When the bandages come off

One of my favorite moments of a day shift is that first dressing change...when the bulky bandages finally come off and a new face is revealed for the first time.  What would it be like to see your face for the first time, after a tumor or deformity you had lived with for years was finally gone?

Abraham intently watched through the mirror as I gently peeled back the last of the tape and lifted a drainage-stained eyepatch to show the results of his surgery - a bone graft to the place where he had a maxilla previously removed.  He lifted his mirror to look more closely as I snipped the suture to pull out a drain, and cleaned the dried blood from around his eye.  "What do you think, Abraham," I asked.

He was very serious as his hand reached up to hold the mirror closer to his new cheek, the cheek that yesterday was flat, and he looked up at me with the beginnings of a shy smile.  "C'est bon, Laura," he said very seriously, and then lit up with a huge grin. "C'est tres, tres bon."

It is very, very good.

Rugi refused to watch her first dressing in the mirror, leaving it forgotten in her lap as she concentrated on holding still while I soaked off the places where gauze had stuck, and cleaned the staple line down her half-shaved scalp.  When the last of the gauze came off I encouraged her to look and look again, and she rather uncertainly held up the brand new mirror to examine the steristrips where her eye had once been.  She, too, broke into a smile and reached up a hand as if to touch the tumor she used to have.  As soon as my gloves came off she was shaking my hand over and over again..."merci, merci, merci, merci!"  I winked and called her beautiful, and left her admiring her new face in a small mirror.  There was one thing more that could complete her happiness, and she pointed hopefully at the urinary catheter and asked me a question in Pular.  "She say she can piss on her own," the caregiver from the bed next to her informed me, "if you can just remove this tube for her."

One catheter removal and mad bathroom dash later, Rugi was ecstatic.  She wiggled happily through her vitals check and IV flush, and hugged me over and over, then settled back in bed with her hand mirror to admire her new face once again.

C'est tres, tres bon.

It is very, very good.