Commit to the Nipple

At the risk of making you think I'm a part-time stripper I will now write what I believe to be my fourth post in 2 years about adhesives on my nipples. I don't know. Sometimes a person always sees a rainbow, always picks the correct Pick Four lottery numbers, always gets called for jury duty. Me--I always find myself in situations that end up with adhesive on my nipples.

Today my "visiting nurse" came by to check my Hickman line, help me do the "flush" to keep clots from forming, etc etc. Fair enough. The nurse was extremely nice.

And his name was Paul.

Paul was a lovely, competent man. Paul has two kids. Paul agreed to wrap my Hickman for me so I could shower (you have to have three hands to do it, to coil up the lumens, cover them with gauze, and then stick an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of adhesive waterproof plastic over it all so that the line doesn't get wet in the shower. Getting it wet is a Very Bad Thing To Do). Having gotten my dressing just a wee bit wet yesterday I figured I'd have an expert do it for me today just for refresher's sake.

Paul did a pretty bad job of things, quite frankly. Or, more accurately, he did it no better than I could have done it myself. Why? Because Paul did not commit to the nipple. I could tell he was trying to find any number of ways to have me not pull my shirt down over my boob. I didn't know how to tell Paul, R.N. that I didn't care if he saw my boob. I just wanted the damn line covered. I recognize the placement of my line is awkward, but the nurse at the hospital said that it's that way for most petite people because you don't have a huge amount of space between your superior vena cava and your neck. Or something like that. Basically, wee people have awkwardly placed lines, and I, by public vote of acclamation, am apparently wee. Hence my line that requires that the 8 1/2 x 11 adhesive cover my boob and nipple as well as the line. I'm okay with that. But Paul clearly was not.

I probably could just have put him out of his misery by saying something like, "yeah, it's awkward, but I'm used to the adhesive so don't worry." But something evil in me found it funny that he was gingerly trying to preserve my dignity when we all know that I have none to preserve. The best part, where I almost had to stifle a laugh, was when he finally came to terms with the fact that the adhesive was going to have to go near NippleLand, but he deftly made a small fold in the adhesive so it wouldn't actually stick and said too quickly, "There. I've given you a little flag so you don't have to search for a place to peel it off." He did not mention that he had also thereby managed to avoid touching said nipple. He also did not mention for a few moments that he had left a large swathe of Hickman line gauze unadhered, so dedicated was he to avoiding my prodigious (not) boob.

All in all, I found it to be a very helpful and entertaining nurse visit. Although I'm sure that if I need a visit in the future, Paul will be unavoidably unavailable. ;)