Injury Week: The Toe

Injury week is finally here. I know you're all excited. Well, except for Ric, who apparently passes out at the sight of grotesque injuries.

We'll begin with the easiest to explain. It was '01 or '02 and the night of the homecoming dance. I was walking around barefoot getting ready, when I stubbed my toe on something in the carpet. It was an abrupt sharp pain so I went down there to inspect. I saw a red dot in my big toe, but it didn't seem to be bleeding. Odd. After searching the carpeting I found the culprit, a small pinlike needle. That must have been what created the red dot. Fast forward to a year later. After some cross country run I notice that same big toe has a tiny scab-like ball forming near the cuticle between the nail and the skin. I scratch it away but notice day after day it keeps re-appearing and getting bigger. Soon when I try to scratch it off I feel pain as though it has nerves. I realize this isn't going away anytime soon and I don't want it to start affecting my running so I go to a foot doctor.

Upon arrival the doctor explains to me that it looks like [insert medical term]. This thing forms on the outside of skin when your body is trying to remove unwanted debris or junk from itself. The body pushes this foreign object out through the little scab-pus-ball opening it created. So he says to make sure we will take some x-rays. He looks over the new xrays and exclaims that, sure enough, I had a small needle under my toe nail. He then says, "If you don't have any problems I can perform the surgery to remove it right now." I remember being baffled at how quick one can be propositioned with surgery on a seemingly normal afternoon. I surely didn't want to sound like a pussy, but man, surgery? Would I be able to run on it? He says everything will be fine and I agree with the surgery. What happens next is one of the most irritating/painful experiences I have had. (Erica: look away) He took the needle with numbing stuff in it and began inserting the needle between my toes. Almost a half dozen spots. Yes, Needles, between. ..my. ..toes. So that was horrible, but after the numbing kicked in everything was A'ok. He took a knife, cut open the ball guy growing beside my nail and dug around a bit. He then pulled out a shiny needle which was A LOT longer then I would have ever imagined. The foot healed up and was good to go.

In the end somehow I was able to connect the story of stubbing my toe and this incident which happened almost a year later. The needle I stubbed my toe on must have broken off near the bottom of my big toe, then made its way up under the nail as my body tried to reject it. I still have the needle, along with these nice Xrays.