Mama said there'd be days like this...

I'll spare you the pictures, but I will tell the story.

I can't tell you the number of times that I have moved things and worked with my dad lifting items over the years so we tend to do pretty well together, no injuries that I can think of, until today. Mom and Dad arrived and we went into the garage. Dad got out his dolley and we talked about a plan. The first item we wanted to move was the dresser, but instead of taking out all of the drawers which are packed with my pots and pans and other kitchen items, we decided we could move it packed with the help of the dolley. That was the first mistake.

The second mistake was that I had on flip flops. Again in all of my moves and years of doing things, in general, I like to wear sandals or flip flops. I learned a hearty lesson today...never move large heavy objects with flip flops on.

Dad was on one end and I was on the other, him with the dolley and me pulling back to lift, when all of the sudden it happened. The heavy dresser slipped, and off came the toe nail on my big toe. Surprisingly it really didn't hurt that bad. My mom ran from the garage (wish I had pictures of that) and my dad was horrified. I just stood there looking down saying something like, "It just popped right off. I never knew toenails would do that!" The truth of the matter is, it was still attached by one small corner so I put it back on my toe and began to apply pressure. With Dad at my side apologizing profusely and mom somewhere behind us, I went to the edge of the bathtub and began to run water over it half to numb it and half to remove the blood. It had pretty well stopped bleeding so we put on a bandaid and I wrapped it with gauze and said, "Ok. What's next?"

Dad and mom both said that I needed to go to the ER, but I refused and we went back to the garage to work. Sometime early afternoon, after lunch, my parents convinced me that it had to be pulled off the rest of the way and a doctor needed to give me a prescription so that it didn't develop an infection. So off we went to Urgent Care. I refused to go to the ER.

Mom insisted on going back with me for support, that's important. The doctor assessed the situation and got ready to give me a shot to numb the toe in preparation to remove the nail. I made it clear to the doctor that needle would go no where near my foot until he explained to me where he was putting it. After explaining the procedure, I allowed him to continue. The plan was to put 2 shots on either side of my toe, allow it to get numb and then take off the nail. Pretty simple plan. Mom is facing me sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. As the doctor is giving me the shots, mom is sitting there making groaning noises and looking like she's about to pass out. I will admit the shots hurt and were actually the worst part of the whole thing.

Then, when he actually began to work on the foot, mom is grabbing her head and groaning and breathing hard. I'm just sitting there asking questions and talking with the doc. My foot at that point didn't feel like part of my body so I didn't care what he was doing to it. He decided that even though it was barely hanging on, he would try to reattach it by laying it back down and stitching it with 2 stitches on each side at the top. So, I got 2 stitches (again a groaning mom) and I got to keep my nail. I also got an excuse for 10 days off from work, the amount of time that I'll have to have the stitches. I won't be out that whole time, but I definitely plan on being out for some of it.

The funny thing is that it doesn't look like anything happened to it at all since he stitched it back down, but I definitely know it's gonna hurt tomorrow. So, if you see me in a boot, that's what happened.