The Toe Goes

I don’t have much to report on the running front these days. I’d love to be able to write that I’ve been sticking to my schedule and that I’ve signed up for CIM but sadly I have not done either. CIM is on my mind and I must decide this week but more about that later.

Last week was a rest week after the “Big Gravel Road to Hell Marathon”. I had planned to try a short run on Wednesday to see how tired my legs were recovering, however last Monday wiped any hope of that.

I was tidying up our backyard after work. Now that school is in session and the nights have cooled our backyard is sadly being ignored. I decided it was time to clean out the broken pool toys and move the pool supplies to the shed. Easy peasy lemon squeezy right? Nope, not the case. You see I was NOT wearing the proper foot attire. I was wearing flip flops, I was not mowing lawns or using power equipment so no need for covered feet. At least that was my thinking. I was wrong.

One of the items I keep at the pool equipment during the summer is 50 pound bags of salt. It’s easier than lugging them out of the shed whenever I need to add salt to the pool. No problem leaving out in the summer but in the fall the nights become damp and the salt turns into a brick. So as I stood in my flip flop clad feet I grabbed the unopened bag of salt and slid it towards me so I could get underneath it and lift with my legs. This was a mistake of epic proportions! Due to my super-human strength the bag slid with too much ease and the bag raked over the top of my right foot (yes, gimpy two surgery foot) lifting the toenail right off of its bed.

Oh Em Gee!

Thick, dark blood flowed from the wound as I stood there trying to comprehend what I had just done. I reached down pushed the nail back into place and gingerly made my way into the kitchen. I wrapped the mess in a paper towel and lay down on the cool tile floor. The notion was inconceivable. How on earth had I just done that? Will my clumsiness never cease?

I asked my youngest son to retrieve Hubs from the garage, I was not going to be able to handle this one by myself. I was eerily calm, I had no words. It was surreal. The shock was numbing any pain the injury was causing. All of a sudden tears began to swell in my eyes. Soon I came to the realization that there were only 13 days until my favorite race of the year, Urban Cow. The magnitude of the injury was slowly sinking in. I thought to myself, “How will I be able to run with no toenail?”

Hubs helped me off the kitchen floor and down the hall so we could clean the offending digit. He ran cool water in our tub and I gently placed my feet in. I sat on the edge of the tub and watched the blood float and swirl suspended in the water. “It’s not that bad” I said to Hubs. “I’m sure it will be fine in a couple days, look the bleeding has already stopped” I said trying to convince both of us that this was not a game changing wound. He was not convinced and neither was I.

I removed my feet from the tub. Hubs carefully dried and bandaged the toe. I called my medical provider. Should I come in or not? The customer service rep said I should speak with a doctor and she would have one call me within the hour. Said doctor called as promised and told me to pull the nail off. No can do I told him. While the nail had lifted much like the hood of a car it was not completely detached. No way was I going to man up and pull that baby off. He said I had a couple other options, one option was to keep it clean and let the nail fall off on its own but that I risked infection by doing so. The other was to visit him the next day and he would remove the nail. I could not bear the thought of having the nail removed so I opted to leave it in place.

For the next several days I cleaned it like my life depended on it. Morning, noon and night. I kept it swaddled in sterile gauze and did not even look at a pair of closed toe shoes. On the 6th day I felt like the toe needed to have some pressure released so I screwed up my courage and grabbed some toenail clippers. Carefully I began to trim away the toenail, surprisingly it was not painful. I could feel the pressure releasing with each small snip. I was able to trim away about 1/3 of the nail before I came to a tender point. I stopped for the day. The next day I removed a little more. Again I reached a point where the tenderness told me to stop.

Yesterday I awoke and for the first time in 8 days  no pain! It gave me hope that by October 2nd I would be able to run!

While dressing for work I carefully slipped on a closed toe swanky pair of heels. I slowly walked up and down my hallway. No pain! Hallelujah! After work I slid on socks and my running shoes. I wore them for the evening. Still no pain!

Today the toe feels nearly healed and again I am wearing closed toe shoes. I am so incredibly happy and positive that I will be able to run the race this weekend!