On Snot Snatching and Suturing

A while ago, our beloved hospital grade nasal aspirator (aka a snot-snatcher!) burst at the seam (literally) and we no longer had a good way to clean out Daniel's nose. I browsed online and found some but Daniel got over the bad cold he had and I never did order one. We tried gorilla gluing it and it held for a whopping 5 seconds! Dave mentioned off-hand that we could try suturing it if the glue didn't work, but it started it's second life as a chew toy instead.

Fast forward a few weeks and Daniel has another bad cold. The same one that Dave had all last week and this week too. The one that I hope doesn't mess up our Thanksgiving plans. So when Daniel pulled out a random pack of suture from the bedside table today - and no, I don't know how it got there - I decided to try my hand at that most essential surgical skill. It takes a little practice to get used to the curved needle. I could see why people accidentally poke themselves with it, at least until Dave came home and reminded me that you're supposed to hold it with another instrument and not just your fingers. I tried out the aspirator and it still leaked a little air, so Dave added a second layer of suture to fill in some of the gaps, then went over the needle holes with a layer of glue. It worked pretty well on Daniel tonight, but he still couldn't breathe when we put him to bed. :(

I was going to say that this was my first experience with suture, but then I remembered that wasn't true. I used suture last year to string up parsley stalks to dry. It worked very well and was much easier than tying them. Now when we go to Africa, I can be Dave's surgical assistant! (Totally kidding - about being his assistant, that is)