Picture this. It's Thursday afternoon, just two days before the family is leaving for the trip. I've got a To-Do list about a hundred items long and I'm rushing around like my normal cuckoo self. I am clad in a bathing suit because among the many other tasks I am working on I'm trying to get a little sun on my trout-belly skin before subjecting myself to a week of California beach time. I fished my 15 minutes per side (which I'm pretty sure did nothing, by the way). I hopped up and walked towards the house. All I was doing was walking. Not skipping, not falling, not stumbling, not even twirling. And somehow I still stubbed my 2nd toe on my right foot and folded it sharply under all my weight. Oh my gosh. Pain shuddered through my foot and leg. I reached down to feel it and there was a crunch. Oh MAN. I was certain I had just broken my toe. I've broken a toe before and this felt very familiar. I had to just go sit down and be in total absolute pain for about 10 minutes before I could even open my eyes to see straight.
I won't drag out the details, I'll just say that 2 days of terrible pain while trying to prepare for the trip was really not fun. And getting through an airport, taking a plane ride then getting through another airport with my family and my older parents was enough to put me in tears by the time we got to our destination. Ouch ouch ouch. I had managed to find a friend with a surgery shoe and I had a lot of pain medication but my toe was swollen and blue and bloody and I so could not walk on it.
As the first evening of our arrival wound down and kids got tucked into bed, Sheri took a closer look at my toe. She prodded and tugged a little and finally told me she really didn't think it was broken. Her assessment was that I had hurt my toenail really badly and there was a lot of fluid under the toenail and that could be what was causing the pain. Nail bed pain can be excruciating, almost like a broken toe, she said. Sheri bid me goodnight and went up to her room, and I was in the quiet kitchen alone. I grabbed a pokey thing, poked the big swelling under my toe nail and....now might be another good time to summarize. I'll just say....pressure was relieved. (As evidenced by the spray pattern on my shirt. Sorry. Had to include one gross detail.) And the relief was almost instant. It took a couple of days to be able to walk totally normally again but it happened - I was able to get through a full week of long walks, running through waves and walking for miles through amusement parks with very little discomfort. My toenail is definitely going to come off - it currently looks like its sliding off the tip of my very round toe. Kinda ugly but I'll take it.
I am so grateful that I was spared a week of limited mobility, inability to be very helpful, and pretty intense pain. I was so afraid that a week of vacation that I had been helping to plan for over a year, was really looking forward to and had a little anticipation/anxiety about was going to be 50 times more challenging. I felt that Sheri's insight was frankly an answer to a prayer. After that, nothing about the week felt nearly as daunting! It was a great week - I better get writing about it.
One gross picture, okay? Well, maybe two.
I took this one right after we arrived at our beach house and was in total misery. I had taped my toes together thinking the one was broken, I was wearing a funny little shoe to help with the walking, which wasn't actually very helpful at all.
I think my feet might be kind of funny looking....oh well! This was after I, uh...relieved the pressure and was just a day later. I could really get around. Of course, this photo was taken before I went into the ocean and damaged the nail further. Now my toenail really does look like a wicked witch nail hanging off the end of my toe and getting ready to fall off. That's okay. I walked. I ask nothing more.
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