The story begins many blog posts ago, when my first ingrown toenail debacle started a cycle of ingrowing of the toenail. My podiatrist equates it with a thorn growing into your skin.

Anyway, the last time he had to remove it was in July. I thought I could make it until October, when he was going to perform a procedure to end the ingrowth permanently–cauterizing the nail root. WRONG.

Labor Day weekend, I swam in the ocean. I took long walks and got away from my laptop. And my toenail pierced deeper into my flesh causing my cuticle to swell and redden. Reaching the point where I couldn’t put weight on the toe. I called the podiatrist and they squeezed me in.

I figured a little removal of the ingrown toenail–I could handle that alone. WRONG.

The doctor decided that we should do the cauterization now. Stupidly I agreed. How bad could it be? Very Very badly painful.

He started with about 6-8 shots of Novacain into my toe. I can’t remember how many. I just remember trying not to cuss or bite through my lip.

He rubber banded my toe to prevent lots of bleeding when he worked. (Smart move–I faint at my own blood)

Anyway, he got me good and numbed up, then he cut an entire section of my toe nail away. From the tip of my toe down to the nail root. He also extracted the ingrown toenail that looked suspiciously like one of Eric’s fangs on True Blood. He band-aided me up and sent me home with strict instructions to soak it a couple times a day and use a box of medicated band-aids that he gave me.

All the Novacain made me so nervous, I had no trouble driving home.

But when the Novacain wore off, the pain was in-freaking-credible. From the tip of my toe pain shot to my ankle and into my leg. All those nerves were mega pissed at being doped up.

Sometimes a crazy pain came out of nowhere and I sorta yelped. This went on for about 36 hours. It still hurts a lot. When I soak it, it gets a little weepy. Not me, the toe.

Today, I go for a check-up to make sure there is no infection.

And in my weirdness, I like to take pictures of my surgeries and procedures so here is what my toe looked like after the procedure (after the bleeding stopped). There is still dried blood under the nail. And there are red needle marks around the base of my toe. And yes, my foot is mega swollen. It always swells up after Novacain.