Ethan's Toe Part 1

I'll preface this with: If you can't watch the Lamisil commercial without changing the channel, the following may be harmful to your health...

A couple weekends ago, we were invited to a few parties for some kids at school. On Friday, I noticed Ethan's big toe on his left foot looked like it might be the onset of an ingrown toenail. To give you a little background, at the age of 1, Ethan dropped a sippy cup on his foot and it turned his toenail black and blue. It took one year to grow out, just in time for him to drop another cup on it at the age of 2. Yes, same foot. And yes, it just grew out. Fast forward to present day and this toe has been nothing but trouble for him.  I put some fungus cream on it, (because as Paul would say, we are the skin family, and have all sorts of topical ointments lying around) and then I pretty much didn't think anything of it. On Sunday we were getting ready to leave for our final party of the weekend, and he started complaining about his toe. I thought I might take him in, but on Sunday, it's pointless to even go near the clinic. So I gently applied more ointment and out the door we went...to a party...a bowling party...have I mentioned that Ethan had never been bowling? Paul was at work, so it was the three of us in a dark bowling alley, at dinner time, with about 30 kids running around. (Moms-you get the picture).

Ethan was determined to go bowling so I gave in and got him some shoes. He seemed fine and ran right over to the nearest lane and started "bowling".

At first his idea of bowling was grabbing any ball he could lift, from any rack, and throwing it down any lane. The older kids on the end lanes were very patient with him, bless their hearts. There were usually 2 balls on each lane at any given moment, one sitting stagnant in the gutter. He finally got the picture and started waiting for "his" ball to come back so he could roll it down "his" lane again. And then the inevitable happened. I could hear him crying, so I calmly walked over to see what was the matter (note that I didn't "rush over" since the world seems to end at least 5 times a day for Ethan). He tried to get the words out from behind the tears, but finally a mother told me that he dropped the ball on his toe. A 6.5 bowling ball, on his foot, WITHOUT shoes on. Yeah, I'm that mom. I had no idea he had taken them off, because, get this, his toe hurt. Well, now it hurt even more. I tried to call the game right then and slowly begin our exit, after all, this is the third time we'd seen all these kids and their parents in 3 days, we were spent. Ethan wasn't having it though. He insisted he'd keep his shoes on, and wanted to continue bowling. So he did. And he was doing pretty good there...and then he did it again. Same toe, now with shoes. I mean, really, what are the odds???  I looked at it again, and decided to pack up and get home.

The next morning I gave him a bath and it seemed a little swollen, but nothing too alarming. I had Paul look at it and he didn't really seem too concerned either. 1 week went by, I kept an eye on it and made sure it was clean. By this Sunday it looked really bad. I don't know what happened overnight, but skin had started peeling and the nail looked bent. Paul took him into ER and they said "they were doing a dr. changeover and it would be an hour wait, and really, there isn't anything they can do, and why did you bring him in, and your son doesn't appear to be in pain, and we are lazy." (hmm, can't remember if that last part was accurate or not...)

So here we are. 2 weeks with a "not-broken-but-pretty-bad-looking-partially-infected toenail" and the drs really don't care too much.  Paul said their words were, "Yeah, it'll probably fall off in a few weeks."

Awesome.