Well that photo wasn't particularly troublesome

but I can't recommend the experience.

First, there was the big red rubber band.  You know where this is going.  Wrapped around and around and around my toe.  OMG.  Throbbing, pulsating, twitching PAIN.  Follow that up with injection of local anesthetic and

"How's young Mr. Kevin?" the doctor asks.  He's got a crush on Kevin in that asexual, I've-never-met-a-person-like-you sort of way.

"Can we NOT talk?"

What can I say?  Still a bitch.  Grinding me up into table gripping, squirming pain doesn't make me any nicer.

I was lying down so I cannot tell you where those injections went, but does it really matter?  Could there be ANY PLACE on a toe where an injection of stinging lidocaine would feel OK?

I kept telling him, "I can feel that."

"Your nail is already off."

Oh, so that was the little chinky sound in the kidney dish.  I'm not surprised.

But, bonus!  There was another nail growing under the first.  This one was attached and required digging and more injections.

"Have you ever had an injury to this nail?"

"When would that have to have been?  It hasn't grown since maybe September.  I don't remember."

"Oh, it could have been 20 years ago..."  (That helps narrow it down.)

The ginormous bandage came off yesterday and I got to see my toe.

You can see the indentation of where the nail sat on the top of my toe for years and years and years and years....not that I am saying I'm old.  And, a deeper, redder indentation at the base of the nail and extending up about 25% of the way where the living nail, the replacement that "we" rejected sat.

And, a big bruise around the base of my toe.