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Dane Allred’s Rules of Engagement
SPADING MYSELF
Part five
I concealed my panic. I was going to be walking around for a few days with a NEEDLE stuck perpetually into my skin. I really am a baby about this, and I am so hypersensitive about needles that I claim I can always feel the needle in my skin as long as it is there.
Logically, I know this can't be true. My body has endured enough pain to adjust quite quickly to most ailments, but I'm phobic enough to think I can feel a needle.
I was actually quite proud that I didn't faint right there in the office. I rose without fear to face several days with a needle in my arm 24/7, and left the office wondering if anyone could see the internal conflict I was experiencing. Was my face fixed into a constant grimace of pain? Or was the stoic face of resignation being presented to the world?
I actually performed a couple of shows with a needle sticking into my arm. It sounds like a trial, but realistically, I did forget every once in a while that there was a needle there. Until I moved my arm in a weird direction and a stabbing pain reminded me that I was enduring this only because I had stabbed myself earlier in the week. At that point all you can do is shrug your shoulders and think to yourself, "This too shall pass." And it does.
It was kind of cool to be able to show people the catheter, until I had to tell them the whole story about why I needed twice a day antibiotics. Then instead of feeling your pain with you, the begin to smile and wonder how a guy like me has managed to survive this long on a planet with so many sharp edges.
The only permanent damage from stabbing my hand Freddy Krueger-like is that I have two distinctive scars on my right thumb. One right on the top towards the wrist, and another just where the last knuckle bends under my thumb. I still use the potato pitchfork for gardening, but I am extra careful when stabbing at stubborn long-rooted weeds.
One more Dr. Wylie story deserves a painful revisit. I have inherited skin tabs from someone in my family, and I suspect it was probably my grandfather on my mother's side. Grandpa Hale had skin tabs all over his face near his eyes. It was really disturbing, and when I discovered them occurring on my face near my eyes, I decided to have them removed on a regular basis.
Dr. Wylie is pretty adventurous, but he enjoys this particular treatment way too much. To remove a skin tab, which is just extra skin gathered into a little protrusion, Dr. Wylie gets out his liquid nitrogen gun. He puts a little liquid nitrogen in this little evil device, charges it with a little air pressure, and goes to work with an evil grin.
Shooting liquid nitrogen onto bare skin through a little tiny hole feels just like - you guessed it - someone shoving thousands of tiny needles into your skin. There is no anesthetic involved, so you get the full effect of thousands of tiny needles undulled.
At least I don't have to see any needles; I only have to feel like there are the tiniest needles in creation all stabbing me at once.
I have to endure this unique torture every few years when new skin tabs appear, and when Dr. Wiley sees me coming, I think he is always looking for another adventure with his little gun. How often do you get chance to shoot liquid nitrogen onto someone's face and get paid for it?
After the treatments the skin turns black from the exposure to subzero temperatures and within a week the skin tab falls off. Within a couple of weeks the skin returns to normal.
I wonder why they say "Vanity, thy name is woman." It seems pretty vain to me to endure this kind of torture just so I don't have little flaps of skin next to my eyes.
Not all self-inflicted injuries lead to visible damage, or at least no permanent physical scar. After the spading fork incident, I really tried to be careful; after all, we had a wedding coming up in the backyard and I wanted to be present but not the focus of attention. My oldest daughter could do without comments like "Did you know he stabbed himself in the hand and they had to amputate his arm?" It really only took 5 or 6 twice daily infusions of antibiotic to clear up the infection, so I was feeling great. I don't know why I feel especially good after a round of antibiotics, but it's usually not worth the trouble I have to get into to get the injections. Or the pills. I really don't know how many rounds of antibiotics I've had in my life, but I think it may be above fifteen. Or maybe twenty.
The wedding went fine, and I didn't limp up the aisle with a broken foot, hand, or leg. Aleesa was beautiful and the work had been worth the pain. It's not very often you get to give your daughter away to her husband in your own backyard surrounded by family and friends, so the occasion was especially sweet.
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