A Comedy of Errors?

Or just a slew of dumb decisions?

The Saturday before Easter (April 10), like a host of women around America, I got a pedicure to enhance the beauty of my Easter outfit.  Or at least to make my toes look better.  A few days later...or maybe it was a week...I noticed that one of the toes on my left foot was red, swollen, and painful.  Oh yes, oh yes...it was infected.  I’ve never had an infection from a pedicure before so I was a little thrown. 

I took care of it like I have all the infections Ben’s had over the years. Of course, I was more disciplined with him than I was myself.  I was noticing a trend though...healing would begin to occur then I’d wear closed toe shoes and the infection would get worse.  When I’d go in for treatment, the infection would get worse. Chemo = low white blood cell count = infection that won’t go away. Easy peasy controlling the closed toe shoe issue - flip flops!! But I couldn’t control the chemo treatments.  So, I put away my cute boots and converse and wore my cute flip flops even though it was still chilly out.  I just put on an extra layer. 

Then things got worse...

Our family has been doing a ton of yard work recently.  I mean a TON!!!  On May 22 we were plowing through loads of pruning and general clean up.  I had my gardening shoes on but after several hours of yard work, I HAD to take them off.  My infected toe was really bugging me.  The moisture and heat in the closed toe shoe was a bad combination.  So, I took my shoes off. 

Oooh...the moist grass and mud between my toes.  It felt so good.  So I continued pruning...and climbing up and down the retaining wall.  

I was using small hand pruners placing them in the pocket of my gardening jacket when they weren’t needed.  Seemed to be working out just fine until that one time when the pruners slipped out of my pocket, blades open, landing in the soft spot between my big toe and the next toe - on my left foot. OUCH!! Literally the blade went into that soft area and left a deep cut.  To make things even more interesting is that the blades were rusted and I’m allergic to the tetanus shot.  So, now I had an infected toe and a deep cut all on the same foot. 

I wasn’t very concerned with the severity of the cut but I was concerned about the rusty blade.  The only thing that was going through my head was “Seriously?  The pruners couldn’t have dropped out while I had my shoes on?”  I know the entire thing was my fault but I still couldn’t believe it had actually happened and that I might have to deal with the bigger issue of tetanus.

I cleaned the cut, bandaged it really well and stopped gardening for the day. That’s when I realized I now couldn’t wear flip flops without some serious pain.  No flip flops?  No closed toe shoes?  And we were getting ready to leave for an 8 day vacation to San Francisco. 

Oh...the day I stabbed my foot...for some super lame reason, I opted not to wear gardening gloves.  Somehow, I ended up with a cut underneath the nail of my right thumb.  Within a day, that cut became infected.  Gotta love chemo.  I now had an infected toe an infected thumb and a deep cut in between my toes.  I was a mess. 

Before we left for San Francisco, I bought some special but not so cute walking shoes that allowed my infected toe to breathe and my cut to be bandaged.  I really didn’t care for how they looked but I did enjoy how they felt.  But, they were new and we all know it’s not the smartest thing to wear new shoes when walking blocks and blocks and blocks up and down hills.

After a couple of days of walking in the city, a toe on my right foot started hurting.  No blisters or cuts just a strangely intense sore toe.  So, I decided to wear a new pair of really cute shoes that I just bought in San Francisco.  I knew I was taking a risk but they felt so much better on my feet than my “walking shoes” that I felt it was the lesser of the two evils.  That is, until late evening when I ended up with a shredded skin blister-like thing on my right foot.

Are you keeping up?  Here’s the tally: left foot...infected toe, really bad cut.  Right foot...strangely intense sore toe, shredded skin blister-like thing.  Right hand (dominant)...infected SUPER SORE thumb.  I couldn’t wear any type of shoe without bandages.  I went to San Francisco with an entire box of band-aids and came home with 8.  The good news though is that my cut was healing really nicely (no tetanus) and my infected thumb was doing much better and still is.  My infected toe and blister? Not so much.

Now, I’ve made it incredibly clear that I wasn’t ready to come home from San Francisco but I was looking forward to was wearing my flip flops.  They’ve always been a friend to my feet.  I knew my bad cut had healed enough to wear them but I wasn’t counting on one small thing...my blister.  It was right in the path of the strap of my flip flop.  Ouch!  Are you kidding me??

Then...I tripped, very hard, on the cord of my son’s game catching the cord between my big toe and the next toe RIGHT on top of my cut.  SO, SO OUCH!!  But no reopened wound.

Have I talked to my doctor about any of this...no.  Why? Because...I have to figure out what shoes to wear and how many bandages I need.