Just How Long Could I Have Kept My Bandages On?

I don't remove things if it's not hurting anything.  For example, do you know those stickers on credit cards telling you how to active them, and then once activated you're supposed to remove the stickers?  I don't remove them.  Scandal!  But why?  Would my card get stolen if someone got ahold of it with the sticker on?  Don't think so.

I'm the same way with bandages.  I swear, and I say this with a certain amount of pride, I have kept bandages on for shots I've gotten for more than a month.  It's not hurting me none, so why take them off?  It's a testament to how well the adhesive on the bandage is sticking to my skin.  Sure, I've taken bandages off once one side gets wet and flops off my skin.  There's no way I can keep it on when it's not doing its job anymore.  But removing a bandage that remains affixed to my skin even after taking shower after shower?  That's like ripping a baby from their mother's arms.  I couldn't do it.

OK, I might be exaggerating when I say a bandage on your body for a long time isn't hurting anyone.  I got my flu shot at work the middle of last month, and I got my COVID shot at my doctor's check-up the Friday before Halloween.  Both bandages were adhering fine, even excellent.  I only ripped off the perfect flu shot bandage after ten days because it was getting a tad itchy underneath, and I might have been imagining the itchiness.  The bandage for my COVID shot was not itching me at all, but I figured I would take it off also after ten days because ... well, maybe it's a bit silly for me to keep a bandage on well after the needle puncture has healed.  But maybe it hasn't after ten days and it still needs the Band-Aid?  OK, I'm kidding, I think.  Maybe I did so after ten days because of my OCD; if I took off the flu shot bandage after ten days, I'd give the COVID shot bandage the same amount of "life."

I will say this: If the area underneath the flu shot bandage wasn't making me scratch it, I would have kept both on.  And no, I wouldn't've cared that people think it would be weird.  Heck, both bandages are on the top of each bicep (flu left arm, COVID right arm) and it's fall/winter; no one is going to see my arms and know I've had them on longer than any other normal human.  Who knows, one day I might keep my bandages on for two months, or even longer. ...