Celebrating My 70th Birthday

Getting the Lead Out, and Leaving a Friend in Stitches

Courage:

Dare to do unthinkably brave acts, ones that take you beyond your self-imposed boundaries and leave you feeling really good about yourself.

Two Courageous Acts That I Am Grateful For:

#1) After a very painful heavy metal test that left me very sick and laid me out straight for the last five weeks, I found out I have off-the-graph levels of lead, uranium, strontium, and palladium in my body...hence the severe pain. Initially, I felt shocked and discouraged by my test results, but I have never been one to wallow in self-pity or despair. I set about doing extensive research and educated myself on the safe removal and healing of this new ‘bump in the road.’ I now have a solid course of action and am filled with immense hope. I am finally able to get to the source of some of my key health issues. I am very excited because I love learning all kinds of new things. I love empowering myself. Experiential or firsthand learning is very empowering for me. It creates a deep body-knowing that I never forget. So, I learn even more about total body healing. I commit to moving forward with determination and courage....one step at time.

Bravely approach your life with all the heart and soul you can muster. You'll never regret it. You'll change lives, including your own, as you discover your full potential and KNOW what you're made of.  

#2) In a crisis situation, I was able to suture (stitch) the hand of a dear friend who accidentally cut a deep gash into the web between thumb and forefinger. The bleeding was the most profuse I’ve ever seen. But, that bleeding also flushed out the deep wound. Fortunately, I had all the necessary surgical tools, and the means to sterilize them ‘in the field,’ so to speak. I always carry them in my pack.

Blessedly, my friend was unbelievably calm and completely trusted me. But then, I too was very calm and proficient. I knew time was of the essence. I was able to slow the bleeding, and within minutes I closed the wound using individual square-knot sutures. There are faster methods of suturing, but I felt the square knot would not slip, nor would it tug on the suture before it. It also gave me more control over the placement of each suture. My friend’s hand is now healing beautifully, without incident of infection, reopening, seepage, blood poisoning, and so on. And, my sutures are as neat as my dad’s. I have done sutures on myself a few times over the years, and then assisted various surgeons in suturing their patients. I also have removed countless sutures from mouths, belly buttons, hands, legs, etc.

My dad was a dentist and oral surgeon. I spent many long hours working closely with him while we cut people’s mouths open, cleaned and repaired the damage, and then sutured them back to together. I remember the day Dad let me tie my first suture, a square knot. Although, I do have this amazing skill, it is not something to be taken lightly, or to do willy-nilly on another person unless it is an emergency situation. However, I remember some of my brothers, who also had worked with dad, doing dental floss sutures on various injured pets. All survived. In emergency situations people have even used sterilized hair from a horse’s tail for sutures.

When I went off to the Australian jungle at age twenty-five, Dad made sure that I had an extensive medical kit, one that included straight and curved edge scalpels, waxed silk suture, absorbable hemostat, coated polyester suture, ½ inch circle surgical needles, clamps, suture removal scissors, xylocaine, sterile gauze and pads, and much more. Dad had trained me so well over the years, that I was proficient in the use of it all.

By happenstance, I once assisted on a vasectomy at an outback doctor's office in Australia. I had just walked in off the street as my then ex-husband was about to have a vasectomy. But the doc's PA (physician’s assistant) had suddenly gone home very sick. The frantic, hair-pulling doc had irate patients lined up and no one to help him. I jokingly happen to mention that I had assisted in oral surgery for several years, and the doc looked at me and exclaimed, "Bloody strewth, youse a bloody bleeding blessing, mate. Scrub up!"

I thought this bush doc dressed in scruffy tee-shirt and shorts was joking, so I simply laughed. However, he was dead serious as he laid out two pairs of surgical gloves, and asked me to scrub up and help him put together a tray of surgical tools: scalpels, snips, needle drive, swabs, sutures, and so on.

Scrubbed and ready, away we went. We snipped and sutured and that was that. Although he begged me to stay and help him through the week, and even offered me a full-time job, I had other commitments. I had a jungle to explore.

And, that was that; I left and we never saw each other again. I was the drive by, barefoot, vasectomy assistant for a tee-shirt wearing doc. Strewth, mate, youse just gotta love the Aussies, especially those spirited outbackers.

Love,
Roby

PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all my friends whose birthdays I have missed over the last five weeks. I wish you so much joy and love. I am so grateful that you grace my life. You literally are the angels that surround me….more than you know. All my love. Roby

#Sutures #bushmedicine #couragechallenge #heavymetaldetox #robineaston