October 21, 2008

Mike the Male Nurse cleans the area with a swabbing of good old reliable iodine, followed by an alcohol solution. He's going to be giving me two shots of anesthetic, he says, one one either side of the base of my toe. This ought to do the trick. He used the same needle (and it was a big one - luckily I have no phobia of such things having spent so many years being stabbed and prodded) and jabbed me thusly. Neither poke hurt very badly at all and I could feel the anesthetic start to work rather quickly. After a minute, he tapped the tip of my toe with the syringe and asked I could feel it. I said yes. He seemed puzzled by that, but told me not to worry, that Dr. Galue would probably give me another injection toward the top of my toe before he started the procedure.

While we waited, I asked Mike any relevant time-killing question I could think of:
'What makes iodine sterile?'
'I'm not sure really. That's a good question for the doctor.'
'This sort of thing doesn't take too long does it?'
'No, not really. Quick and relatively painless.'
I was shocked by how quickly Dr. Galue got in. It was only 11:10 by the time he got to my room and had the gloves on. I'm used to dealing with pricks - perhaps that's just Decatur.

Galue did a touch test as well. He too was curious about my reflex, so he gave me another shot at the base of my cuticle. This one hurt a bit more than the others but it knocked my toe out this time. He asked me if that did it and I said it did but I could feel whatever he was doing at that moment. He said I would still feel pressure, but the nerves were out because he had just made the first snip. Mike reassured me that if I did feel what was going on, I'd have jumped out of my chair. Wow - Galue just jumped right in there. I was put out at first, but now I think I like that aspect of his work: no down time; no dicking around.

Two more clips and he was done. He showed me the piece of nail that was growing into the rest of my toe. Damn, it was big. Oh well, out and taken care of. In order to insure this didn't happen again, he said he was going to cauterize the incision. Sounded good to me, but this is when my nerves started coming back to life.
As he cauterized the wound, I felt a slow swell of heat and tingling pain. I brought this to his attention and he seemed curious, but kept to his guns saying is was necessary and he was almost done. Tow more times and he was done. Mike and another nurse, who's name I can't remember, cleaned me up and dressed me up and sent me on my way. They told me to expect a throbbing sort of pain, but it was actually sort of sharp. 600 milligrams of Advil and a three hour nap knocked the shit out of that in a hurry. Now all I have to do is clean it and redress it, making sure that if it does seep at all to keep the wound from sticking to my sock. Mike assured me that getting the material loose from an open wound is not the most pleasant thing in the world, far from it actually. I'll just wear my sandals for a day or two, and if the bosses at work have any grievances, I'll reassure them that I cant easily just go home and be out of their hair. Fuck you, Home Depot, I'm crippled.