When You Get Butterflies

Pierce—July of '96 and July of '15

Not long ago, Pierce called to ask me details about applying a butterfly bandage to his roommate’s leg. The two young men had been biking home from the liquor store with a six-pack of beer and his roommate hit some gravel and the bike flew out from beneath him. He landed on the bottles, which broke, and a shard of glass cut a nice gash down his thigh. Pierce was wondering if they could avoid going to the ER and do like I’d so often done when Pierce was growing up and just tape the thing shut.

​Pierce knew from personal experience that you can avoid ER visits at times with DIY home fixes. (It helps that I was a nurse and had years of training and work behind my decisions to stay home from the hospital.) He benefited from my thrifty, quick intervention one day when he wanted a dish out of the cupboard and was going to do it himself. The cabinet door was already open when he jumped up to get on the counter, and his head smacked right into the door. The result was a deep, clean laceration on his scalp. The cut was within his hair, so I figured a scar there wouldn’t make much difference, plus sometimes avoiding stitches makes smaller scars. Without much fanfare, I took Pierce into the bathroom, grabbed a razor, told him what I planned, and I started shaving the area around the cut on his head. At that stage, I told Jason, who was chalky pale and listing to starboard, “I got this. You better go sit down. With your head between your knees.” Once shaved, Pierce’s scalp was easy to close and tape shut. No fuss, no numbing shots, no cost, no ER wait, no exposure to infectious people or dirty hospital floors, and no more pain.
 
Pierce sent me a photo of his roommates laceration so I could give my opinion about closing it with butterflies. It looked doable. I sent a video that I quickly made showing how to cut the butterflies and how to apply them. Pierce tended the wound then sent me photos of his handiwork. It was a little looser than I would have liked and I said it might leave a thicker scar than necessary. Pierce adjusted it, but I still would have liked the edges closer. I told him if it did scar, his roommate could use the scar to impress a girl. Pierce answered, “It’s pretty high on his thigh, so if a girl sees it, I think she’s already been pretty impressed.”