to what you then did with that free hand. And the clippers didn't come with any of them protective guards, either. If you recklessly let your free had drift toward chattering blades, you wound up with a chunk of your index finger popping out of the skin like a lump of bloody meatloaf. And that's what happened to me. A mostly pointless trip to the Penfield Volunteer Ambulance followed by an off-hours trip to see Dr. Nazarian later, and I had my first set of stitches.
My second set of stitches resulted from my wisdom tooth extractions when I was 19. I had all four taken out at once, and per standard practice, the gum holes were sewn up afterward. I think those stitches all dissolved, so maybe they don't count.
My third set of stitches were needed to close up a slice in my forehead I received by bumping into jagged wall of rock in a gorge in Ithaca one summer during college. I was edging my way up a waterfall when it happened. It was shocking at the time. I thought I gently tapped the wall, but when I reached up to check on it, I ended up with a handful of blood. The total stitch count was low, but I was still surprised that I needed them at all.
The last set of stitches came from a lab accident at Exelixis more than a decade ago. It was classic glassware handling mistake. Any smart chemist will tell you never to use too much force to connect two pieces of glassware together or pull them apart. I forgot that one day and ended up with a nice little laceration in my thumb. Again, not a lot of stitches but enough to drive the lesson home. It could have been worse, though; I knew I guy in grad school who severed a tendon with a similar lapse in caution.
All told, I've been lucky, stitch-wise. I'm not going to tempt fate by speculating future sutures (hey that rhymes!).
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