There are so many words that all of us understand and to which we give little attention – house, family, tree, door, and so on. Scissor, for many of us, is such a word.
I remember that the word meant a tool for cutting construction paper when I was a grade-schooler. Later, the same word meant a tool for cutting fabrics such as fiberglass that my brother and our friends used in making telescope tubes. Years later, it was the word for a tool that was used to cut hangnails and such.
It would be sometime between the summer of 1976 and late 1979 that I would rethink the meaning of scissors. In that period, scissors became a tool for cutting through fabrics. They were an implement in the toolbelt of every EMS technician, ER nurse, and surgical trainee. The scissor was the device by which a clinical person was able to free a patient from the bonds of attire, surgical dressings, and even danger.
I acquired my first pair of such scissors during my surgical rotation in medical school. Like other tools that I bought, a reflex hammer and tuning fork, they never saw any actual use while I was a medical student. Nonetheless, I became accustomed to wearing them as a clinical (fashion) accessory. These tools were less useful than a white coat or a beeper. but they were part of the persona that every young, clinical resident was expected to wear.
In the following years, I saw scissors used in the ER to remove the clothing of injured persons who could not disrobe due to their injuries. EMS and ER nursing staff deftly cut through pants, dresses, bras, briefs, panties, and other attire in order to free the patient from the clothing that would have otherwise impeded their treatment.
It was the morning after Labor Day of 1982 when the scissor imposed its imprint on our lives – Susan and mine. Susan had set out to her clinical duties that morning in the last quarter of her Pediatric residency. I had just begun my private practice and had set out to the hospital just a few minutes later. A holiday reveler fell asleep at the wheel and rear-ended Susan’s subcompact at highway speed – sending her tiny car end-over-end into the median. Fuck!
I arrived in the ER after a call from EMS reporting the accident. I arrived at the hospital to find Susan in an ER treatment bay. She looked fine save for a few bruises and an arm sling. The nurse at her bay said that they had cut her panties off, and that they had noted that the item had more than a few holes. Your mother warned you about that!
So, I am recalling these events tonight because Susan had a right TKR (total knee replacement) yesterday and just came home today. She retired to the bedroom after dinner and then texted me to come help her. It turns out that her analgesic catheter had become entangled in her panties. Damn!
I tried to get her catheter untangled. No joy! So, I fetched the kitchen scissors and cut the panties in order to free the path of the analgesic infusion. All that preoccupation with surgical scissors and underwear finally came to fruition!
Hallelujah!