Memories and No Stove

 Guess what did not arrive on Friday? Or Saturday, or Monday? Rumor has it that it will be delivered today. I will believe it when I see it. Maybe we should just load up the #4 stove and take it back, dump it on their loading dock and let ME go in for my refunds.

They ended up refunding $900 in cash to HeWho would not leave until they did. They still have the equivalent of two stoves held hostage.

Enough of that. During the warmest part of the day I have been working in my shed. When it is cloudy, it stays too cold inside the shed, but when the sun is up and shining on the front of the shed, it is quite pleasant until it starts to cool for the evening.

Watching movies on Netflix makes for a nice distraction when it is too chilly out. Then there is U-tube. I got sucked down the rabbit hole watching someone transform an old shirt into a dress for a child, then watched some quilting. Out of nowhere came the toenail videos. I found this fascinating, as I have always hated to see patients with toenails ingrown.

That stems back from my student nursing days in the 70's. There was this staff doctor at the hospital I trained in who loved an audience. He would explain his sadistic procedure each step of the way. He started with a rubberband, which he used to wrap tightly around the offending toe. Made the toe bright red and throbbing. I mean, you could see the patient's pulse in the toe. The good doctor told the unassuming students that this would cut off the circulation and help with pain.

I can assure you that it did not! The patient would be wriggling with discomfort, then the doctor would plunge the needle of the syringe holding lidocaine into the poor toe and push the drug in as fast as he could! At this point, the patient would either scream, yell, or pass out. Passing out would be my choice, should I ever be the patient.

Still not waiting for the drug to numb the toe sufficiently, the sadist would hold up his favorite too ... the toenail spreader. He would then gleefully jab the instrument under the toenail at center point and spread it out, elliciting another scream, or bringing the patient back to consciousness. The crowd of students would have become sparse. I stayed, because the ER was used as a day surgery suite as well as an actual ER and this was my choice of places I wanted to be.

After the spreading of the toenail, the painful part would be pretty much over as the lidocaine would be working by then. The next instrumant resembled needle nosed pliers which were used to yank the offending toenail off. Then he would dress the wound, leaving the patient with a giant gauze covered toe, tears streaming down their cheeks, big tears on big men as they thank the man who had just tortured them. I never saw a woman come in to have her toenail removed.

My diligence paid off and I landed a 7am to 3pm shift upon graduation. Wide-eyed wonder at the doctors was encouraged, as they tended to think they sat on God's throne. Lucky for for me, I could act. I also developed a skill of finding something close to the toe being mutilated to focus on and murmuring appropriate comments.This particular doctor had a general practice with no specialty other than cruelty, but you wouldn't put that out there for all to see, just save it for toenails, I suppose.

I would imagine this particular doctor has been gone for quite some time. He was grossly obese, causing him to sound like a hassling dog when he would breathe and he was a diabetic who also smoked. Some doctors smoked in the examination rooms ..... remember it was the 70's. One thing this doctor did teach me and has kept me from having an ingrown toenail for the last 50 years ..... if you cut a "v" in the center of your toenail, the toenail will grow to fill that gap and pull the sides out. Even if you have the beginning of an ingrown toenail, it works.

While on a very long car trip with my daughter, grandson and son-in-law, I told them the story of why Gramma cuts a "v" in her toenails (not all of them just the big toes). Chad and I discussed inventing toenail clippers that would creat a divet in the center of the toenail for many miles. I think my daughter, Adrienne simply tuned us out and Gavin took a nap.

So it was interesting to see a totally different approach to ingrown toenails that did not require shackling the patients leg to the exam table!