Much Ado About Nothing

Warned ya! Here we go...

This past weekend I stepped on glass. It was totally my own STUPID fault. I blame my barefoot childhood. Sometimes I just forget that I live in a HUGE URBAN city and that I CANNOT just bound out to my car barefoot. Honestly, that glass in my foot is probably the least of my worries when running around in the great outdoors of Los Angeles. Can anyone say parasite?

Right. So, stupid stupid me...who wears slippers CONSTANTLY inside my house...went running out to my car in bare feet (is this one word or two??) and ouch. Did I imagine that? Is there a stinging pain in my heel? Blast. There is. Sit on bed...examine heel. Oh no. That looks like glass. Proceed to get tweezers (I have really good ones too...so this SHOULD have worked) and just break off the tippy top of the glass. DAMMIT. 

I got needle nosed tweezers. Fail. I got a needle and dug around it. OUCH. You know how like EVERY time you touch the glass it HURTS. 

Have I mentioned I'm a HUGE baby? Like, huge. I have zero tolerance for pain. Honestly, I've never experienced REAL pain.

My most painful injuries to date:

1. Once, inexplicably, my left middle finger got stuck straight up for like 2 months. I think this was a work related pipetting injury...sort of the opposite of trigger finger. It was horrible. I could. not. put. it. down. The doctor FORCED it down and I SCREAMED in her office. My finger turned a funny shade of black and blue...and then it kind of, died. It was cool to the touch and a funny gray color. I had x-rays. I had an MRI (fun experience laying in that tube flipping the bird). No one could find any reasonable explanation for this. My doctor suggested exploratory surgery on my 25 year old hand. No, thanks. I spent months in physical therapy...for a finger. Hahaha. But gosh...that worked. It all seemed so stupid...curl up towel with fingers...release towel with fingers...but my finger got better! Hallelujah!
However, it was a terribly painful experience. It's really hard to do ANYTHING with just one hand b/c my left hand was totally useless. I needed help tying my shoes. I was horrible at washing my hair. I got honked at constantly driving around town with my middle finger flying on the steering wheel. Anyway...all better now!

2.The first night of my broken toe in Idaho this year...was not pleasant. Throbbing.

3. I once slammed my own hand using my other hand in a sliding glass door(by mistake, obviously. Or maybe my left hand was planning it all along?). My nail filled with blood and eventually fell off. It smelled like death. I kept it. I was a weird child.

4. I stepped on glass in college. And I REFUSED to do anything about it. Like, refused. I proceeded to spend that entire summer-ENTIRE SUMMER-limping around until one night during a fit of crying my mom broke down and FORCED me to go to the doctor. Welllll as it turns out...apparently the glass had manifested a plantar's wart. Now, I know warts are caused by a virus...but the doctor said it's quite common that you step on something that has the virus on it or that the wound opens you up to the virus. Whichever it was...OUCH. It was really painful and had to be cut out. I had a hole the size of a dime in my foot...down to the bone. I always wanted to have crutches as a child, but I can tell you now...they are the worst! 

5. I once bruised a rib and weeks later... I sneezed in line at the airport and it was the only time in my life I've even come close to fainting. I fell on my bag instead of truly fainting, but I still managed the flight to Bermuda. Luckily, my Nana had some Tylenol 3 (legal in Bermuda!) and it cured what ailed me...sorta. Those things just have to heal.

Annnnnd that's it! Seriously. I'm super lucky. I'll never survive childbirth.

Anyway, back to the drama at hand. 

I started TOTALLY. FREAKING. OUT.

I don't even know why!! It didn't hurt THAT bad, but I needed it out of my foot. AHORA.

I did what any normal and well adjusted 34 year old woman would do and called my Mommy.

I just didn't want to be dealing with glass in my foot...mostly due to my 2 mile a day walk at work and the fact that I'm leaving town this week for a long weekend. After talking to my mom, I decided to go to Urgent Care.

I hobbled out to my car (with shoes on this time!) and drove myself the painful 2 miles trying to push in the clutch without further pushing the glass into my foot. There's a ton of construction, so I had to drive around and around to even get near the Urgent Care. 

I had to park over a block away and hobble down to the building. I get inside and find out that MY INSURANCE DOESN'T COVER URGENT CARE. Oh. my. Gosh. 

So I hobbled back to my car and called my doctor to either a) go there or b) get a referral for urgent care. Welllll my doctor's office is not open on weekends. 

I'm not going to lie-- I started crying in frustration. I cannot even begin to discuss how much I hate insurance companies. I guess my option was to go to the ER and STILL pay the $100 copay and likely wait for 10 hours. Ugh!!

I hobbled back to the Urgent Care to pay $185 out of pocket to have this teeny sliver of glass removed from my foot. Mad face.

After waiting for like 30 mins and doubting my decision and feeling utterly ridiculous to be there at all, the doctor finally came in with a P.A. that he was training. I explained to them what a HUGE baby I was about pain and they were super nice and gentle.

It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I laid on my stomach while he rather gently scraped away at my foot. He was dictating to the P.A. and said, "Now, Lindsey. One of the worst things you can try to do is grab the object, as that will just push it in further." HA! I said, "Now, Lindsey. That's EXACTLY what I did." No one but me found me amusing. :P

I was somewhat vindicated by the fact that the Doctor ALSO could not get the glass out of my foot. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to get a shot to numb it up. 

The convo went something like this:

Dr.: "Ok. I can't get it this way, so I'm going to have to do something you won't like"

Me: "Um. Ok."

Dr.:"I need to go into where the glass went in. It will be painful. I'm going to have to give you a shot right into your heel so that I can better extract the glass without you feeling it."

Me:"Ohh. Ok. That should be fine. I really have no problem with needles or shots"

Dr.: "Yeah, well I'm not going to lie. This is one of the worst places to get a shot. It's really going to hurt."

Me:":("

Why couldn't he have just lied to me?? ANYWAY. Yes it did hurt. Yes I did scream out just a little. But, it wasn't that bad and within 5 minutes, he had it out of my foot. 

Viola!

The little piece of glass was actually bigger than I imagined, so I felt better again about my decision to seek medical assistance. 

All in all...it was quite traumatic, but it goes without saying that I'm a bit dramatic. ;) I rewarded myself by stopping to buy brownies while my foot was still numb enough to walk. 

If anyone read all that...I'm impressed. I'm not even sure why I'm choosing to chronicle this even for myself. I'm headed east today to DC and then a road trip to Charleston, which promises better content for the blog. :P