Sucks a big one.
And Navy Medicine (or at least their admin) does too.
On Sunday night, I smashed the big toe on my right foot. Probably most of you have at one point smashed a nail so that it turned black. Up to this point the worst that I have had was getting stepped on by Leonard Davis (Dallas' Cowboys right guard) in football practice This thing turned purple almost instantly, but only about halfway up the nail. I screamed and cursed so loud that I scared my poor 5 year old son to tears.
So, Monday morning I head to medical to see if they had a sanitary way to give me some relief. The standard redneck healing method is to heat up a needle and stick it through the nail so the blood can come out. I didn't feel like doing that and wanted a professional to handle it. So, I get to the desk at what used to be sick call, and the HM2 behind the desk (a BAMF wearing his FMF badge, a bronze star w/ V, NAM w/V, Combat Action Ribbon, Purple Heart, etc) tells me that sick call does not exist anymore and he hands me a card with a phone number that I have to call to make an appointment. I had a somewhat confused look on my face, one that he probably gets from everyone, and he apologizes for the stupid procedure but says that it's "just what they have to do". So I back out of the line at the Millington Branch Medical Clinic to call the appointment line at Pensacola Naval Hospital to see if someone can help me in Millington, the HM2 that runs flight physicals (another BAMF with an equally impressive stack) sees me in obvious discomfort and takes me to his office to speed the process. He makes the call to Pensacola, again apologizes for the stupid business practice and acknowledges that everyone hates the system. After sitting on hold for 10 minutes, he says "fuck it" and takes me to an exam room. Within 5 minutes, he has his LT in there and they decide that the best course of action is to let me suffer. OK, fine. At least I got a doctor's opinion and some 800mg motrin out of the deal.
By the time I get home on Monday though, I have had enough and had to get some relief. Taking the wise counsel of my lead civilian case manager (a Tennessee home remedy specialist) I get a 1/32 size drill bit from my tool box, disinfect it and my toe, and slowly work the bit into the nail bed by hand. This sounds stupid and painful, I know. It may have been stupid, but it was virtually painless and when I got through the relief was immediate. Several CC's of blood squirted out and I felt good enough to go to football practice (I coach 5th and 6th grade at Harding Academy). Murphy's law is a motherfucker, and true to form about half way through practice one of the boys sank a cleat right square dead center into my smashed up toe. The Lord was with me though, and I managed to not spray the field full of Christian school kids ankle deep in profanity. The toe has gone from really really bad to horribly worse. Instead of being 1/4 black, it is now 85% black. I get home and drain it again, but it keeps filling up as quick as I can drain it. MF.
I managed to make it through Tuesday, mostly by not wanting to put up with the BS at medical, knowing that Pensacola is going to have me on hold for half an hour just to tell me to go to the emergency room at a civilian hospital, and I don't know where my fucking Tri-Care card is. We also had 4 new deaths, and the shit has hit the fan at the office. By this morning, I had had enough. There is no doubt at this point that the nail is going to come off. The thing is starting to turn silly colors that crayloa will not put in a box because they don't want to scare the kids. I skip the front desk and head straight back to the HM2 that I think has the best chance to take pity on me. He does, mostly because I think he was bored and cutting off an officer's toenail would be the most exciting part of his day.
I have pretty well proven that I am not impervious to pain, but I have a history of being impervious to painkillers. Latocain for example, just doesn't work very well on me. Instead of the 4-5 cc's and 3 sticks that he thought it would take, I took 9 cc's and 5 sticks. The first one made me quickly realize that my previous description of the pain "It feels like someone is sticking a needle in my toe." was somewhat of an exaggeration. Now that someone was actually sticking a needle in my toe, it was much worse. FUCK ME that hurt. After getting it numbed up, the worst part was hearing the sound of as the HM2 cut my toenail up the middle with a pair of scissors. He then pulled the halves off with a pair of forceps, and we were done. Except for the bleeding. The source of most of my pain was a pea size clot that had formed from the initial smashing and was pushing the nail out of place. I had also broken the nail bed off. The doc said that he usually did a couple of those a week with his Marines in Iraq, and that none had come off so easily. I was so proud.
The good thing about latocian is that it numbs you up pretty good for the procedure. The bad thing is that it only lasts for about 45 minutes, and we are 20 into that. The pharmacy is conveniently located halfway across base in the NEX, and I am looking at a 10 minute wait there. I am also in uniform and there is no way that I am getting my shoe back on. So I suck it up and just hope that I don't bump into an admiral or anything in hobble in without my shoe and pick up my lortab. I can't take it though, because it is a narcotic and it is against the law (and dangerous as hell) to drive after taking it. I scurry home (20 minute drive) and by the time I get here my toe is respectfully requesting some narcotic pain relief. I oblige, and quickly affirm that the "do not drive while on this medication" is a shall, not a should, for damn good reason. 3 hour nap, here I come.
I feel better now. Rested. Medicated. On the mend after a few miserable days of constant pain in my foot. I learned several things.
1. Toe nail removal sucks, but it sucks more when you put it off for 3 days.
2. Navy medicine has some serious admin issues. I don't know who decided that branch medical clinics would do away with sick call and that their acute care patients will be required to call an automated help line at a hospital 300 miles away, but that person needs to be drug out into the street and shot. The official process required to see a doctor here in Millington is fucking retarded. With all of the national health care debates going on, the military system is often held up as a shining example of how great government health care can be. Up to this point, I would have agreed. The management of the clinic in Millington shows a perfect example of how the government can fuck up anything given the chance. I am sad and disappointed that the medical officers in charge of that place have created/allowed that situation to happen.
3. The people that we have working in our clinic are several orders of magnitude smarter than the people running it. To their great credit, they saw the stupid process for what it was and they took good care of me. The HM2 BAMF cussed like a sailor (I love that), cussed at the process (I joined him on that), and he was a total pro in explaining to me what he was going to do before he did it (I am a bit of a whiny bitch when it comes to people cutting off a body part).
4. If your toe ever looks like this, go see a doc.
And Navy Medicine (or at least their admin) does too.
On Sunday night, I smashed the big toe on my right foot. Probably most of you have at one point smashed a nail so that it turned black. Up to this point the worst that I have had was getting stepped on by Leonard Davis (Dallas' Cowboys right guard) in football practice This thing turned purple almost instantly, but only about halfway up the nail. I screamed and cursed so loud that I scared my poor 5 year old son to tears.
So, Monday morning I head to medical to see if they had a sanitary way to give me some relief. The standard redneck healing method is to heat up a needle and stick it through the nail so the blood can come out. I didn't feel like doing that and wanted a professional to handle it. So, I get to the desk at what used to be sick call, and the HM2 behind the desk (a BAMF wearing his FMF badge, a bronze star w/ V, NAM w/V, Combat Action Ribbon, Purple Heart, etc) tells me that sick call does not exist anymore and he hands me a card with a phone number that I have to call to make an appointment. I had a somewhat confused look on my face, one that he probably gets from everyone, and he apologizes for the stupid procedure but says that it's "just what they have to do". So I back out of the line at the Millington Branch Medical Clinic to call the appointment line at Pensacola Naval Hospital to see if someone can help me in Millington, the HM2 that runs flight physicals (another BAMF with an equally impressive stack) sees me in obvious discomfort and takes me to his office to speed the process. He makes the call to Pensacola, again apologizes for the stupid business practice and acknowledges that everyone hates the system. After sitting on hold for 10 minutes, he says "fuck it" and takes me to an exam room. Within 5 minutes, he has his LT in there and they decide that the best course of action is to let me suffer. OK, fine. At least I got a doctor's opinion and some 800mg motrin out of the deal.
By the time I get home on Monday though, I have had enough and had to get some relief. Taking the wise counsel of my lead civilian case manager (a Tennessee home remedy specialist) I get a 1/32 size drill bit from my tool box, disinfect it and my toe, and slowly work the bit into the nail bed by hand. This sounds stupid and painful, I know. It may have been stupid, but it was virtually painless and when I got through the relief was immediate. Several CC's of blood squirted out and I felt good enough to go to football practice (I coach 5th and 6th grade at Harding Academy). Murphy's law is a motherfucker, and true to form about half way through practice one of the boys sank a cleat right square dead center into my smashed up toe. The Lord was with me though, and I managed to not spray the field full of Christian school kids ankle deep in profanity. The toe has gone from really really bad to horribly worse. Instead of being 1/4 black, it is now 85% black. I get home and drain it again, but it keeps filling up as quick as I can drain it. MF.
I managed to make it through Tuesday, mostly by not wanting to put up with the BS at medical, knowing that Pensacola is going to have me on hold for half an hour just to tell me to go to the emergency room at a civilian hospital, and I don't know where my fucking Tri-Care card is. We also had 4 new deaths, and the shit has hit the fan at the office. By this morning, I had had enough. There is no doubt at this point that the nail is going to come off. The thing is starting to turn silly colors that crayloa will not put in a box because they don't want to scare the kids. I skip the front desk and head straight back to the HM2 that I think has the best chance to take pity on me. He does, mostly because I think he was bored and cutting off an officer's toenail would be the most exciting part of his day.
I have pretty well proven that I am not impervious to pain, but I have a history of being impervious to painkillers. Latocain for example, just doesn't work very well on me. Instead of the 4-5 cc's and 3 sticks that he thought it would take, I took 9 cc's and 5 sticks. The first one made me quickly realize that my previous description of the pain "It feels like someone is sticking a needle in my toe." was somewhat of an exaggeration. Now that someone was actually sticking a needle in my toe, it was much worse. FUCK ME that hurt. After getting it numbed up, the worst part was hearing the sound of as the HM2 cut my toenail up the middle with a pair of scissors. He then pulled the halves off with a pair of forceps, and we were done. Except for the bleeding. The source of most of my pain was a pea size clot that had formed from the initial smashing and was pushing the nail out of place. I had also broken the nail bed off. The doc said that he usually did a couple of those a week with his Marines in Iraq, and that none had come off so easily. I was so proud.
The good thing about latocian is that it numbs you up pretty good for the procedure. The bad thing is that it only lasts for about 45 minutes, and we are 20 into that. The pharmacy is conveniently located halfway across base in the NEX, and I am looking at a 10 minute wait there. I am also in uniform and there is no way that I am getting my shoe back on. So I suck it up and just hope that I don't bump into an admiral or anything in hobble in without my shoe and pick up my lortab. I can't take it though, because it is a narcotic and it is against the law (and dangerous as hell) to drive after taking it. I scurry home (20 minute drive) and by the time I get here my toe is respectfully requesting some narcotic pain relief. I oblige, and quickly affirm that the "do not drive while on this medication" is a shall, not a should, for damn good reason. 3 hour nap, here I come.
I feel better now. Rested. Medicated. On the mend after a few miserable days of constant pain in my foot. I learned several things.
1. Toe nail removal sucks, but it sucks more when you put it off for 3 days.
2. Navy medicine has some serious admin issues. I don't know who decided that branch medical clinics would do away with sick call and that their acute care patients will be required to call an automated help line at a hospital 300 miles away, but that person needs to be drug out into the street and shot. The official process required to see a doctor here in Millington is fucking retarded. With all of the national health care debates going on, the military system is often held up as a shining example of how great government health care can be. Up to this point, I would have agreed. The management of the clinic in Millington shows a perfect example of how the government can fuck up anything given the chance. I am sad and disappointed that the medical officers in charge of that place have created/allowed that situation to happen.
3. The people that we have working in our clinic are several orders of magnitude smarter than the people running it. To their great credit, they saw the stupid process for what it was and they took good care of me. The HM2 BAMF cussed like a sailor (I love that), cussed at the process (I joined him on that), and he was a total pro in explaining to me what he was going to do before he did it (I am a bit of a whiny bitch when it comes to people cutting off a body part).
4. If your toe ever looks like this, go see a doc.
