Thursday, January 12, 2006

Give us the Information! Or else!

For about the past two months or so, I have had an obnoxious situation to deal with concerning a bloody ingrown toenail on the big toe of my right foot, which, incidentally, I had been somewhat fond of until it decided to go all traitor on me and pull this happy horseshit! As for now, I would say that we are somewhat at odds with one another....

I sort of started the whole thing by pulling a pigheaded move, whereby I inadvertently opened a door over the top of my foot, in the process of which I tore a decent sized chunk of toenail out... leaving me with a rather painful 'hanger'. Naturally, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to fuck with it and worry at it until I finally succeeded in tearing the damned thing off, leaving a sharp sticky-out bit back in there that eventually became this whole ingrown part. It got all inflamed, swelled up, and hurt quite a bit.

Apparently, the pain caused by this thing somehow coerced me to change my style of walking to the extent that I put pressure on the other side of the same toenail, which caused that side to sort of curl and fold in on itself and also become ingrown... of course, being the stubborn bastard that I am, I fucked around with that, too, until I managed to make it worse... and that friggin side got all inflamed and swollen and painful...

So. Now I had a toe that was approximately the size of Wyoming, getting caught on shit and completely freaking me out when it did!!

It sucked!

Eventually, it somehow became a twin and developed its own internal organs. At least I suspect that it did, judging by the heartbeat that I could feel throbbing away in there.

Since I have much grander visions of my physical toughness than it is healthy to have, I let it go.. and let it go... and let it go still further.. which, of course, is an incredibly stupid thing to do, because;
  1. It ain't gettin' any better...., and;

  2. It only gets worse... and quickly!

Naturally, it did get worse, and continued to do so until I was just barely able to walk properly. I was in a great deal of pain (some would say agony, but I still insist on being stubborn, and I will say it was mildly annoying... but that is a bold-faced lie, and I was in fucking agony!)

My wife, understanding the knuckle-dragging mindset refrained from getting overly involved, figuring that this was a self-correcting situation; when the pain got to be enough, I would finally get it taken care of. (She's a smart gal...)

Finally, I tossed in the towel, and asked her to call and make an appointment for me with the doc to have the damned thing fixed. (The doc is a friend of her mom's, so she generally calls and arranges these things for me... delightful woman!)

I had made some enquiries as to how this procedure goes with other folks who had already had it done. Basically, the story was something like this;

"You go in, he gives you a shot... that hurts! ... then he hooks the side of the nail with this thing, pulls it out, and cuts it straight. Then he does the other side, and now your nail is cut all straight, and it hurts for a few days, and then you're as good as new!"

Sounds like a ground ball to me!

We went there last night, and in I went.

The doc (who had been a bush doctor in Africa for many years, and is consequently a sort of 'spit & sawdust' kind of doctor) came into the room, had me hop up onto the table and asked to see the toe. I obliged, and he took a look at it, poked and prodded a few times (making me hop a couple of times, much to my consternation), and announced, "We'll just take the nail off.."

(We'll fucking what?!?!)

He gave me a couple of injections of local anesthetic, one on each side of the toe, where the nerves are.. then he left the room to do whatever mysterious shit it is that doctors do when they walk off and leave you sitting there... usually, (but, thankfully, not in this particular case!) with your ass hanging out, which is always great for your self-esteem.... (snort!)

After a while, he came back in, poked and prodded, presumably to make sure that the shit did whatever it was supposed to do to my nerves, and then he opened a drawer and started taking stuff out...

I was expecting a surgical tray, with scalpels, and forceps, and sutures, and swabs, and all the other geegaws, thing-a-ma-jigs, and whoozits that doctors use to perform these sorts of procedures...

INSTEAD... he simply grabbed a flat-headed pair of pliers, and a cotton swab!

(Hmmmm... I wonder what that's for??)

Without so much as a 'By your leave, good sir', he jammed one of the jaws of the pliers under my toenail, which looked very wrong somehow, twisted it one way, popping one side of the nail up and out.. then twisting it the opposite way, popping the other side out... (it made a wet, squishy, foot-in-the mud, nasty chewing-gum kinda sound, in case you were wondering and were just dying to know this part) and then, he put his other hand on the front of my ankle, for leverage, and literally tore the nail out, root and all!!

The whole thing took, oh... maybe three seconds!

Naturally, it began gushing blood, which he controlled by soaking the cotton swab in adrenalin, and holding it tightly against the nail bed. He changed cotton swabs as they got soaked in blood, until the bleeding slowed, and then he popped open an anti-biotic capsule, sprinkled the powdery contents all over the nail bed, slapped a dressing on the whole thing, and announced that he was done, and that I could put my shoes and socks on and go home.

He handed me an envelope full of pain pills, and, as a capping grace, handed me my toenail!! (this is very cool, since you never know when you might suddenly have a dire need for an excised toenail... perhaps when you are simply out of ideas for an eye-catching garnish on the egg salad??)

The local anesthetic lasted for maybe 20 minutes, and then my foot started really get into the spirit of the whole thing!! I could literally feel the line that traced where the actual nerve ran... it was vibrating with pain!!

Elysia and I stopped and had dinner, and then we came home, farted around for a bit, and headed in to bed. Apparently, my job was to make sure that the ceiling didn't wander off, and I did a stunningly great job by lying there and staring at it all night!

The good part is that once this initial phase is over with, and the bloody thing heals up, it won't hurt anymore... and on a good/bad scale - this is good!

So, anyway... this is what it looks like now;



Alright! Fine! It doesn't look anything like that at all! That isn't even my foot. Its still all wrapped up, and I don't have any idea what it looks like, but its getting better, even as I sit here now!

Hopefully, this will be all healed up within a few weeks, and I can happily forget about the whole mess!

In the meantime, I'm gimping about (yet again), and doing my best to not crash my damned foot into inaminate objects. (Or animate objects, for that matter!)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh.
my.
god.

this post made my butt clench.

oh.
my.
GAWD!

SVN, prn said...

Of course I loved your story but I am of another breed.

Happy healing and next time (I doubt I even need to say this) leave it the hell alone and go to the Doc, ok?

Blandwagon said...

I had both of my big toenails removed in my late teens due to ingrowingness. Perhaps because they were doing both of them, they used a general anaesthetic.

You'll probably find that the skin on the top of your toe will hornify and become a sort of erstaz nail, although a somewhat gross, deformed, mutant ersatz nail.

You'll also have to deal with the fact that you can no longer scratch an itchy calf with your big toe any more. It feels unnatural to use the smaller toes, but them's the breaks.

Bear said...

Anonymous #12081620,

Your comment cracked me up! The description is nothing, you sort of have to be the victim to really enjoy the whole parade!

During the day, today, I noticed that when trucks drove by on the street outside where I worked, the vibrations would actually cause pain... I found this fairly interesting on an intellectual level.. and I found that it sucked big ones on all other levels!..

It feels like there is stuff going on in there right now... which is why I'm dicking around on the computer, rather than sleeping like I should be...

I have to say though, that this is still nothing compared to the steroid shots!! (Now that completely sucked!! - honestly, this ain't too bad... in a few days it'll be old news... I can stand on my head and spit BBs till then!)

-------------------

SVN, PRN;

You would have enjoyed watching this procedure. The smoothness and matter-of-factness with which the Doc handled the whole thing was pretty elegant. Sort of like a really quick amputation doctor in a Civil War battlefield surgery! Wham, bam, done! Next!

He's a really knowledgeable Doctor, and most of his career was under hideous conditions, out in the field in the third world. He has a lifetime of experience making empirical diagnoses, and he is bloody damned-well good at it... spooky/creepy good at it!

I like him, and I trust him. He doesn't treat you with kid gloves, and he has no qualms about doing whatever he needs to do. Sometimes it hurts, but we have an understanding about this. He gets it the hell over with, and I do my best to keep the whining and snivelling to a bare minimum. Not a bad accord all in all!

This'll heal up nicely, and that will be that.

As for not messing around with future injuries... you got it! No F-ing around, and straight to the doc. (Naturally, though, when it happens... I'll still act like an A-hole and dick around until I regret it... its one of the things that make me so...er..um... special (Yeah! That's it!))

-------------------------

Blandwagon,

Hey buddy, how've you been? Nice to see you back!

Both toes!? Yikes!! It must've been fun hobbling around for a while, ay??

You're right about not being able to scratch an itchy calf! Maybe I can tape the excised toenail to a stick and use that!!

(Wow... I freaked myself out with that one! Blech!)

-------------------------------

To all of you... thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to leave me your comments. I really like hearing from you guys..

Take Care,

Bear

Anonymous said...

Bear, you frickin' kill me.
LOVE this post - your writing is hilarious, and (as Anonymous so succinctly put it) "butt-clenching".
As a former Veterinary Technician and Caterer, my fave line is "... when you are simply out of ideas for an eye-catching garnish on the egg salad"
BAA HAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

As I always say after some embarassing/painful/sickening/horrible life event; "Well, you sure got a good story out of it."
Bravo, and thank you.

Bear said...

Auntie,

Hey! Thanx fer stoppin' by and being all neighborly and all! I'm glad you got a laugh out of it... I have found that whenever I am placed in a situation over which I have absolutely no control and about which I am powerless to do anything (&#!!@#!!%*@!!!) I tend to try to find the funny side of it, if there is one.. One of these days we'll sit and talk about it over a tall glass of iced tea and an egg salad sandwich, ay??

Thanx again for stoppin' by!

Take Care,

Bear

Anonymous said...

Erm, uh...sure...
*gulp*
How about I make the sandwiches?
;)

Bear said...

Ha! Hee-hee!! It's a deal!!

(giggling and snickering like a lunatic now... thank you!)

Anonymous said...

a MAMMOTH spider crawled out of a box I was holding this morning and my butt clenched, which led me to remember your toenail horror, which heightened the clench's clench, and it was all I could do to duck walk to the door and toss the box and spider in the yard. not very zen, but I was in the grips of the clutch. fighting the butt clench is futile.

raw chicken
Lord of the Rings-worthy arachnids
Bear's toe horror

all vying for the butt clench academy award

(I'm looking forward to the flower sprigs that should be poking though the ground alongside my favorite running spot).

Séamas Poncán said...

Bear's Toenail of Horror.

Won't it ever grow back? With a blemish like that, you'll never be high king of Ireland now. Is mór an trua sin.

Bear said...

Anonymous,

Ahh.. the old butt clench!! I can remember a few of those that were so tight you couldn't have dragged a piece of greased dental floss through my arse with a tractor... good times! Had a spider that would dwarf a volkswagen pounce out of a box of junk from the garage run straight up my arm and into my friggin sleeve!! I got undressed in about a third of a second, and all while spinning and flailing across the driveway and front yard. The creepy part was that I never did find the spider... It probably dropped off somewhere and scuttled off to claim its trophy in the spider rodeo after managing to cling to me for a few seconds... One feels really cool after pulling a stunt like that... trust me on this... (phwssh..!)

I think I may be eligible for the best male supporting butt clench award.. but I'm not sure.. (I would like to thank the academy... and all of my..)

I want to see a pic of those sprigs when they pop their bonny wee heads up, okay?

-------------------------

A-Shéamauis a chara,

Is docha is féidir leis ag dul i bhfeoil arís. Níl a fhios agam, go fírinneach.

(An bhfuil sin ceart?)

Le meas

Slán go fóill,

Mathúin (Béar)

TriZilla said...

Yack! ohgodohgodohgod. My feet are flying in the air. Yes. they. are. At least they feel like they are.

And, you were doing just fine until that picture came up. Care to tell me how you get chunks out of your laptop keyboard? :)

Anonymous said...

I hope he did a better job with yours than mine. When I had mine done, they wrapped it in gauze and told me to come back to the office on Monday (op was done on Friday). So, I did that. When I came in they said "You didnt change the bandage?, Of course I said, "duh...no, you said to come on Monday, so I did". They hummed and hawwed and decided the best way to get this giant blood filled bandage off was for me to soak my foot in a garbage pail full of water to try and soften it up...Needless to say, that didnt help much in taking it off. More pain and waaaaaaaay more blood.
As far as the nail is concerned, my grew back good as normal. What they actually did was scrap the nerve endings (his quote) on the ingrown side, so that the nail cant grow over that way. Its been fine for over 20 years now.

Dan

Bear said...

Jen,

When *I* remove chunks from the keyboard, I use a cocktail toothpick and Ritz crackers, but, after all, that is just personal preference. I would recommend Wonder bread to sop up the juice... just being my usual helpful self here!

If the photo freaked you out, you should see what it looks like now - I just took the bandage off this morning... and I am fairly certain that it is either an alien-spawn or loosely related to some sort of sea slug. Very tasty!! You will be happy to learn how thrilled I am to know now where 'Dippety Doo' comes from!!

----------------------

Dan,

I left the bandage on for six days, like an asshole, and decided this morning that it had to come off. It was a marvelous adventure, filled with fluids, and sensations, and all of the wonderful things that we have come to know and love about having our toenails viciously ripped out by the roots!! What fun!

----------------------

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to pop in and say hi! I am always happy to receive comments from readers, being a bit of a 'comment whore'. Keep reading!

Take Care,

Bear



.

Sarah Moïse Young said...

That is way gross, Bear. Ew. However, my April foot injury was WAY grosser. I ought to email you a photo.