Today I finally went back to the dermatologists office after my initial visit late December when I complained that a piece of metal that got stuck in my finger from about a year ago was beginning to hurt. It was like nothing that I have ever felt before. I am sure that it is a piece of metal but there seemed to be a hard ball surrounding the site under the skin and I was concerned that it was something a little more serious than that.

During the initial consultation Dr. Stuart told me that foreign bodies in the skin usually make their way out after a few months and that I should give it a little more time and let nature take its course. She also told me that I might be able to use a clean needle or razor blade to try cox it out and have it come out. So for the past few months i have tried everything short of minor surgery to get this out of my finger.

Finally it got to the point that it was actually irritating to type because each push of the keyboard would cause the ball under my skin to hit some nerve and it was beginning to freak me out. So at 8:10 this morning I went to get it looked at one more time and this time she offered me the solution…a punch biopsy.

Basically a punch biopsy for those of you who are not skincare professionals is where the dermatologist numbs up your skin with an injection, and after the initial pain of the needle and the stinging caused by the medication proceeds to do the real work. She took what can only be described as an amazingly sharp cookie cutter and pushes it though the skin (like the needle piercing the heart in Pulp Fiction) and remove the foreign body by taking a “core sample”. What she removed was about the size and shape of the tip of a q-tip, it was white and honestly gross.

She dropped it into a formaldehyde solution and screwed the lid onto the jar, she then looked at it and said what had to have been the funnies thing that I have heard all day which was “well I don’t think that was going to make its way out by itself” and then she sewed me up with four stitches and sent me on my way.

It was really an strange experience, I could see what she was doing the whole time, I could see the blood but because my finger was numb it seemed as if it was happening to someone else.

It was quick and painless and the only sign that I have is a finger that is all bandaged up and it looks like E.T. trying to point the way home.