Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

update #3: toeNAIL

I have had two requests now for how I lost my toenail. (Thanks, Aaron, for pointing out that I needed to add the NAIL to the last post. I did.) That means the rest of you get the story also, whether you want it or not, in all its sordid detail.

The toe story starts out a couple of years ago. Our house internet connection was a wire running from the den to the livingroom. I ran into it with my toenail and it jerked the nail up. I waited for the nail to fall out and regrow, but instead it re-attached itself. But the nail bed got exposed and I acquired a fungus infection -- the toe nail got thick, arched, yellow and ugly. Jack, ever helpful, offered a choice of files from his garage tool box to file it.

Last month, I went over to a friends house to sew. I brought an extra table, which fell on the toe (I had shoes on) when I got it out of the car. This split the nail from front to back, and now I decided that I really need to do something about it -- in the six months or more THAT would take to grow out, I'm sure I can acquire a regular bacterial infection. And it was bleeding.

The doctor (named Murdock, which is also my mother's middle name) took the toenail out on June 7. It was kind of like pulling a tooth -- took only minutes. He said that there is about a 2% chance I would get the toenail back, and if I did it would probably grow in fungusy. But they still, because of policy, refused to let me drive and they took me out to my friend's car in a wheelchair.

We had dinner last week with friends who are chemists, and one was of the opinion that I should have seen another doctor, that fungus infections could be cured. But when they are in the toenail, you are on a regimen of anti-fungals for six months, with a 50% successs rate, and the medications tend to do in your liver. (I'd rather do it in with alcohol, although at a rate of 3 glasses of wine a week, it could take a while.) Science News recently had an article about fungi, and the reason that fungus infections are so hard to cure is because the fungus cell and the human cell look a lot alike, especially from the outside. They also have cell nuclei, while most bacteria don't. (Look for the issue with the pink false color image of a fungus on the front.)

I think we are spoiled by the two week (at the most) regimen for bacterial infections, with the exception of things like TB, MRSA and Staph.

Anyway, I once again have a flat toe, it is kind of red, it looks better than it used to, but not as good as new.


And I still like the computer and hope to get around to pictures in the next post.

posted by Marion @ 5:16 PM