How NOT to spend a lovely Sunday...

[n4gix 4,947]

Night before last as I was headed to bed, I stumbled as I was passing through the dining/music/miscellaneous storage room and rapped my left foot's little toe hard against my organ's solid wood bench.

My foot went one way but my little toe decided to do a split. I didn't notice immediately that it literally split, and the tear in between my little toe and its neighbor was bleeding like a stuck pig. Bright red was pooling up around my foot as my little toe stood out at a 90º angle. I limped over to grab a hand full of paper towels and managed to make it to the bathroom, where I was able to prop my left foot on the toilet seat allowing the blood to drip into the bowl instead of continuing to pool on the floor.

Luckily, my emergency first aid supplies are kept in an over the toilet cabinet, so I was well positioned to get what I needed. I drenched my left foot with hydrogen peroxide, then used some 4x4 sterile gauze to stop the blood flow long enough to place a folded 2x2 sterile gauze pad between my two toes (moving my little toe back into place) and wedged it down to the torn slit. I put some clean 4x4's on the top and bottom of my foot and then wrapped a short length of elastic bandage. That ended my Friday evening.

Saturday I thought about going to the VA Hospital Emergency Room (a 21 mile dive), but dithered around and decided to wait until Sunday when traffic wouldn't be as bad. I found out this morning that a blizzard was expected to hit Chicago area around 4pm so off I went after some pain meds had kicked in. I felt rather silly about going an ER for a "stubbed toe," but it's good that I did. X-Rays showed that the second joint of my little toe is broken.  They cleaned the tear, bathed it in betadine, and re-bandaged it. I have to go to the podiatry clinic next Thursday so they can do a follow up, and adjust my treatment if necessary.

So for the next ten days I have to bathe my wound with betadine, check for any excessive swelling, redness, or pus coming from the wound. Anti-biotics 4x/day as well. I am also clunking around in a special shoe until it's all healed up since I can't get my regular orthopedic shoe on my left foot.

[188AHC 2,138]

You have my sympathy.  I have had broken toes a number of times in my life and it certainly doesn't fall into the fun category.  Prayers for a speedy recovery  Bill. 

[Patco Lch 1,464]

Hurts just heading about it. Speedy recovery.

[n4gix 4,947]

Thanks guys... the 'happy pills' seem to be working as I don't feel much pain!  

[ErichB 3,638]

That's nasty.  Enjoy those happy pills.🙃

[vc10man 732]

7 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

Hurts just heading about it. Speedy recovery.

Yikes. painful reading( I think you meant 'reading') here too. Fr Bill, hope you recover soon.

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL 663]

So few survive Organ Failure with that degree of equanimity.

 

Best CJ

[charliearon 3,017]

Glad to hear you are feeling better, Bill  Is that organ bench now chopped into kindling?  I usually wind up banging my shins on the coffee table or on my chestbed.  Scars o'plenty

[Jim Young 2,356]

Good to hear you are feeling better with the "happy pills".  Get well soon!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

12 hours ago, n4gix said:

Night before last as I was headed to bed, I stumbled as I was passing through the dining/music/miscellaneous storage room and rapped my left foot's little toe hard against my organ's solid wood bench.

My foot went one way but my little toe decided to do a split. I didn't notice immediately that it literally split, and the tear in between my little toe and its neighbor was bleeding like a stuck pig. Bright red was pooling up around my foot as my little toe stood out at a 90º angle. I limped over to grab a hand full of paper towels and managed to make it to the bathroom, where I was able to prop my left foot on the toilet seat allowing the blood to drip into the bowl instead of continuing to pool on the floor.

Luckily, my emergency first aid supplies are kept in an over the toilet cabinet, so I was well positioned to get what I needed. I drenched my left foot with hydrogen peroxide, then used some 4x4 sterile gauze to stop the blood flow long enough to place a folded 2x2 sterile gauze pad between my two toes (moving my little toe back into place) and wedged it down to the torn slit. I put some clean 4x4's on the top and bottom of my foot and then wrapped a short length of elastic bandage. That ended my Friday evening.

Saturday I thought about going to the VA Hospital Emergency Room (a 21 mile dive), but dithered around and decided to wait until Sunday when traffic wouldn't be as bad. I found out this morning that a blizzard was expected to hit Chicago area around 4pm so off I went after some pain meds had kicked in. I felt rather silly about going an ER for a "stubbed toe," but it's good that I did. X-Rays showed that the second joint of my little toe is broken.  They cleaned the tear, bathed it in betadine, and re-bandaged it. I have to go to the podiatry clinic next Thursday so they can do a follow up, and adjust my treatment if necessary.

So for the next ten days I have to bathe my wound with betadine, check for any excessive swelling, redness, or pus coming from the wound. Anti-biotics 4x/day as well. I am also clunking around in a special shoe until it's all healed up since I can't get my regular orthopedic shoe on my left foot.

I have had three broken toes, the last episode being the worst and never fully healed.  All the doctor could do is give me pain meds.  One happened on a trip I took to Disneyland with my daughter and wife, and like a trooper I just hobbled my way thru the rest of the weekend, drove us home, then went to the doctor.  Another happened in a freak accident, when a porcelain bowl slipped out of my fingers when I took it from the kitchen cabinet and somehow made a perfect bullseye on my big toe, the injury that has never fully healed (although there is no more pain having happened several years ago).  And a third toe was broken when I stubbed it on our metal breakfast nook chair, and I was hopping up and down like someone on red hot coals stifling a scream to the amusement of my young daughter who thought I handled it well, all considered.  But at least I have all my toes, and have not broken any other fixtures on my body, have even hit my head hard with no cracks, other than my ego.

John

[fppilot 4,355]

Oh but can I relate to all of that.  True story. In the early 1980’s when I worked in farm equipment in northeast Oklahoma, I stubbed my barefoot little toe on a caster of a heavy office chair in my home office.  My wife and two young daughters snickered in the nearby kitchen at my foul language.  I was in the middle of putting on open house programs at my dealers.  It was mid-week and I had three to go.  Suffering badly, I had to sub a tennis shoe with a cut out toe for one of my western boots, of course keeping a boot on the other foot. 

During my last show, on a Thursday evening, an older farmer came up to me.  “Broken toe?” he asked.  “Most likely” was my answer.  I followed that by telling him I was to see my doctor the next morning.  The farmer looked at me and smiled as if knowingly.  “The doctor will come in and poke at it and make you yelp”. “Then he will tell you it’s likely broken, which you already know”.  “He will have it x-rayed, costing you $50.00”.  “Then he will come in, look at the x-ray, and say yep, it’s broken”.  He will then send in a nurse to tape it to the toe next to it, and charge you $70.

I laughed!

Next morning I went to my doctor.  He poked at it and make me yelp.  Told me it was likely broken but wanted an x-ray to confirm.  Had me get an x-ray. Cost me $40.  He came, looked at the x-ray, and confirmed my toe was broken.  He fished out some adhesive tape and taped it to the toe next to it and told me to change the tape every couple of days until it healed.  Then I checked out, paying $80.

I wear slippers or house shoes now around the house.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

8 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Oh but can I relate to all of that.  True story. In the early 1980’s when I worked in farm equipment in northeast Oklahoma, I stubbed my barefoot little toe on a caster of a heavy office chair in my home office.  My wife and two young daughters snickered in the nearby kitchen at my foul language.  I was in the middle of putting on open house programs at my dealers.  It was mid-week and I had three to go.  Suffering badly, I had to sub a tennis shoe with a cut out toe for one of my western boots, of course keeping a boot on the other foot. 

 

During my last show, on a Thursday evening, an older farmer came up to me.  “Broken toe?” he asked.  “Most likely” was my answer.  I followed that by telling him I was to see my doctor the next morning.  The farmer looked at me and smiled as if knowingly.  “The doctor will come in and poke at it and make you yelp”. “Then he will tell you it’s likely broken, which you already know”.  “He will have it x-rayed, costing you $50.00”.  “Then he will come in, look at the x-ray, and say yep, it’s broken”.  He will then send in a nurse to tape it to the toe next to it, and charge you $70.

 

I laughed!

 

Next morning I went to my doctor.  He poked at it and make me yelp.  Told me it was likely broken but wanted an x-ray to confirm.  Had me get an x-ray. Cost me $40.  He came, looked at the x-ray, and confirmed my toe was broken.  He fished out some adhesive tape and taped it to the toe next to it and told me to change the tape every couple of days until it healed.  Then I checked out, paying $80.

 

I wear slippers or house shoes now around the house.

 

My doctor taped one of my broken toes but the pain was so bad, even with pain pills, that I removed the tape and just hunkered down and dealt with the pain for several weeks.  Luckily my left foot has taken the brunt of my broken toes, broke one on my right foot but it healed easily, my left foot is harder but since I drive an automatic better that foot than my right.

I managed to go more than 40 years without breaking any bones, but did have an appendectomy when I was eleven and back then it was major surgery, major pain, and life threatening.  But I remember it like yesterday--woke up in the middle of the night with pain in my right side and nausea, then a fever came on.  I was sleeping alone and my pet female poodle Michelle started to furiously lick me awake--she saved my life, otherwise I would have lapsed into a coma with the high fever.  My Mom took me under her wing and told me to eat something, when she realized I could not she knew something was terribly wrong.  As soon as the doctor's office opened at Kaiser Napa, she took me in, he compressed my stomach, and diagnosed an appendix about to rupture. 

My Mom did not wait for an ambulance, she grabbed my hand as the doctor called ahead to the hospital in Vallejo to prepare for emergency surgery, put me in her Ford Maverick, and I was feverishly in and out of it, and she drove like a maniac at 70mph plus on a highway to Kaiser Vallejo.  I was put in a hospital bed immediately, then they injected me with something that made me very sleepy and very happy.  I had no worries about the surgery I was about to have.  I was in and out of wakefulness then remember being lifted onto the operating table, smiling at the doctors and lovely, lovely nurses, who called me smiley.

Two hours later I suddenly woke up in the recovery room with my parents and asked them one question--"Is it over?  They said yes and I was out like a light.  But when I woke up again I had unimaginable stabbing pain from where the incision was, like someone was trying to murder me.  They came and gave me something, and out I went, and this was repeated once or twice over the course of the night.  But then a little angel came to me, an African American girl about my age, and just stayed with me and coached me thru the pain, holding my hand, she was a patient too, but I was obviously the sickest in the room.  I almost died from that episode, but made it out of the hospital a few days later with a pain in my side that gradually went away.  I never had my tonsils taken out, but both me and my grandmother lost our appendix and were kindred spirits because of it,. very close until the day she passed.  When I returned to school, since the episode happened during my summer break, I was quite the celebrity, all the girls wanted to see my scar but it was a bit too low for me to reveal it to them.  And for some reason, I became the sit up champion of the school, before the surgery I could not even do ten sit ups without hitting the wall, after, I could whip out one hundred in minutes and I made the Presidents list, whatever that was in the 70's.  My stomach muscles obviously liked the surgery.  I went on to do Century Bike rides and I would ride in a bikeathon later for charity, the surgery gave me great stamina that I did not have before it.

John

[signmanbob 592]

All I can say is.....OUCH!

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The weather is bad so you have 2 excuses to stay inside for 10 days. I've stubbed a toe before slipping in the bathroom and boy does that hurt. Keep well Father Bill 

[Jude Bradley 659]

Ouch, sounds painful, almost as bad as shopping with the wife.

Get well soon.