The removal of hair from areas around which surgery will be performed.


"It's not to punish you or humiliate you; it's for the greater good."
—one of my nurses.


Looking back, it's sensible. A surgeon desires the best outcome for every surgery, and open-heart surgery is particularly invasive nd riky enough already. As a result, for my own safety I was subjected to the shaving of my chest and belly hair, as well as my legs. There are many good reasons why this is done.

Hair, it turns out, is a really good hiding and breeding place for bacteria. Any surgeon, before making any incision, will clean and sterilise any area around an incision to try and eliminate anything that may contaminate the wound and interfere with healing post-surgery.

The surgeon also needs the best access to the surgical site. They need to be able to see the site. Hair could interfere with their access to the site, and it's in everyone's best interest that nothing interferes with that. Incisions can be made accurately. Hair could get in the way, or worse, loose hair could get into the wound, carrying goodness-knows-what bacteria or fungi into the chest cavity, not something anyone wants to have happen; my surgery is tough enough to recover from without added complications from any putative infection.

In addition, wounds need to be dressed. Usually the dressing needs to adhere to the skin, to protect the wound. Yes, fellas, it was somewhat painful to have the dressing removed following a few days of hair growth, but my nurses were sensitive to this and were careful to inflict neither too much suffering nor laughter during the removal of the adhesive strips. They had been careful to explain beforehand why everything was being denuded and were, i have to say, consummate professionals during the shaving; careful to reduce pain and careful not to laugh too much when they'd finished. When i asked for a mirror to see the results, they were careful to laugh with m rather than at me. I owe those gals a lot; the whole nursing team was excellent and I have promised them I will enable them to never want for nice coffee again (I'm going to buy them good coffee and the ability to make it for themselves).

When I first saw myself naked in the mirror it was horrifying. I looked like a plucked chicken, naked as a stripped willow wand. The odd thing is that now, some weeks later as hair growth has begun in earnest, it follows the same pattern as it did when I first started growing body hair during puberty. It's annoying that it itches, but honestly, it' a small price to pay for having a new lease on life.

In case you're wondering "why shave my legs?", in my case they planned to harvest the mammary artery, but in the event that was not possible or desirable, they would use a vein from one of my legs, so they had to be prepped too.

iron Noder '24 #12






$ xclip -o | wc -w
498

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