Monday, February 06, 2006
This little piggy went under the knife
Throughout my life I have been medically fortunate. No major operations, no serious accidents, not even stitches. Sure by flaunting this I'm dancing with the devil, but since I actually have health insurance, Murphy and his law should take care of me. But don't let him fool you, if you forget to pay that premium and they yank your coverage, WHAM! Bus.
Not even braces. Two teeth are symmetrically slightly twisted (bottom teeth) and I have a slight overbite, but the whole "living in a 3rd world country" and the fact that braces need to be checked regularly by an expert, we forewent (past tense of forego?) the procedure. Hopefully I'll be okay.
I did have my molars removed, which sucked, but my folks were good about keeping an ice pack on my chipmunk cheeks to reduce swelling, and I mostly slept for the 2 days after surgery, so it wasn't too bad. Using that syringe squirt gun to clean out your sockets where your teeth used to be was kinda gross and got old, but they healed nicely.
And now on to the grand finale; my one non-teeth related surgical operation. I'm not blessed with the best feet/toe/toenail genes. I've mentioned before that my mom's toenails aren't the prettiest (but we still love you Mom!) so I'm having to work against nature. But the nail on my right bigtoe was ingrown. And it hurt. And this was during high school when I played lots of soccer and I'm sure that didn't help anything. So my toenail is ingrown and we head off to the podiatrist. He tells me to clean it with this antibacterial stuff and pull the nail out occasionally with a paper clip. Thanks Doc. 10 years of med school and rub this on it and poke at it with a pointy metal rod. Great. So we did this religiously and OMG! it didn't work.
Back to Dr. FootGuy. He says, okay we'll do some surgery. How about next Thurs. after school. No problem. So we show back up and we go back into the little surgical room. I'm up on the big elevated reclining table of sorts. Both shoes off, socks too. Pick out the toejam, wipe everything off with some solution and my lovely toes are ready for anything.
He first squirts my bigtoe with a chemical that has a very low boiling point (I think it was ethyl chloride but I can't remember) but the point is it is cold. Damn cold. But not liquid nitrogen cold so it doesn't burn, but just numbs. Then he pulls out the needle. Couple quick shots of Novocaine (I suppose) and then we wait a few minutes. Then he takes out a pointy stick and pokes my toe. Can you feel that? Yes, but it doesn't hurt. He then pokes my other bigtoe to compare. OW! You bastard! Oh, okay, yes that toe is definitely super numb. He then proceeds to pull out some scissor looking things and some tweezers. He cuts just inside of the outer edge of the nail all the way to the cuticle. I'm mostly watching, it's my toe and I want to see what's going on. He then rips that little piece of nail out. Seriously just rips it out. He cuts the other side too just for safe measure and the toe is numb so why the hell not? Then he carefully injects something into that part of the toe that will not allow the nail to grow back. And that's it. My dad alters a shoe to give me some more room around the toe for the bandages and the like and I go on with my life. No soccer for a few weeks, but the prospect of soccer without intense pain is worth it.
And so far that is the only toe that has become that bad. I think it scared the other nails into growing properly. If I remember, I'll take a picture of it. So be on the lookout for a toe around here.
And a big WELCOME BACK! to PJ. I almost put him down in the dead blogs link section, but he finally got DSL and so now is back in the game. Him and his crew also bring the number of "real" people who know about this blog to about 8. He is also the guy who told me I should have a blog. So I'm sure you'll all want to personally thank him for bringing this into your lives.
And how 'bout those Steelers!
Not even braces. Two teeth are symmetrically slightly twisted (bottom teeth) and I have a slight overbite, but the whole "living in a 3rd world country" and the fact that braces need to be checked regularly by an expert, we forewent (past tense of forego?) the procedure. Hopefully I'll be okay.
I did have my molars removed, which sucked, but my folks were good about keeping an ice pack on my chipmunk cheeks to reduce swelling, and I mostly slept for the 2 days after surgery, so it wasn't too bad. Using that syringe squirt gun to clean out your sockets where your teeth used to be was kinda gross and got old, but they healed nicely.
And now on to the grand finale; my one non-teeth related surgical operation. I'm not blessed with the best feet/toe/toenail genes. I've mentioned before that my mom's toenails aren't the prettiest (but we still love you Mom!) so I'm having to work against nature. But the nail on my right bigtoe was ingrown. And it hurt. And this was during high school when I played lots of soccer and I'm sure that didn't help anything. So my toenail is ingrown and we head off to the podiatrist. He tells me to clean it with this antibacterial stuff and pull the nail out occasionally with a paper clip. Thanks Doc. 10 years of med school and rub this on it and poke at it with a pointy metal rod. Great. So we did this religiously and OMG! it didn't work.
Back to Dr. FootGuy. He says, okay we'll do some surgery. How about next Thurs. after school. No problem. So we show back up and we go back into the little surgical room. I'm up on the big elevated reclining table of sorts. Both shoes off, socks too. Pick out the toejam, wipe everything off with some solution and my lovely toes are ready for anything.
He first squirts my bigtoe with a chemical that has a very low boiling point (I think it was ethyl chloride but I can't remember) but the point is it is cold. Damn cold. But not liquid nitrogen cold so it doesn't burn, but just numbs. Then he pulls out the needle. Couple quick shots of Novocaine (I suppose) and then we wait a few minutes. Then he takes out a pointy stick and pokes my toe. Can you feel that? Yes, but it doesn't hurt. He then pokes my other bigtoe to compare. OW! You bastard! Oh, okay, yes that toe is definitely super numb. He then proceeds to pull out some scissor looking things and some tweezers. He cuts just inside of the outer edge of the nail all the way to the cuticle. I'm mostly watching, it's my toe and I want to see what's going on. He then rips that little piece of nail out. Seriously just rips it out. He cuts the other side too just for safe measure and the toe is numb so why the hell not? Then he carefully injects something into that part of the toe that will not allow the nail to grow back. And that's it. My dad alters a shoe to give me some more room around the toe for the bandages and the like and I go on with my life. No soccer for a few weeks, but the prospect of soccer without intense pain is worth it.
And so far that is the only toe that has become that bad. I think it scared the other nails into growing properly. If I remember, I'll take a picture of it. So be on the lookout for a toe around here.
And a big WELCOME BACK! to PJ. I almost put him down in the dead blogs link section, but he finally got DSL and so now is back in the game. Him and his crew also bring the number of "real" people who know about this blog to about 8. He is also the guy who told me I should have a blog. So I'm sure you'll all want to personally thank him for bringing this into your lives.
And how 'bout those Steelers!
# posted by Seth @ 7:37 AM 
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