Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

You may remember that back in March, Tom removed several of the magnets in my left hand because they were compromised. We thought they'd all been removed, but about a week and a half ago it one that must have been totally buried under the finger pad surfaced. I don't know what irritated it and caused the new rupture and migration.

Anyway, I submit photos (by Badur) to BME just like everyone else, so here we go:

1/10 Creating the flap (you can't cut straight down to remove magnets because they don't hold their form well enough)	2/10 Starting to open the flap to see how badly the magnet has decayed	3/10 Flap fully open, showing the darkness of the magnet just under the surface	4/10 The remnants of the magnet are now more clear and the amount of compromised tissue can be seen	5/10 The fistula-surrounded implant is exposed and ready to be removed, looking a lot like a cyst
6/10 After excising the pocket of tissue that the implant is surrounded in it can be lifted out	7/10 This is what the implant looked like at the time of removal; a clear bit of the silicone casing that had torn away, and the magnet with adhered flesh	8/10 The flap then gets closed using 4-0 sutures	9/10 Closeup of the silicone coating that had separated	10/10 Closeup of the magnet, cut in half with a scalpel: it has the consistency of a thick olive paste and has no real structure

So hopefully there aren't more of these to pull out, it sucks! I hate getting my fingers worked on because the nerve density is so high.

Anyway, whenever I post pictures like this I get messages from artists and practitioners telling me of all the people they know who've had removals. The informal numbers I've seen suggest that the silicone coated magnets, at least the initial dipped design, has failed in nearly 100% of applications… But I guess because people feel ashamed that it went wrong, they don't report this publicly. All I can say to people is that it's even more important to document it when it goes wrong, because it will protect others from going through the same pain as you did.

Big thanks to Tom for continuing to take good care of me!

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