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!)