This is what’s on my mind – its long!

This is going to jump around a bit but this is what is on my mind. So I live with all boys. I don’t do lots of girly things. My home is not girly. I don’t have real glassware, I don’t pull out the china, we use plastic a lot and that is just how it goes. I haven’t given up on everything. I still wear makeup and minimal jewelry. I get my hair cut and try to incorporate some style in my life, although its all very limited. Last year I anticipated our trip to New Hampshire for Nick’s sister’s wedding. His sisters are ALL girl. They are drop dead gorgeous, have beautiful friends and all I could think of is I will not fit into this group at the wedding. I didn’t need to but wanted to feel pretty too. I didn’t manage to shed the extra pounds before the trip and so was desperately trying to figure a way to make myself feel a little extra better about myself. Through a series of events I ended up going to get a pedicure and manicure with a good friend just a few weeks before the trip. This was a first! It wasn’t really that expensive and yet it felt like such a HUGE frivol. I came home feeling great. When I arrived home Dan (9 at the time) took one look and noticed my pink toenails and clear painted fingernails and said EWWW what did you do, you don’t look like my mom! Sam (4 at the time) on the other hand said OH Mom you look so pretty, like a princess. OK nails – it’s so minor but garnered quite the reaction. I continued to paint my toenails the rest of the summer, something I had never done and I loved it. I was convinced that a pedicure would become a new tradition for me even if it was only once a year.

Now jumping to today; it was a strange day. We are now at day 9 of the kids being home for spring break. I am counting the days we had off for parent teacher last week too. It all ran together so no difference here. It’s ALL spring break. The plans for the day changed around a bit but had settled with being invited to swim with a friend at a local hotel with the boys. So I got up promptly this morning and got in the shower. Upon getting out I noticed a minor problem. The toenail I damaged back in November was only attached on one side and could easily be ripped off. It was clearly time for medical attention. The background to the toe is that on the famous Soup Saturday in November I was out on the porch chatting with a friend who was leaving with their soup when I realized I hadn't done the next step for the batch of soup that needed to be done soon. I turned around and tried to run at high speed into the house. Instead of gracefully floating into the house (ha ha) I managed to not clear the door frame and literally jammed my toe into the wood block area just below that. With great intensity I let out a line of inappropriate words that flowed much too freely only to look up and notice that I forgot another good friend was there in the living room wondering just what had happened. The toe throbbed, became swollen and looked horrible in no time. I ended up having a friend who is a nurse check it out later that day and I followed her advice. But it was inevitable, the toenail was severely damaged. All I could think of is no nice pedicure. Sniff Sniff

So this morning I taped the toenail down with medical tape and went swimming anyway. Later this afternoon I finally decided to go to the ready care facility to have it taken care of because sadly my Dr was out of town. Unfortunately between the kids and myself I have had to utilize the facility several times. I seriously contemplated trying one of the several other urgent care type facilities in town but after checking with the insurance company who was no help at all I had no guarantee of the services being covered elsewhere. I could write an entire lengthy post just on this one topic – another day. Anyway, the first time I went to the hospital ready care was a very negative experience and is ranked as one of the two worst Dr visits I ever had. I have never wanted to see the same Dr again and lucked out on all re-visits to the place up until today! Yup. I will not mention names. He is a nice personable guy and I am probably in much too critical and grumpy mood today and not all circumstances directly relate to him. But I can’t resist recapping at least part of the visit. Buy first just a few questions that crossed my mind during check-in. Why does one need to answer questions such as “when was my last period” when I’m at the Dr to be seen for a toenail that is coming off? Why do I need to provide my age when they already asked for my Birth date and should know what day it is today?

There was a 40 minute wait once put into a room (glad I brought all of the paperwork I need to fill out for Sam’s current evaluation for ASD to keep me busy – more on that in my next post or facebook). Finally there was a quick evaluation and description of the solution which was to spray the toe with some cold liquid freezing it to hopefully make it less painful to pull the toenail off! Hmmm, ten min later the nurse comes in and asks “so what we are doing”. I refrained from saying “filling out paperwork and trying to patiently wait for someone to inflict pain on me”. I explain the Dr’s description of what he plans to do (wondering why I'm having to tell her this) so she leaves to find the cold stuff. Ten more min later the Dr is back with 2 things: a sterile clamp and a bottle of cold spray. He pulls over a fabric covered waiting chair and has me put my foot flat on it (I’m on the extra high exam table). He begins to spray the cold spray getting the liquid all over the chair as there is nothing else under my foot. He tugs and sprays some more. I’m feeling pain here! He sprayed and sprayed and oh by the way the nozzle kept not working well and spraying all over other parts of my foot or on the carpet or more on the chair. Finally he was ready and started tugging and tugging. PAIN - I just bit my lip and stopped watching. I knew when he removed the nail, not because the pain stopped but because the tugging stopped. I then looked and could see the blood begin to build up. We exchanged some pleasantries and he left. Ten min later a nurse brought a tub of sudsy warm water to soak my toe. By the time she arrived I was having to balance my foot carefully on the chair rail so that the pooling blood on my toe didn’t drip onto the fabric chair or carpeted floor. Why did I feel the need to be so careful, the Dr obviously didn’t care? Another ten min later nurse #2 came in with a towel and a little normal size band-aid. I thought yeah right that little band-aid is going over this mess! She seemed kind of shocked at what she saw when my foot came out of the water. She carefully dried it and wiped off the remaining clotted blood and tried to get the band-aid to stick to my still damp foot. Yeah, no brainer it didn’t stick. But then she became my hero. She came back in with a nice gauze pad and bright purple stretchy tape! She carefully wrapped it up (although forgot to put in the topical antibiotic that the Dr mentioned to nurse #1) and taped me all up. She probably thought I was crazy but I said THANK YOU! I can’t have my pedicure so at least I get purple tape. I’m calling it my purple pedicure. As I walked out of the hospital I was limping a little but I felt like people were staring my way more than usual. I get to the car and noticed my face was terribly splotchy red. Even as I write this 6 hrs later my face is STILL ugly splotchy red from the whole ordeal. I hope I wake up without the splotchies but at least I have a purple pedicure. Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.

Tune in tomorrow for my commentary on questionnaires or should I make it insurance companies. . .