The staples that wouldn't come out

Today marks the eighth day since the boy had three staples put into his head to close the cut caused by his fall. Since today is a teacher work day he didn't have school so I thought I'd take him to the hospital to have the staples removed and then reward him with visiting the train table at the bookstore. I made a grave mistake thinking I could handle this without his daddy. The boy has issues with people touching his head. Period. Always has. It took a very long time to convince him brushing teeth was a necessity and that when a boy has very long hair, it must be brushed daily. He screams every time we shampoo his hair, without fail. When he was two years old, he fell from the couch to the coffee table and his teeth pressed through his bottom lip. He has a scar to this day. There was lots of blood and after several hours his mouth still bled. I thought the teeth were secure but was uncertain so I took him to an emergency pediatric dentist. He wouldn't stay still for the professionals for the examination or the x-ray. Because I was pregnant at the time, they asked that I stand behind the glass wall while they held him down during the x-ray. He cried and strained under their hands and was quite traumatized. Standing with him today in the small exam room brought me back to that day. He let them take one out while his head was buried in my stomach but once he felt the pinch of the staple remover, he decided once was enough. He cried and shook and refused to listen to promises of visiting the book store afterwards or just the plain logic of once they are removed we can leave...poor kid. After many tries and different doctors and nurses with gentle tricks up their sleaves, they gave me the ultimatum: we can hold him down and force it or we can leave. We had already tried my hugging him tight while someone held his head still and that didn't do it so what did they have in mind, a vice? We decided to call it a day. I was given the staple remover and wished good luck. If we couldn't do it at home then we could try his pediatrician or just let the staples grow out. I know that if my husband had been there the boy would've felt more trusting...I'm just kicking myself for not taking care of this yesterday morning when he was available. What pissed me off was the way many of the nurses seemed shocked that he would act that way...like a four year old is supposed to be so damn mature and logical. It didn't help that they kept thinking he was a girl just because he has gorgeous long hair (yes, completly ignore the masculine clothing why don't you) and when i corrected them they blamed his haircut, thereby blaming us for not cutting it. I was severely grumpy after we left since the entire visit took an hour and a half and only one staple was removed. But, after buying myself fries and a biscuit on the way home, I decided one staple was better than none.