(Rachel says she wants more personal stuff - all right, ask and ye shall receive…)

Relax, folks, no pictures… not unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case, oh yes, I’m more than happy to put up bloody, nasty pictures.  Maybe I’ll put a hat on my toe or something… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

For the past five years, I’ve had a recurring ingrown toenail - it has always been on my big toe, right foot, inside corner.  Extremely painful, and, though I’m not exactly motivated to exercise anyways, it certainly has done nothing to encourage me to, say, take a walk or something.  I let the University health center poke and prod at it while I was there, which always led to it feeling better for a week or two, then it would grow back.

Last year, I had enough.

I went to an urgent care center near my apartment and told them to remove it - it being the entire toenail.  I was done.  I had enough.  They were very accommodating; they removed the entire toenail, applied some acid to the matrix, wrapped it in some gauze, and gave me a prescription for Vicodin.  Everything looked good, and I learned that the only thing Vicodin does is completely remove the block between my brain and my mouth (which, by the way, was never much to begin with), which led to conversations sort of like this:

Me: Wow!  That girl is cute!

The ESO: <glare>

Me: Well, not as cute as you, of course.  I mean, her legs are all flabby.  Yours aren’t.  But, yeah, she’s pretty cute!

The ESO: Are you going to shut up now?

Me: Wha… well, yeah, of course… I’m just saying, that girl over there is cute.  That’s all.  Not as cute as you.  Just cute.

The ESO: I cannot believe you do not shut up!

Me: All right, I’ll shut up… she is cute, though.  You have to admit that.

The ESO: Do you want to eat that burrito through your mouth, or through your ass?  Either can be arranged.

Me: I’ll shut up now.

– Five minutes later –

Me: Huh!  That girl is fat!

– Repeat –

Seriously, the ESO is a saint.  Unfortunately, the vicodin didn’t do much for the pain - I just cared about it a little less.

Then, a few months later… the toenail grew back.  Oh yes, it was ingrown again.  Great.  So, I toughed it out for a while longer, not being particularly motivated to go down this road again, until, last week, I finally had enough and went back to the urgent care.

They sent me to a podiatrist.

Now, I’m a little perplexed how it’s possible for a doctor to specialize in feet and foot care.  To be honest, I didn’t realize feet were that complicated; this would be similar to someone in my line of work specializing in printers.  Yeah, some printers can get rather complicated, but are you seriously going to make a living working on $30 inkjet printers?  I doubt it.  But, there I was today, sitting in the office of a podiatrist, waiting patiently (as a patient - ha!) for someone else to hack apart my toe.

Things I learned:

1. The doctor knew about Rev. Wright, and wanted my opinion on him.  I pointed out that the same people that routinely believe the government isn’t capable of paving a road without screwing it up are the same ones that believe it’s possible for the government to engineer a deadly virus and fly planes into tall buildings without anybody knowing for sure that it’s them.  The doctor thought that was rather insightful and gave me an extra dose of marcaine for my wisdom.  I was thankful.
2. Specialists actually do know what they’re doing - this doctor did not mess around.  I think the toenail will finally be healed this time around; he even used a tourniquet on my toe so my blood wouldn’t wash away the acid before it did its work.  Very nice.  Best of all, I didn’t feel a thing.
3. The doctor said that I was “an affable young man”.  Well, perhaps I am… or, perhaps I’m an affable little serial killer that’s going to eat his children.  He’ll never know until it’s too late, now will he?  (Muahahaha!)

Okay, no, I won’t eat his children - he did really good work, after all, and I prefer to encourage that sort of behavior.  That said, I’m really happy that my toenail has finally been taken care of.

In a week - no more excuses.  I’ll finally be able to go on long hikes again.  Sweet.

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