The Revenge of the Mask of the Son of the Ingrown Toenail

Monday morning, I went over to my uncle’s dad’s house (who is not my grandfather, since this is an uncle by marriage) to fix his ancient P-233 system. Though, it wasn’t really fixing as much as it was just performing disk maintenance that should’ve been performed more regularly than every 512 days. It was okay, really, though, because he’s a history buff like I am, and in between waiting for ScanDisk and Defrag to finish, we were trading stories back and forth. I’d never really gotten to know the man beyond acquaintance but he was really cool. Having pulled myself out of bed at like 7am to go meet him at his house at 8am did make for a crappy night of sleep, however. So by the time I got to Johannes’ house for a party on Monday night, I was not in the greatest of moods.

Though, let me break here to explain who Johannes is and why Monday nights have sort of become more interesting for me. Johannes is a mutual friend of Karen’s, and we met about a month ago at one of the Thursday night dorama-fests. He’s a pretty cool guy, he’s from Hawai’i, so we talk a lot about that. I’ve been there like once in my entire life, and so all I can do is rant and rave about Maui and Oahu. He has family on the big island and Oahu, I think. We have a lot in common and we’ve become pretty fast friends. But the cool thing is that he moved out of his place in the Belmont area and moved into the room that my other buddy Steven used to live in. Monday nights, I have returning to that old house for mah-jong night.

I won’t always play Mah-Jong though. Typically I’ll either get a strong hankering to play or I’ll avoid it for the entire night and just visit. I have to be in a gaming moon in order to play, because it does drain you after a while. This particular Monday night, I was in Johannes’ room talking with him and another friend and then the Loud Obnoxious Guy (LOG) comes in and just totally acts as obnoxious as possible. And his voice is just loud and blaring, even though we’re like feet away from him. Sounds like he’s trying to have a conversation at a 49ers game right after a touchdown gets scored. There’s really no need. But it just got on my nerves, and I had this urge to just get up and punch Log’s face in. It would be a good time to mention that I had a major headache, and my ingrown toenail was just being a, well… a pain.

I’ve suffered from repetitive ingrown toenails on my left foot (big toe) since ’95. I’ve had 4 outpatient procedures performed so far and Tuesday was the fourth. It was successful, but as with every time, my toe is pretty sore. All week I was having difficulty walking, and I was bleeding pretty badly because the wound wouldn’t clot properly. I got light-headed that night and crashed after making sure I ate something with meat in it (to help produce blood), which was a hearty meal of Pork and Beans with chopped up white turkey meat mixed in. But after that I just collapsed like never before. When I woke up in the morning on Wednesday, it was like I had just come back to life after dying. I called the advice nurse for, duh, advice, and all he could suggest was that I keep it elevated (which I was), and to drink plenty of fluids. By this time, the wound has clotted up enough for me to soak the toe in Epsom salted water… which always feels nice.

This week has pretty much meant that activities that involve my feet were pretty much out. DDR, out. Batting Cages, out. Walking, out. Driving, out. So, Thursday I picked up Johannes and Todd and we went DDRing. Because after Wednesday’s ordeal I was just sick and tired of being in bed and I wanted to get out and DO SOMETHING. I hate being cooped up and I hate being bedridden all the time. I like a good movie as much as the next person, but not for 24 hours straight. We got to the arcade. I played 2 games, toe started throbbing. I played 2 more games, toe got more furious. So… I stopped. I took Todd home and I took Johannes to his place and I rested until it was time to go to Karen’s for dorama-fest.

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2 comments

    • mephron on August 2, 2002 at 09:21

    For the toe, you may end up having done what I had done: they actually removed part of the nail plate at that point, so it wouldn’t grow back that way. Of course, I had the nail in so badly that they they had to rebuild the nail fold and open up a sinus channel (a hole through the muscle that a piece of nail had bored its way through out to the front of the toe). But I haven’t had ANY problems with it since then. And it was quite reasonable, with my insurance. Yeah, it was a bit painful, but the lack of problems since then was worth it all.

    • jetblack on August 2, 2002 at 09:27

    Well, they removed the part of the nail that was casuing the problem. Then they stuck three q-tips with phenal on the end to create a chemical burn on the nail’s matrix. They did this last time and it just hurts like a bitch later… which it does right now.

    — ZC

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