Minor Surgery

I recently performed minor surgery in my cubical at work. It was a nice way to return from Christmas.

Sunday night, I was playing roughly with my cat, Mac. She has great control over her claws which keeps Julie & I from trimming them...EVER. Our other two cats (Lupin & Mia) are beasts whose nails are trimmed once every couple of weeks. The rule of thumb at our house is, if we can hear them "tick, tick ticking" across the hardwood floors, they need to be cut.

This is a good time to answer a question running through the minds of the non cat owners and, well the shitty cat owners. No they have NOT been declawed. For those of you unfamiliar with what declawing entails, take a look at your hand. Now imagine trimming your nails...by completely removing your finger to the first knuckle. There ya go champ. You've just been declawed.

Instead, Julie and I hold the cats down and trim their nails while they scream BLOODY MURDER! It's all a show. The cats are in no pain. However we are, as often times they scratch the shit out of us during the procedure. It's quite the bonding experience.

Sunday night, Mac reach out and nicked my finger. I quickly grabbed it and said, "It's not your fault." She stopped playing and cocked her head to the side indicating she knew she hurt me. I have never met an animal who could communicate as well as this cat. I repeated to her "it's not your fault," adding "I shouldn't have been playing so rough." At this point blood is everywhere, as a kitty can cut deep!

I cleaned it up and put a band-aid on, all while Mac supervised to make sure I was ok. I went downstairs and she followed me. She didn't leave my side until I went outside to shovel snow.

For some reason the new band aids we have aren't very good at covering a finger tip. They won't stay secured, especially in a snow glove. I have replaced the band aid 4 times in 2 days. That seems excessive. Today at work, I gave up on the band-aid all together. I'll bleed on my keyboard if I must.

A piece of skin was hanging from the cut and was annoying when I'd type, so I decided to remove it. I pulled it (which is never a wise medical technique) and the skin seemed to go on FOREVER. I figured if I continued it would have gone up my arm, under my pit across my chest and down the other arm. Instead I stopped and grabbed a pair of scissors from my desk. The same scissors I used to open my mail (yes I have a letter opener, but who actually uses them?).

As I cut the excess skin a couple of things occured to me, first..."I am performing a minor surgery right here in my cubical," and second "this is not exactly sanitary!"

My finger is completely find now, which means the procedure was a success.

I am thinking of opening my own practice with some of the tools I got for Christmas. Any of you assholes who have had your cats declawed, come on over. Finger tip removals begin at 5:00 pm.