Wednesday, August 3, 2011

My Big Toe

This post is dedicated to my big toe. The one on my right foot, specifically. Probably way TMI, but whatevs.
Last night on the way over to Will's Mimi's house it was bothering me a little, like it was the beginning of an ingrown toenail. It wasn't too bad, so I ignored it until after our run, when it started hurting quite a bit more. We on the car ride home I took off my shoe and tried feeling around the edge to see if the corner of my toe nail was growing into my skin, but I couldn't feel what I would normally feel if it was an ingrown toenail.

By the time we got home and took showers, it was hurting really badly. I got out my clippers and an orange stick to try and dig out whatever was bothering me, but again I realized the pain wasn't coming from my toenail. I put some tea tree oil around the area and got in bed. Not thirty minutes later I got up because it was throbbing and I just knew there was an infection. There was so much pressure I thought that I would see a white-head type thing when I turned on the light, but when I did it was just red. At that point I poured some hydrogen peroxide on it and took an Aleve to help with the pain. I wanted ibuprofen but we were out. I got back in bed and propped my foot up on two pillows, hoping the elevation would help. It did for a little while, but at 12:30 I woke up again and it was throbbing even more. On a pain scale of 1-10, I would say it was an 8.5 and it was making me sick to my stomach. Simply touching the top of my toe made me curse. I needed sleep or else I wouldn't be able to function today, which is not an option with 4-month old twins, so I put more tea tree oil on it (hoping all the anti-bacterial stuff would kill something) and popped one of Will's leftover hydro-codon. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have done that since it wasn't my prescription and I knew it was really powerful stuff, but at that point I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop so I could sleep. I kept thinking I was going to have to wake Will up to take me to the emergency room so they could cut off my toe, which didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time since it hurt that badly. Which led to an entirely different worry about my medical insurance. If I had to have a procedure done I would have to pay out of pocket for any medications I was prescribed since I got screwed over on my health insurance. Oh the joys of being a student. I went back to bed and once I fell asleep I was out until Will left for work at 6:45, at which point the pain was still at a zero.

I've been careful not to walk on it all day, and the pain has stayed at a 1 or lower. Not sure what's going on but for now I'm just going to keep it clean and try not to aggravate it. A picture of my awesome toe:

Don't make fun of how ugly it is. I inherited my mom's feet, ok?
Definitely more red and swollen on the left side. And maybe I should get a pedicure when all this clears up...
The pain reminds me of the things I used to get on my fingers around my nail beds when I was on Accutane. I looked up the technical name for it: Paronychia. 
It was like getting white-head pimples around your cuticles that hurt like h-e-double hockey sticks. 


And that is the end of the tail of my stupid toenail. More information than anyone ever wanted to know, really. 


Oh, and today looked at lot like this:


Cryings, screaming fits, that is.
Off to a cousin's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheeses!

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