Thanksgiving night in the emergency room

Thanksgiving is a time for food, family, giving thanks -- but in our house on Thanksgiving Day, we made a trip to the local ER.

Before I get too much further, everything and everyone is fine. I injured my toe and needed some serious medical care. Yes, I was in the kitchen - yes, I was cooking. Maybe that should be my first clue not to do that again.

As a back story, I have had a problem with my right big toe nail for a few years. I had lost it twice before for various reasons, but it's always grown back. The last time it grew back I think I had a fungus or something that grew in with it, so it was never totally attached to my toe. You could tap on it and it was hollow-sounding. But it seemed to be fine and attached in all the right places so it wasn't loose. However, I knew there would be one day that I would hit it the wrong way and it would be time number three of losing the nail.

Well, today was the day. David and I were in the kitchen finishing up cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey was done, and we realized the other food hadn't really been started. So he and I were frantic in the kitchen. I was peeling potatoes, he was making green bean casserole, both of us attending to Rachel in between. We were back and forth between the refridgerator, stove, oven and counters.

Unfortunately, one of my trips to the island and trash can ended in my toe nail almost coming off. I had limited space to move in and went to push the trash can opener with my foot. I ended up catching my toe under the cabinet and pushing the nail up. (I know this is gross - sorry!)

The nail was perpendicular to my foot, the toe was bleeding, but the nail was still attached at the base near the cuticle. I went to the bathroom to see if I could do anything about it - maybe pull it out, cut it at the base - anything. But that didn't work. I am not a great patient, so I was feeling faint. David looked at it and realized he couldn't do anything about it either.

So off we went to the hospital - after we ate dinner in case you were wondering. We had to bundle Rachel up and cart all three of us to the ER. We got there about 540PM...no one was really there when I got there, but everyone seemed to come in after me. I was seen relatively quickly - it was the waiting for the doctor and nurses in between that took a long time, as well as waiting for various medicines to kick in.

The doctor wanted to Xray the toe to make sure it wasn't broken since I had jammed it into the cabinet. Then she gave me Percocet for the pain and Ativan to calm me down - did I mention I'm not a great patient? Then she needed to numb the toe so she could work her magic. Unfortunately, she was not able to remove the nail completely because if she did a new nail would not grow back. So she and another doctor wrangled with my nail to get it back into place. Also unfortunate, the numbing medicine on the toe was not working very well, so it was very painful on the nail bed. I was really in a lot of pain and it seemed to take forever for them to finish. They bandaged up my toe after cleaning it out.

I made it through. We left around 910PM. They prescribed me more Percocet as well as an antibiotic to prevent infection. There is a 24-hour CVS near the hospital, so we drove over there to get the prescriptions filled; however, there was a one hour wait. So David drove me and Rachel home and then left again to get the medicine for me. Which is why I am still up writing this entry. I need to follow up with my family physician so I'll call in the morning and make an appointment for Monday. In the meantime I need to avoid getting the toe wet and keep it elevated as much as possible.

So that was out excitement for Thanksgiving. Good thing we didn't have a houseful of company - well, maybe that would have been better - then the food would have been cooked on time and I might not have been in the kitchen to hurt myself. There's always next year!