As I sit with my feet up because of three toe “avulsion” surgeries, almost three full years after our trip to Alaska, I’m reminded of the Toe Saga of 2023 that nearly ruined our entire trip.
The story begins in Texas in mid-April, two weeks before our cruise.
Technically, the story begins a month before that, when I asked my PCP for a referral to a podiatrist. I distinctly recall choosing a practice different from her recommendation, but I don’t remember why. Convenience? They could see me slightly sooner? My choice was a horrible, horrible mistake.
Or perhaps the story goes back even further, to the “trauma” that caused my toenail to die in the first place. I don’t remember this either, but it must have been significant, the doctors said.
In any event, my right big toe was in bad shape. The nail had chipped—perhaps the trauma incident?—and had stopped growing. It no longer looked like a thin, healthy nail the color of pink skin and started looking like a coarse, dead yellow-ish nail that could’ve belonged to an 80-year old man. It was winter, though, so I didn’t pay too much mind to aesthetics because my feet were constantly covered in fuzzy socks.
But then my toe started to hurt. I’d have to pull my socks off in the middle of the night because of sharp, shooting pains. And then it began to swell at the toe bed, a hard, red mountainous ridge leading to the nail. I tried Epsom soaks to no avail. That’s when I called the doctor.
Fr. John (formerly Rob) immediately consulted YouTube, and based on a video of a guy whose toe situation looked identical to mine, we determined that my entire toenail would need to be removed. It seemed AWFUL, but oddly satisfying. I didn’t know how something like that would even heal.
Meanwhile, at the forefront of my mind was the fact we were going to Alaska, and the date was almost upon us. We had already purchased excursions, like hikes and canoeing. I’d pushed off seeing a podiatrist for too long, and now the idea of going another month without addressing the issue seemed impossible. (I’m sure doing daily boot camp at the gym hadn’t helped the situation.) So I went to my appointment at Carrollton Podiatry, mentally prepared for the worst.
It turns out, the doctor didn’t think removing the entire toenail was necessary. She suggested an ingrown procedure, known as an avulsion surgery, using a bit of chemicals to inhibit nail regrowth to fix the issue.
“Really?” I asked, disappointed. I wanted the…YouTube solution?
“The entire nail doesn’t need to be removed,” she said*. “Are you ready?”
*two other podiatrists have confirmed that this was the wrong decision.
“What is the recovery time? We are going to Alaska in two weeks and I have to be able to wear close-toed shoes.”
“You’ll be able to wear any kind of shoes within a week,” she assured me.
Fr. John accompanied me and watched the procedure while my view was (intentionally) obscured by a hanging cloth. “This is SO GNARLY!” he liked to interject. The doctor had numbed my toes so I could not feel the giant Q-tips that were poking out of either side of my nail bed, and I’m glad I didn’t see any of it.
A week went by and my toe showed no signs of improvement. The only thing that had changed was now I had an incision that occasionally bled. I called the doctor to see if I could meet her before our scheduled follow-up.
“Hmm,” she said. “It does look a bit irritated.”
“I’ll prescribe some antibiotics in case there’s an infection,” she said, and this was her only approach to fixing my toe before Alaska.
As I boarded the airplane for Vancouver, in flip flops, I prayed this would be the day that my toe would miraculously feel better.
The following day, as I walked through the snaking lines to board the cruise, in flip flops, I hoped being on the sea would somehow improve my toe.
As I spent the entire first day of our cruise at sea lying in a reclining chair with my feet elevated, I wept silently while my husband, sister-in-law, and parents ran to-and-fro getting drinks and exploring. The flip flops prevailed.
The night before we landed in our first port city, Sitka, I was in crisis. “What should I do?” I asked Fr. John. “I don’t think I can do our [super duper extremely backwoods] hike tomorrow,” I wailed.
“Well, we can cancel,” he said. “Or you can wrap your toe real tight, suck it up, and DO IT!”
The next morning, when we woke up in Sitka, I vacillated between “go” and “not-go,” until 15 minutes before the excursion meetup. “LET’S DO IT!” I said. Fr. John, who is not squeamish like I am, planned to skillfully wrap my toe/foot, but as he was applying ointment, he said, “What’s this? It looks like a hair in your incision.”
He gave it a little pull, and just like something out of Mary Poppins’ purse, a ball of cotton, gloopy and oozing, came out of my toe, evidently left in there by the podiatrist.
I felt immediate relief. All the pressure that I’d been feeling for MONTHS finally released, and it was the grossest, most rewarding moment of the year. Suddenly, I was able to wear a close-toed shoe without wincing in pain. I was so happy I could dance! (But that still hurt, so I did not.)
In the end, we did not do the super duper extremely backwoods hike. When they started fitting guests with galoshes due to the knee-high mud and said there was “no turn around point,” I thought it wise to not put my toe under intense strain since we’d literally just removed a foreign object from it.**
**two other podiatrists have confirmed that this was the right decision
Instead, we did a flat, wooded trail, where we could take easy cover when it started to downpour. I thought of the people bushwhacking up a mountain in the rain, and I have never been so happy to have quit something in my life.
Thus, the rest of our Alaskan adventure was salvaged. We even went on a “real” hike in Juneau that ended up being one of my top 5 favorite hikes of all time.***
***The rest of our Alaskan trip will be in a forthcoming blog.
Thus, my big toe didn’t completely overshadow our trip, although the Toe Saga remains a crucial part of our history, even to this day.
And what ever happened to the podiatrist at Carrollton Podiatry, you ask? She found it “unusual” that we removed from my toe a cotton swab, which we brought to the appointment, she charged me $200 for the follow-up, and she no longer works at that practice.
Sadly, my toe has never fully recovered. But at least I can wear close-toed shoes.****
****except currently, because of the avulsion surgeries I just had. But here’s to hoping for a better outcome!
They Call Me Fushilou 