The last operation was a success, but you still need to sew Tommy up. Cripes! The nurse has entangled all the catgut. Which thread is the one you started stitching with?
The threads used to sew up wounds used to be - and sometimes still is - made of animal intestines. Confusingly, cats usually weren’t the involuntary donors of the life-saving cord. The name probably derives from cattle gut. Does that sound gross to you? It really doesn’t: catgut was the go-to material for the strings of violins, guitars and harps for a very long time.